Ok, I confess, it is ME that's fascinated with black-balaclavaed anarchists

I want one to grab me on Yonge Street or wherever and he's got a bat and he smashes glass with one hand while squeezing my tit with the other. The sound of glass shattering and his tongue flicking out the round hole of his face. He wants to lick my ears and nose clean and I'll let him in the alley so the newscasters don't see.

I cannot wait.

I also cannot wait for anything ever. It's how I be. It's how I do.

I'm writing a collection of stories set in a near-future America after the shit's gone down. Yeah, I'm working on two projects right now - Homegirl! the novel and this collection. I'm a superfly multi-tasking member of the Internets; I've got the ADDs bad, which is why I can love you long time, but I just can't LOVE you long time. No lie. I can't stop now, these anarchists - they keep popping up in my stories, my fantasies, my dreams, on my eyelids even. They wave tiny bats at my forehead; I flick them off with my middle finger, but that just turns them on and they climb back on and try to smash my eyeballs. It's kind of Chien andalou minus the art minus the moustache minus the razor.

> kill author 's just accepted a story, "We were listening for the shattering," from the anarchist collection, which is like a poor shelter puppy you took home cos it was so cute but all it does is piss and cry cos you separated it from its sibs and you still haven't given it a name. Possible names/titles include: Black balaclavas, Black ballas, Shattering, After the shit's gone down, and the one I'm leaning towards - Everything's broken, but still I pretend. Here's the almost eponymous story (which I can't wait to be up at 52/250 this Friday, bowling night round the world, and which is on Fictionaut right now and which this lovely rocking writer faved and much big heart things to you, Felicia, & ain't I crazy with the links - it's almost like I just discovered a new toy or a new orifice).



I know everything’s broken, but still I pretend


We’d always hear them coming, sneezing and smashing. We’d hang old bottles we had no use for from the burnt up trees outside the gate. They couldn’t resist. We’d hear the glass breaking; we’d sound the alarm. We’d defend our town and what was ours.


We always won cos we outnumbered them; we always won cos we feared them. We had rules and we maintained them and everything was always right.


Neat and proper and we all knew our place.


Rumor was the balaclavas they wore were melted on their faces in some strange initiation. Rumor was most of them were allergic to the wool. Rumor was their only mission was to smash all the glass in the world. They sneezed and smashed and laughed like hell.


Rumor was what gave me something to look forward to, day in and out in our little settlement.


Sometimes, late at night, I’d rummage alone through the wasteland by the gate, shifting through what’d been left behind. Things we had no use for cos we didn’t understand any of it, what its use was or how it’d been made. I didn’t ask any questions of the huge mounds, though; I was always only looking for glass. I wanted to feel its smooth surface. I wanted to test its cohesion. I’d find once jagged pieces rubbed down by the years; I’d carry these pieces with me under my smock and remember the impulse to run.



The thread of the anarchists and the black balaclavas runs through us all.

Ry


P.S. The story was about you. There are many things I could never ever say and this is one. This is one of those big unsaid thingies that make my mouth dry and my eyelids twitch. This thingy's why there are huge gaps in our convos... This thingy's why I pause and the anarchists cheer and start glass smashing and tit squeezing and face orifice licking and those dumb ravers rave on. I don't know, tho, maybe you pause cos you're just stoned.