Special nods of notice go out to the following riders: TheCustodian, riding Dreams of Thunder, for earning the most C!'s; oakling, riding Swap Flipparoo, for earning the highest goodness; and Jet-Poop, for modestly resigning his horse (King of the Roxy) from the cup for what he perceived to be an unfair advantage.

Prosenoder's Cup 2007 was a complete and utter success, thanks to the 53 wonderful noders who competed. The stories were strange and wonderful, covering a wild spectrum of tales. I devoured every writeup submitted, and cannot thank all of you enough for participating in this shy little contest.

Addendums and quid pro quos: in the spirit of posterity, I'd like for all writeups to remain within this node. If you'd like to expand your submission, and let it run free in its own pasture, please feel free - just asking that you leave the original text (or at least a link) here so that people can see the work. Which was all brilliant :-). Thank you all again, see you for Prosenoder's Cup 2011!

Where will your horse take you?

The Race Begins!

Please see Raz de Equites: An E2 Proseproduction for background information. Writeups are limited by design to 300 words or less.

Please also do not dv writeups based solely on E2's word counter. Copy the writeup to a word processing program with word counter if you must, otherwise we're working off the honour system here.

Spectators travel in caravan; afoot by bike or borrowed car. The morning sun has burnt off the prior night's dew and warms the children, so early awake. Ribbons fly from fine hats, flags wave from eager arms, songs erupt from the crowd without warning or often reason.

Further along the road the riders are making their final preparations in the stadium's stables. Their horses well fed and saddled, themselves well rested and decorated; anticipation of the day's event swells. As the riders unlatch stalls to greet their horses the air turns a shade of innocence; if you combined the feeling of falling into a dream with the memory of your first snowfall you ever saw... you know the feeling.

The stands fill as the starter calls the riders into place at the line. There are capes and streamers and hurrahs drifting through the air like stardust.

Hope hangs in the air thickly, a ground level cumulus. Doubt evaporates with the last of the morning mist. The riders advance their steeds, ready to push themselves.

It is time.

Devil House

Sometimes she'd say, "I want to do this."
He would always say, "Maybe" – but he never took it seriously.
He would never help. The kids and his career always came first.

One day, after the kids had left home, she is gone.
He goes seeking her.
He looks and looks for weeks in vain.

A man comes to him, and says, "I represent Someone who knows where she is. Come meet Him."

He meets Someone in ill lit marble halls. Halls so dark, there may have been no light at all, in all the world; so dark there could have been no outside, no sun or moon or stars. But Someone has a light for Himself, like that of a white flame glimmering off a bent plate of steel. Someone is wearing black, and a wooden mask, and does not speak.

Someone takes this man to a theatre somewhere in the dark halls. Here there is a stage, framed with red velvet curtains.

She is on the stage.
Here, she lives every dream he wouldn't let her live in life.

Every private moment he stole without thought, she now enjoys.
Every solitary thought, she now gives voice.
Every word she ever swallowed, now she says.

Every secret, now she tells. Every grudge, she now utters. Every chance she ever gave up for him or for the kids, she now has back. Every man she ever wanted, now she takes; every lewd and unwifely act she'd ever fantasized, now she performs.

Every pretense now is gone.
Every truth about herself she now revises before his eyes.

And he watches, silent.

I sit at the back of the theatre, watching him watch.
Someone whispers to me in His hollow voice,
"He made her live in his house. Now he lives in mine."

Pure as Gold

They had tailed him for weeks. And now, on Bahnhofstrasse, the Zürich street of Swiss banks, secret numbered accounts and international criminals, he was at arms length of the law. The arm belonged to Europol agent Arvid Linder:

-- Quietly, please - you don't need a scandal any more than we do. Our car is on Bleicher Weg, just around the corner.

The white BMW then seemed to be heading toward Kloten airport, at leisurely legal speed.

-- This is an outrage - you'll never get me on a plane unseen! the prisoner exclaimed.

-- Don't worry, you won't be flying today, agent Linder replied. Actually, you won't be flying anywhere for quite a while. You'll be delivered to the authorities in 's-Gravenhage by car.

The detainee sighed, suddenly looking listless:

-- On what charges?

-- Your indictment will be presented formally when we arrive at court.

* * *

The dark man and the even darker woman took a break among the trees, just outside the ICC building in The Hague. The 'Coco Canaries', as Fox News contemptuosly called this political duo.

-- They really got him now, by his nonexistent balls, Colin remarked.

-- Yes, picking him up in Switzerland was cool. No NATO to aggravate, no EU to embarrass. And here they are throwing the book at him - crimes against humanity,torture, military aggression built on lies.

-- Of course, the fact that the present US administration didn't veto the Security Council indictment did it. Not to speak of our testimony - pure gold, Condi added.

-- Right, he'll probably say 'Et tu, Brute', about us.

-- He can't. Caesar never said that in Latin. He rose to the occasion and spoke in Greek: 'Kai su, teknon Vrute'.   Dubya can't.

"I want to see writing from at least five people in each of your systems! Is that clear?" Ms. Johnson looked
over the sea of students. "Twenty minutes, a five-paragraph essay about the role of individuals in
today's society. Go!"

Randy prepared to dash this out. All her teachers cared about with these big classes was participation anyway.
"These days," she scribbled, "so many people are multiple that the role of individuals is more like the role of crowds."

She tossed her pencil into her left hand and let it spew out sharp, slanted letters for a few sentences.
"This is supposed to be a good thing. People say that maybe it is Nature's way of starting to fix overpopulation.
Instead of 100 people in 100 bodies we can have 100 people in 2 bodies. The problem now is
there is not a role for the individual in society."

And a line of simple, childish printing: "People are so used to being multiple as being the default that they're
confused if you are only one person. Jobs and teachers think that you should have ten people's worth
of skills. One-person kids like my friend Sandy have to fake being different people all day long, even at home.

"Otherwise," the essay went on in a careful copperplate hand, "people think she is weird. They make
fun of her or they get embarrassed around her. It sucks." She sighed and got back to the point. "The role
of individuals in our society is just more complicated than it used to be."

If Ms. Johnson went by handwriting, it was only four people. How did they know? What had she skipped?
Maybe if she did really messy handwriting next, or wrote names.... Randy raised her pencil again, then, sadly,
crossed out "Sandy" and wrote "me."

Lawyer Ron

Lawyer Ron was happy. His huge toothy smile was on four billboards in town, one of which he drove directly underneath every day on his way to his new smoked glass offices. That same gleaming goofy grin was also on the back of every phone book in the county; a full page ad which proudly proclaimed, "Home and hospital visits at no charge," and "No fees unless we win your case. Lawyer Ron's Solemn Promise!"

Lawyer Ron had chased ambulances and schemed and lied his way into millions upon millions. His wife was sporting new and improved pointers while his two kids had bought all the private school friends they could stand.

Lawyer Ron had managed to do all of this without one whiff of remorse. He prided himself on lacking a conscience. He often thought to himself, "That's just a superstition, like Fate."

His new iPhone rang. It was the hospital, where everyone knew his name. "You better come down here, Lawyer Ron. Your son has been in an accident."

Lawyer Ron popped his Mercedes SL600 into second gear and made a u-turn, almost running a policeman off the road. The policeman waved "hello" as Lawyer Ron sped away.

"How bad is it, doc?"

"He's had a tree limb almost slice him in two. He may live, but he'll never walk or talk again."

"Who caused this? Someone is going to pay like no one has ever paid before!"

"It was your son's fault. He was drunk. He ran a school bus off the road and killed three fourth graders and severely injured twelve more. The kids were all from your gated community. One of the dead is the Attorney General's daughter."

It was going to be a bad quarter for Lawyer Ron.

Silent Name

His god was known by innumerable epithets, paired and paradoxical, spiralling around the unknowable core like the edges of a DNA strand. The High One and The Deep One, The Devourer and The Nurturer, The Mother and The Son, The Warrior and The Contemplative, Tireless Lover and Eternal Virgin, Trickster and Guardian. The words filled a library that no man could hope to read through in a single lifetime. The monks spent their days memorizing the titles that had been assigned to them, and they spent their nights chanting those titles in an ancient sequence.

But the personal name of God could only be spoken in this place, on this day, by this young priest who had been trained all his life for just this moment. He ascended the steps to the temple, remembering the long lessons that had consumed every waking instant of the previous decade. Each syllable of God's name had to be separated by at least an hour of conversation, including carefully-chosen blasphemies and obscenities to ward off the deadly holiness of the One True Name.

He arrived in front of the smoking altar, alone. He raised his arms, weighed down by heavy vestments, and began the incantation. The invocation took half an hour; the purification of his people took two; the litanies took nearly six. Hoarse from chanting and delirious from fasting, he continued with the ritual as the crowd waited in silence outside.

At last it was time. With difficulty, he formed his lips to pronounce the sacred word. But his voice was gone. He could not even croak. As he gasped and gasped, clutching the edges of the altar for support, he finally understood the lesson his masters could not teach him any other way.

Sun King

September air is fresh, full of water, and this path I'm walking ends at the lake where we've arranged to meet. Never still or glassy, as lakes are in stories, it is engaging in morning calisthenics, teasing the shoreline, stretching to wet the sky and collapsing back into itself.

Dawn is already waiting for me, asleep on the floating dock at the center of the lake. I almost can't see her through the dove grey curtain cast by the swirling mists.

I step into the lake and submerge gently, so my ripples spread too slowly to disturb her. Dawn, don't wake without me. The underwater green world embraces me icily and makes a home in every once-warm crevice. I surface only to gasp breath, then duck under the quiet, and push through the cold, letting the currents of convection paint every inch of skin.

When I reach the dock, I am goose-pimpled and red. Dawn is pale, almost blue in the protective shadow, with strawberry hair, just platinum at the tips. I climb onto the dock, shaking cold diamonds onto her skin. Her eyes, horizons, flutter open and suddenly the lake is looking right back into me. The heat of my kiss conjures peach to her cheeks. Her foliage, where I caress it, catches a glint of gold.

I brush her lips. With the chill of the lake still wrapped around my bones, the places where our skin meets are hot as a bed of coals. My hands stretch her hips. She opens as wide as the sky. My tongue laps hot at her hidden folds. When she is ready, on the edge of breaking, I rise.

As I slide myself into her, the bowl of the lake floods with color.

Dawn comes.

Siren Lure

The legendary mariner Odysseus had heard of their song—beautiful and deadly. He wanted to be tied to the mast, his crew's ears covered, that he might hear the Sirens' voices.

I think I know something of his torment.

How long have you been in my dreams?

I see you from afar—a name in phosphor or a long-distance voice. Sometimes together at conferences, but never close enough to touch.

The Sirens' sweet singing lured seamen to their doom.

I heard your song one evening, last year, in Lisbon. Sitting in the hotel bar, almost touching. We leaned toward one another, our lips close—our breath mingled. We turned away that time.

Last night, we did not turn away.

Our moments are pages from some vast photo album, savored later and forever.

A thick shaft of dusky light caressed you from behind as you knelt astride me—your hair was an angel's fiery halo. Our blood, older and wiser than we, sang harmonies from the primordial salt. A glow rose in your cheeks, spread across your lips, down your neck, and splashed across your breasts.

We entwined like serpents and no forbidden fruit was ever sweeter. Ecstasy attacked your body like asps, my queen-goddess gasping a half dozen incarnations in a single night.

After our sacred dance, I enfolded you in my arms and dreamt sweet dreams that could never come true—whispering them softly into your ears.

In the morning light you looked beautiful as you left to catch your plane. By tonight, thousands of miles will separate us. But our night in Milan, when I followed your song and was not lost, will be ours forever.

Argentina

Christine was the first one up as usual, sitting by the window in the big empty kitchen. She was frowning at her laptop, one hand sleepily stirring her maté.

"Satellite's on the fritz again."

I go to the window, press my nose against the cold glass. It was dawn. The pampas were grey and brown in the half-light, rays tracing the ridgeline, glinting off our big white dish. Christine slid a mug into my hand. Warm.

"I'll go check it out."

- - -

I slip my boots on, clomp towards the stables. The house was waking up around me, filling with yawns and groans, the faint hum of various devices booting, the almost-inaudible collective gasp of noders denied their morning fix. I grin, one hand on the doorknob, then shove out into the yard.

Here, the only sound is a restless wind stirring our pair of silk banderas, celeste y blanca, half-lost against the sky-- two bars of blue and a blazing sun, beneath it a single word, in Spanish: [ TODO ].

"EVERYTHING".

- - -

I reach the barn, grab a bag of fresh oats for Tina. Run a brush through her hair, coal-black flecked with silver. Remembering when she was born, the first foal on the ranch. ("What should we name her?" "Dunno. What's the Latin word for 'silver'?")

- - -

Halfway to the ridge, I wheel her around, watch the sun rise over our little estancia.

We never planned to come here to Patagonia. But after the '08 election, the droughts, the bombings... North America just kept getting worse and worse. Even Kansas became unbearable.

So we packed up the whole community, drove south, kept going. It was the right call. We prospered.

So. Here I am, 8 years later, south of Bariloche on a horse named "Argentina", and singing to myself.

King's Drama

Seated in the Grand Courtroom, the red and violet state flag hanging majestically behind him, Alexander XII leaned forward on his high judicial throne surveyed the scene. Down below him, separated from the crowds and lying prostrate on the floor were seven men. Each was once a powerful advisor and each was accused of treason. Treachery was to be expected, without due vigilance even the most noble of kings would fall victim to the ambitious plots of their underlings. Only a firm hand would keep them in line. Justice must be seen to be done.

The King rose and the busy courtroom fell into a hush. He gave a slight signal to the clerk of the court who began reading the charges. "Defendants against the crown, to the charges of high treason, conspiracy to commit violence against the body of the king, conspiracy to commit arson, conspiracy to commit murder, and conspiracy to offend the public order of the realm, how do you plead?"

The prostrate men were silent. After a long pause, Alexander took a single step forward and, stooping very slightly, asked in a soft voice "do you before me love your king?"

"Yes," came the quiet reply from the men.

"Then, as your beloved king we say that any of you who truly believes himself to be innocent of the vile crimes laid against them should stand, look us in our eyes and, with a noble spirit, declare his loyalty. That will be enough."

No man stood. No man faced him. The all continued lying silently on the floor, their eyes fixed on the flagstones of the courtroom.

The King gave a sad nod, "so be it," he said.

The death warrants, of course, were already signed.

Golden-eyed and lovely, he stretches in a shallow pool near the rocky shore. Damp, dark ringlets fall across his brow. This warmth has made him lazy. Softly, he sings a sailing chanty. He has known sailors. No bird-woman or fishtail to bewitch with songs, his notes do not hang in the air. But he is not without allure. He has known sailors. Many have done worse than run their ships aground for want of him. He is waiting.

Clouds cover the moon. In this sudden darkness the boy approaches, wide-eyed and barefoot. Dreams have led him here. Half-remembered glimpses of the sunken palace have brought him to the rocky shore and the Sea-King. The boy (he has lived nearly thirty years, but all men are boys to the sea-king) stumbles blindly. The sea-king opens his hand. A single moon-pearl glows with its precious light. There is a gasp at golden eyes, shimmering skin and unruly dark hair.

"I've had dreams of water..." the boy begins.

The Sea-King shakes his head.

"And you," the boy continues.

Again, the Sea-King shakes his head, and this time the visions come. The boy is aware of all that is being offered; the sunken palace and the melancholy gardens, honor as a sea-prince, centuries long life. But he hangs his head and simply says, "I cannot."

The boy's lips are coral-pink and tender and the Sea-King longs to kiss them, but monarchs do not beg. The boy turns and walks away from the shore. He does not look back.

The Sea-King shakes his head again. This was not the one. The Sea-King is patient. He can wait.

Clouds break. The moon hangs low and luminous, shining an argent path over the black waves, towards home.

A lifetime in a galaxy-spanning computer network provided no comparison for the detail Michael could perceive through the senses of his rental body. Striding forward into the noonday sun, he marveled at the feel of the ground under his feet and the taste of the moist spring air. His companion stepped forward out of the download chamber and touched him lightly on the shoulder.

"Ever been flesh before?"

"No, never."

"Me neither! Can't see how our parents could throw this away!"

"It's more... solid... than my friend said it was."

"He must have taken a crusted-over work body; these have been in storage since the original owners left them behind."

"I cannot see why they would leave this behind..."

He turned and kissed her. Newfound instincts flared and passion enveloped them. A simple wire provided all the intimacy of the mind they experienced while in the machine, but the heat of the physical drove it up to another level entirely.

Afterwards, they rested on the grassy hill, basking in afternoon sun and afterglow.

"I guess we should get on with our tour... there's a lot to see out here before evening."

"There's no rush, we have all the time in the world."

"What do you mean? They expect us to bring these back at the end of the day."

"So what if we didn't? Could you really go back to the machine when there's so much world right here, to touch?"

"I've heard of people leaving, just never thought I'd agree with them..."

"Do you see a village, over on that hill?"

"Yes, I do..."

"Let's see what it's like!"

They stood and left the crypt of abandoned bodies behind them forever, journeying to the village of the machine's children seeking a new life in this old world.

Cacique

He told me that he wasn't what you'd call a superstitious man, he just didn't see the harm in carrying it around with him. He did bring up a good point, it was one of the first fortune cookie fortunes that I'd seen in years that actually predicted some sort of happening. The writers of those things were getting lazy to be sure. Half of the "fortunes" these days were commands, and the other half were crappy inspiring clichés.

So, he had this little bit of paper in his wallet at all times, boastfully claiming: "This fortune will take you exactly where you want to go."

"...in bed."

We laughed for a second or two. That joke was old when I was twelve...

Unfortunately, this morning I got a call from his mother. Apparently the fortune slipped out of his wallet while he was at a coffee stand. Apparently he bent down to pick it up and the wind carried it off. Apparently still bent over he moved to pick it up. There were fucking witnesses to all of this. Anyway, like I said, he was half in the street by this time. Apparently he got hit in the head with a bus. Apparently he was on his was to see his shrink.

Jesus, I had no fucking idea that things were that bad...

Meditations

He was fucking hungover, he was. Simon lay inert on the broken futon, praying to God that his head would stop aching.

He opened his eyes—

—and found himself naked on the broken futon. Stuffing leaked out, but he thought it was his brains so he jumped up and cut himself on a broken highball.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT OW!

The room spun as he fell to the floor, bleeding. And his fingers found something metallic. It was an emblem, in gold, with a tiny mirror in the center — he was transfixed by his face in the mirror. It looked battered, but as if it were some trompe l'oeil the visage in the icy mirror waivered.

Simon fainted, like one would faint from lack of blood.

---

It awoke with a start. Smelled human. Prey.

Blind with rage it whirled like a furry cuisinart.

It sliced, it diced, it sought blood. There was the smell of blood, but no flesh. Meat!

It starved.

Wood and glass shattered beneath its razor claws. It howled -- Oh, how it howled! The neighbors prayed it was a cat in heat, or maybe a dog.

Flesh! The need was unbearable for it to hear the crunching of bones, to taste the sweet copper tang of hemoglobin, to smell the porcine rawness of human flesh.

But where! Here! No! Where?!

Nowhere.

Exhausted and unsatisfied, the ungodly animal found a soft place in the ground. The scent of blood grew old, and through some alien instinct it intimated that now was a good time to die.

---

It fell asleep. In its slumber, a roaming forepaw found some purchase: a cold, hard, smooth thing. But its dreaming mind sensed nothing.

He was fucking hungover.

Surf Cat

The cat sits next to the monitor glaring at him intently with distracting eyes.

"Goddamn cat," he grumbles under his breath. The cat had come along with his wife as sort of a package deal when they married. Its stare unnerved him.

He raises his hands to shoo the cat away but it was already jumping off the desk. He could now focus; blue light reflects off his glasses in the darkness and his lips involuntarily move. The cat meanders between wires beneath the desk. "That's impossible, John," he declares to himself as the cat nudges his ankles.

"Bast, Artemis, Freyja... fascinating." As if in response the cat begins to claw at his pant-cuff. "What the... Get the hell off!"

The cat scurries out of the study and John is left lamely still shaking his leg. Sighing, he thinks about contacting someone about his find when his wife saunters into the study followed by the cat.

"It's late dear, how's the research coming?" Miriam asks. She arches her feet and does a full-body stretch to accompany a yawn.

"In short? Amazing. This work I've been doing on the domestic cat is starting to bear some strange fruit. I could get the grant renewed for another 3 years with this! It's almost as if, I dunno, some driving or intelligent force... "

He trails off, missing the look Miriam shares with the cat.

The prick of the hypodermic needle in his neck precedes the last thing John ever feels; a massive and arresting pain in his chest. John's body crumples forward and slides to the floor. Miriam steps back and begins to stroke the cat, who is still staring at John's body.

"Time enough yet for secrets, my love." she coos, her eyes mirroring the glow in the cat's eyes.

Showing Up

Before the hammer swings, my life is stretched out before me like a piece of piano wire. To remind me why this is all necessary.

He is across the room right now, and he is making a show of pulling out instruments and turning on machines. Before the revolution, time seemed to be this endless thing that went on forever. Playing video games or watching television for hours. Staring at walls. Never doing anything worthwhile. Not going to school. Not showing up.

He is putting on a butcher's apron, to prevent splatter. After, there was no time, and we were always running. People were getting abducted, every day. They’d be found weeks later, unrecognizable. I knew it might happen to them. But now, it is happening to me.

He is whistling something, and letting his hand glide over his tools. We got desperate, and so did they. We started getting sloppy. I was walking to class, and I was so tired. I had been up all night playing revolutionary, and now I had to play student. When they grabbed me, I just couldn’t fight back. They came out of the thin blue sky.

He raises the hammer. They begged me to carry a cyanide pill. I told them no.

He swings, his face contorted in violence. For the time it is in the air, it is logical. I understand torture, mentally. I think I understand pain.

The hammer makes contact with my left arm. The line collapses into a single point.

Now.

Silver Cup

It was the most expensive and the cheapest 'leaving the company' gift I had ever received. Most expensive if you consider only the cost of the thing itself. Cheapest if you consider the timing - one week before my options vested... The kind of gift that punches you in the chest, breaks a few ribs and releases a metric fuckton of unwanted adrenaline.

"Thanks for all your friendship and support over the last 4 years, 11 months and 23 days. I've never worked in a place with such team spirit." Fuckers. I'd show them. Six months from now they'd all be calling me up looking for jobs.

I placed the cup in the box with my other belongings. That morning I'd printed out the entire OOXML doc spec on company stationery. I had to go find a bigger box. No-one asked me what was in it or offered to help me carry it, which was a blessing and a curse. When I got home I was gonna write the best OOXML compatible word processor in the world, then I was gonna release it for free on the internet, sit back and wait for my sweet revenge. They'd never know what hit them.

That was 14 months ago.

It's not the easiest doc spec to decipher... I started with text editing, printing, pagination, etc, and figured I'd work my way down from there. That plan sucked. Six months in I decided to change tack and reverse engineer the ODF translator which I'd stolen a prototype of before I left - another mistake. I rewrote three dlls and by the time I got smart-quotes working I realised I'd been hammering away at this bitch for a year. I still can't get fucking bold text to work properly.

Silver cup my arse.

"His bike actually weighs less than 1 kilogram. It's a dream going up the hill, but he'll be blown away going down it."
-Phil Liggett

Take D' Tour

To the horse-thief who took my steed and rode away:
With bolt cutters you were surely most deft.
Wrong way down Pike into Seattle's grey,
I watched you glom the prize of your theft.

Did greed (vice thought) decide your choice of mare?
I knew how this story would conclude:
no need for police as chase commissaire;
no need for tears, nor rage... just schadenfreude.

Tourists leapt as you parted the crosswalk,
You danced that cadence and trajectory.
But as the road ceased, you still rode à bloc,
only stopping by crashing a fish mongery...

To jockey my 'cross ride was your last mistake;
On single-speed fixies, riders cannot brake.

She sings with her eyes open. The steam in her dark shower, slowly replaces the aroma of morning eggs. She goes to work, a receptionist who never says hello, but works harder and faster than the seven figure robber barons. When her husband comes home, she devours him, and then rolls over without a word, he is confused but happy. She draws everyday, she doodles, she paints, and she traces the spoon in the soufflé, but only draws spirals, and never fills in the cracks. She slowly tries to unbind herself from her life, like a spider's prey, as the world shakes to an eight legged drum beat.

She didn't have the heart to tell her friends, so she told the operator it was inoperable.

Her trashcan fills with crumpled notes to starched acquaintances. She lives a minute less everyday. Each night she holds an epic gathering in her head, she dances, and drinks and laughs and shares stories with her happy memories, but she didn't want to see anyone. She finally finished a long letter to the director of a funeral home, she asked a single favor from the mortician.

When she coughed up blood she stopped eating, and drove herself to the hospital. When she couldn't see them, her friends gathered around her. When she couldn't hear them they were there with an endless string of words of encouragement. She told her husband one night where she wanted her funeral.

At the wake, some said, It took her too early, others, They found it too late. From the open end of that tapered box a beautiful woman stared with her eyes closed, but impossibly, she smiled.

Nobiz Like Showbiz

The two of us crept onto the back lot with a video camera at the start of the holiday weekend when we knew we wouldn't be interrupted. It isn't as hard as you would think - large sections of the lot have been abandoned but left standing as a testament to the golden age, and the remaining facades still had their occasional uses, though our particular uses fell a-ways outside the realm of good taste.

We walked past parked cars with white-wall tires and motionless barber poles and subway entrances that led nowhere until we found the quiet suburban street we were looking for. Everywhere we looked were familiar homes, their grey-and-green monochrome tint abandoned for the luxury of living in color.

Everything was covered in dust.

She pointed.

"Look. The Cleaver's lawn." She grinned.

I set up the tripod, and she slipped out of her skirt.