Stories on Roxana-Mălina Chirilă

The Fighter and the Blond [Story]

Sat, 15 Feb 2014 12:10:11 +0000

[Author’s Note: So, this isn’t a short story, not really. Short stories have points and they create a universe of their own and enchant you all by their lonesome. They’re enough in and of themselves. This is a scene. It has a mini-point.

It takes place in the ’90s in Kyoto. Sara is the same Sara from Flight from Hell, but at a low in her life when she really doesn’t like humanity as a whole. She isn’t a werewolf yet.

This has been written because I felt like it and I wanted to share something that will never go in the novel. I think it can be read as a stand-alone.

Hey, I come from the world of fanfiction. Throwing random prose at people is acceptable behavior.]

The building was eerily quiet, as if all its inhabitants had taken vows of silence. It suited Sara just fine. She felt like a shadow herself, a ghost haunting an elegant Kyoto penthouse. And why not? Surely heads of criminal organizations had beautiful homes that they eventually killed people in. She could be one of the murdered, eventually, if she played her cards wrong. Unless, of course, they were more clever than to kill her in elegant places where her death would draw a lot of attention. Sara was still a bit shaky on the details of such organizations. All of her information came from fiction, which was unreliable as a whole.

The thought of dying didn’t make her afraid, or even very anxious. In a way, it didn’t matter to her whether she lived or died, except in this case dying meant losing the game. She didn’t fancy losing.

„Can I get you anything, mistress?”

The man had been sitting humbly on a pillow for the better part of two hours. Sara was too apathetic at the moment to stir much, but she had to wonder how he wasn’t bored out of his mind yet.

„How about an answer?” she asked in return. „What could make a man sign his body and soul over to another man?”

„I’m afraid that…”

„Tea,” she cut him off. She’d already heard his polite excuses over and over. Damien didn’t want her to know what this man’s contract contained and her slave-servant-person wasn’t about to break his confidentiality clause. „And salmon,” she added. „If we still have salmon.”

The young man was alright, she supposed, but he was unexciting. Damien liked his servants biddable, which she appreciated in general, but now she would have liked to be around someone more exciting. In two days she would meet with some of the important Japanese families and she’d start having work to do. Until then, she needed to wait and waiting wasn’t her strongest point. She’d visited Kyoto, seen the people, been entertained by a geisha and done everything a tourist would do, and now she was out of ideas, as well as lethargic.

She thought it was easier to get bored around people than without them, since you couldn’t relax and do whatever you wanted to do in peace. This obedient Laurent was lovely as a slave and shit for company. Sara considered telling him to take the night off and rent a hotel room somewhere, so she’d be left all alone in the apartment.

„I think you ate all the salmon, mistress,” he said from the kitchen. „It’s remarkable, since we had enough for five people at least.”

There was something new in his voice. A light sarcasm. She turned around, suspicious. Had boredom broken down his walls? Was there something in him that was actually worth looking at?

„Then perhaps we still have tuna?”

„…some, I think, mistress.”

Obedient again. Sara wasn’t very happy. She wondered if people had been spreading half-lies about her again – the ones to the effect that she was a batshit crazy assassin.

„Actually, I believe the tuna is gone as well,” Laurent said, the light sarcasm back in his voice. „In a few weeks you’ll be the size of a…” He realized what he was saying, stopped, licked his lips and gave his best dumb smile. „The perfect size to… to be a…” He was obviously struggling to find some brilliant, complimentary way to finish the sentence. There was none, so he ended up saying, „…a really big leader.”

Sara stared at him, stone-faced. If she made the slightest move, she would burst out laughing. She hadn’t laughed in months, so she felt it would be inappropriate to do so now. Not a muscle on her face twitched. Unsurprisingly, he took it to mean she was angry.

„I’ll go buy salmon and tuna, I’m sure some place must still have them,” Laurent said cheerfully and tried to run out of the kitchen. Sara grabbed him by the hand.

She hadn’t meant to be threatening, but the moment he stopped and turned towards her, she realized she was being so. If they’d told him that she was a murderous psycho who was barely waiting for a provocation, his worried expression made a lot of sense.

„Forget that. I don’t want to be a really big leader just yet,” she told him. „Just get me tea.” She considered. „And rice balls. I didn’t eat all the rice balls as well, did I?”

„I don’t think so,” he answered. Sara almost saw him make up his mind about something. „I think it’s rather lucky that you were so fascinated with staring out the window that you forgot about them.”

His tone was tentative, trying to gauge her reaction to impertinence. The intention wasn’t disrespectful, so she let her lips curl up into a smile. He relaxed visibly. If he ever got any ideas about how far he could go, it wouldn’t be much of a problem to put him back in his place.

„Isn’t it?” she asked. „You can help put a dint in my abnormally large leadership by eating with me this time.”

Not much later, at the table, sitting on pillows, they talked over tea and rice balls. Sara reconsidered her evaluation of Laurent from the past few days.

„Did they tell you I was a psychopath?” she asked out of the blue.

„Yes,” he answered. „With an inclination towards violent rampages.”

Well. That explained a lot. „And they told you that I am often silent because I am psychotic, I presume. The quiet type who bursts out in murderous explosions of discontent.”

Laurent nodded and named a few names, explaining who had told him what. Sara resolved to knock their heads together when she met the bastards and scold them for putting the fear of dangerously crazy in those who worked closely with her.

„I am violent,” she told him. „But not randomly. Also, depressive, not psychotic. I suppose Damien wanted you to amuse me in some way while I was here, to lighten up the gloom.”

„I’m a sex slave,” he offered. „I think there’s a clue there. I’m not trying to say that you need to get laid, of course, but…”

Sara got laid a lot, actually, but it was none of this man’s business.

„Which reminds me of my question: why would someone sell themselves to somebody else, body and soul?”

„Not just anybody. I gave myself to Damien Kenden.”

Sara looked him up and down. „I think that was the gayest answer you could have given.”

Still, it was more of a clue about him than she’d had before. That he needed something, probably desperately so, was obvious. That it had to be Damien was a new development. She’d have to see what she could make of it later. Also, she’d need to talk to Kenden about asking people to sign sexual slavery contracts in return for his services. It was funny, but rather uncalled for.

„You have a filthy mouth,” Sara told him. „I’ll be making use of it.”

„Certainly.”

„I can’t read Japanese, but I know you can. You’ll be reading my correspondence for me tonight and teaching me how to write and read in the next few days, when we have time. I’m uninterested in sex right now and uninterested in you in general.”

„But interested in eating the entire kitchen.”

She decided she liked his teasing and speaking back. It was like having a friend, except not really.

The thought made her gloomy again. She would have liked to put daggers in some of her old friends and see them drowning when blood poured into their lungs. She would have liked to grin at them when she asked why they’d shunned her so easily, why they’d seen fit to humiliate her. Her vision darkened and her blood pressure spiked so much that she became dizzy.

She noticed Laurent looking at her with worry in his eyes. Smart boy, but he wasn’t the enemy. And she would never really harm her old friends, either, despite how much she wanted to.

„Mm. The novelty of raw fish will wear out in a few days, I am certain,” Sara told him, getting a grip on herself. „Well, since you are an outspoken individual with a real personality not resembling that of a doormat, I suppose I can make use of you in more ways than I initially expected. If I think that I can trust you, and if you are faithful to me, I will take you on as a confidante. Maybe even as a lover, who knows?”

Laurent’s lips quirked up. „My mistress has a sense of humor, as well.”

„I mostly like laughing at other people’s stupidity.”

„Alas, I am sorry that I can’t entertain you better in that case.”

She snorted, more from a desire to be amused and lighthearted than from an actual desire to laugh.

„Call me boss, or ‘my lady’. Either one will do. Stop it with the ‘mistress’, I am not your dominatrix.”

„Yes, boss.”

„If this is who you are, you are free to provoke those I come in contact with, unless I tell you otherwise. A bit of wit never hurt too many people.”

„Alright.”

There was something very honest in the way in which he agreed to do her bidding. At some level, he probably really was an obedient sort of person. Signing a contract for sexual slavery… She could easily blame Damien for that, but he didn’t draw up funny contracts lightly, and not one like this that she could remember. Perhaps the question wasn’t why a man could sell himself, but what sort of a person you had to be to sell yourself. Why would you want to belong completely to somebody else? If you weren’t a sexual pervert, that is, and Damien was uninterested in those.

The answer came to her: protection and a natural ease for following orders. Hullo, Laurent was in trouble. And if Damien was willing to take him on, more than that, if he’d given him to her, he had to be interesting in some way. Her fingers itched to go to the phone, pick up the receiver and call the London offices, hoping that Damien was there, and ask him what the blond slave was all about.

Sara decided not to. She was bored and finally there was a challenge before her. Hopefully, behind the smile and the wisecracking, there would be some sort of prize. Something that would cheer her up more than a new book or a new lover. Or a new failed attempt to find a friend.

„Also, you’ll be sleeping on the floor in front of my bedroom door tonight,” she told him.

„Are you kidding, boss?”

She was. „No, I am not. You get pillows and a blanket.”

„…Alright. I feel it is my duty to inform you that I talk in my sleep.”

Nice dodge, but she wouldn’t let him off so easily. „No problem. I listen in my sleep.”

„Then I’ll try to be quiet before I reveal my secret pasta recipe.”

Sara decided she liked him, as much as she could like anyone she’d just met. She could let the him cheer her up, or at least she could let him try. Especially by being sarcastic towards the annoying people she needed to be polite and nice towards.

Maybe she would call Damien, just to say thank you for giving Laurent to her as a gift.

Flight from Hell – the end of season 2

Sun, 05 Jan 2014 15:07:27 +0000

There’s still a bit to go before the last episodes of season 2 of Flight from Hell are available online, but I’ve already sent them out. (which reminds me, a new episode was posted today)

For the past few days I felt lost. I’ve written 2 seasons of Flight from Hell – 12 episodes each, so 24 in total. About 3000 words/episode, give or take. About 70-75 thousand words, I think. Unless my maths deceive me. And I know where the story is going and who the characters are, but there’s a point in anything I write when I wonder if the story isn’t, in fact, dull, crap, stupid, cliche or unreadable… or all of them together. That point, for Flight from Hell, is now.

Once upon a time, that feeling was absolutely correct. I wrote crap. That’s what teenagers and beginners do. It’s how you learn, by smearing the paper with what you think is brilliance and seeing later that you sound like a childish drama queen with a speech impediment and a slight IQ problem. These days the feeling is usually wrong (not always, but usually). As such, it’s something that I need to deal with. I need to push myself through doubt, through indecision, through the desire to flee and abandon the novel.

This is why last year I thought writing a serial novel is a brilliant idea: I’ve already made a contract to go on. As well as being a series of physical, on-paper contracts, writing for the Big World Network is a metaphorical contract with myself, a promise that no matter what, I’ll go through with it. Flight from Hell might not be the best thing I’ll ever write (I should hope not; it’d be disappointing to write my best work at 25). It might not even be as mind-blowing as I wanted it to be. But I’m hoping it’s good and I’m trying to make it so. You aren’t a real writer if you only ever write in your head. So eventually I had to take the big step and step on insecure ground, exposing myself to failure and criticism – but mostly, to being disappointed in myself.

This morning, feeling like I was about to curl up in a corner and hyperventilate because I was so afraid of screwing things up, I re-read a pep talk I got on NaNoWriMo a few years back. It was by Neil Gaiman, because of course it was. And it started like this:

Dear NaNoWriMo Author,

By now you’re probably ready to give up. You’re past that first fine furious rapture when every character and idea is new and entertaining. You’re not yet at the momentous downhill slide to the end, when words and images tumble out of your head sometimes faster than you can get them down on paper. You’re in the middle, a little past the half-way point. The glamour has faded, the magic has gone[…] You don’t know why you started your novel, you no longer remember why you imagined that anyone would want to read it, and you’re pretty sure that […] it falls so painfully short that you’re pretty sure that it would be a mercy simply to delete the whole thing.

So true.

It turns out many writers have doubts. Including Neil Gaiman. Including 75% of the writers his editor knows. I assume that out of the rest of the 25%, you have at least 5% who think that they’re the best thing since Shakespeare and that perfection flows from their pens like lava out of the Vesuvius, cca. 79 AD.

So I got myself an Irish Coffee, which is basically coffee with whiskey in it. I rarely indulge in alcohol, but it’s fucking brilliant with anxiety. The amount of alcohol in an Irish Coffee is usually perfect: enough to lower my inhibitions, but not enough to make me think I’m funny or brilliant when I’m blatantly not.

I wrote.

I now have 1129 words of the 25th episode of Flight from Hell. And I’m in love with it again. Not because alcohol makes any novel idea looks pretty, but because I loosened up enough to remember why I love writing it.

The only thing I hate is that I write from a single character’s point of view and it’s frustrating not to know how to reveal others’ POVs as well. I know them, I know what they’re thinking, and Nakir is a bit clueless. But it’s not an insurmountable problem.

Last time I finished a season, I wrote an article called „12 episodes, 12 quotes” to entice people to check it out. But fuck it. I didn’t feel like advertising this time around. I’d rather celebrate, because it’s a fun novel and when I sent that first episode to the Big World Network last year, I had no idea that it would actually be a novel, and one people like reading, at that.

Filmul cu ceainicul/The Teapot Movie [Ro + En]

Mon, 30 Dec 2013 18:18:18 +0000

Română:

Pentru că Eftimie mi-a zis că-i amintesc de Linda. Un filmuleț pe care l-am făcut pentru un curs din facultate (cursul de media predat de unul din profii de japoneză). N-are subtitrare încă, dar dacă-mi spune careva un program bun, sau dacă-mi aduc aminte ce foloseam eu, o să adaug.

English:

Because Eftimie said I remind him of Linda. A short film I made for one of my undergraduate classes (the media course taught by one of our Japanese teachers). It doesn’t have subtitles yet, but if anybody tells me a decent program, or if I can recall what I used, I’ll add subtitles.

Yet Another Christmas Carol [short story]

Tue, 24 Dec 2013 20:18:42 +0000

[Note: This is yet another short story I wrote a few years ago and never got around to editing. Well, ’tis the season to post it. Although I swear my style got better. Really. Eventually I also started editing. Like, really. I swear. *sigh*]

It was Christmas, celebrated all around Earth – and in Heaven, of course. As for elsewhere…

If you believe for a single second that the devils don’t celebrate Christmas, you are, well, right, actually. They keep very quiet about it. Not even a mouse would dare speak about it to the Almighty Fiend, Lucifer. The sole exception to this unspoken rule had happened a few years back on the occasion of a Satanically spiked MTV „Merry Christmas” video which had seemed like a good idea for a few hours. Until it became obvious that it had been a pointless endeavor – those who watched MTV regularly had been mostly unaffected, those who didn’t had had their opinions on the low quality of the station confirmed and, generally, it had been a fruitless fiasco.

You didn’t talk to Lucifer on Christmas. It was the same as going to him on Easter, patting him on the back and saying „There, there, mate. Anybody would have thought that killing Jesus was a good idea. I mean, the heroic self-sacrifice was just a fluke because God is a—nrghya” (Lucifer would never let you continue).

On this particular Eve, the devil was walking on Earth through a snowstorm he had just conjured around an airport. It cheered him up to see other people despair. However, his spirits were considerably dampened when saw a familiar figure come towards him. He was beautiful, this newcomer, so much so that those who saw him forgot their lives and left their bodies willingly behind. He would have been such a useful ally, but the bastard had stayed faithful.

„Malach HaMavet,” Lucifer said, the Hebrew words rolling off his tongue naturally, not a twitch of his eyebrow betraying any emotion. „The angel of death. What do you want?”

„Good evening, Lucifer, light-bringer. I have a shorter name. It is Azrael, as you well know.”

„We haven’t been on familiar terms since nearly the dawn of time.”

„Even so, we used to be friends. And as such, I am here to warn you.”

„Warn me? Of what? Is there any way in which I can possibly be on worse terms with the divinity? Are you launching an attack now, of all times?” A cold, biting wind that would have frozen the heart in the chest of men blew threateningly against the angel of death. Azrael did not budge.

„I am here to tell you that, should you not stop doing evil deeds, you will suffer the Wrath of Heaven mightily.”

Lucifer was not impressed. „Oh, really? As opposed to being invited over for the holidays, as I am now?”

Azrael shrugged. „Metatron is the usual envoy, but you and he were never close. So they sent me. I was told that my coming was more appropriate.” He cleared his throat and tried to do an impression of the angel who was the Voice of God. „Oh, cease the wrongdoing on the night of the Nativity, for much wail ’n woe will fall upon thou if thou shalt not.”

„More ‘wail ’n woe’ than being sentenced to eternal hell, Malach HaMavet?”

Azrael sighed, acknowledging defeat as a messenger. He usually only saw people once and he didn’t have to awe them. „The greatest minds in heaven drank too much punch tonight. This really is a warning. Stop doing evil things.”

„Fuck off, angel.”

Azrael shrugged and left. Lucifer made the snowstorm just a bit stronger before he realized that his heart wasn’t it in anymore and left to find something better to do.

Two hours later he was in Japan, enjoying the fact that the majority of the population had no clue what Christmas was supposed to be about and celebrated it by giving each other gifts. Lucifer had ensured beforehand that most people would received things they hadn’t wanted at all and now he was reaping the fruit of that endeavor. While smiling upon a young woman who had opened a box that contained a fetish nurse’s outfit only to burst into tears, he felt footsteps behind him and turned, his smile turning into a frown.

„Jibrail.”

„You stick to tradition, don’t you, Lucifer? People tend to call me Gabriel now.”

Modernized pronunciation? He wasn’t impressed. „Same difference. What do you want?”

„I… am the Ghost of Christmas Past,” Gabriel said solemnly. Lucifer studied him for a few seconds, trying to determine whether the angel was taking himself seriously. His only connection to the Nativity of Christ was…

„No, you’re not,” the devil said. „You’re the Ghost of Conceivity Past.”

Gabriel gave a little embarrassed cough. „It’s called ‘Annunciation’.”

„So I have heard.” Lucifer almost made a tasteless joke about what spirit had actually impregnated Mary, just to see how the angel would react to it, but then decided against it, seeing that Gabriel had decided to perform a miracle. The angel had waved his hand around and they were transported into the past, on the Eve of the actual birth of the Son of God. Lucifer sighed. Oooh, he could definitely see where this was going. He’d read his Dickens. And to think that all he’d wanted for Christmas was mayhem and to be left alone…

„Behold, oh, you, Archenemy of the World,” Gabriel said in his pleasant voice which grated on Lucifer’s nerves. „On this most holiest of nights the Messiah is born and He-”

„Is there a point to this, Jibrail?” The archangel paid him no heed.

„-through His sacrifice will purge the world of sin-”

„He didn’t do so well, actually. Sin still exists. I’m in charge of it.”

„-both the mortal world and the underworld now getting a chance at redemption. Be joyful, Lucifer, for He is your savior, too, and on this most holiest of nights, God is willing to grant you forgiving if you’d only repent and return!”

Lucifer made a gesture as if to take a cigarette out of a pack while he listened to Gabriel go on. He lit the non-existent cigarette with a non-existent lighter, inhaled air through rounded lips, then blew some very real cigarette smoke in Gabriel’s nose, making him cough and splutter.

„Bad bye, Jibrail. I’m out of here.”

„There’s worse to come, Lucifer! You cannot escape!”

„Fuck off, angel.”

Lucifer left.

Deciding that the only place where he could escape Heaven was probably in his tower in Hell, Lucifer resigned himself to reading bad poetry for the rest of the night. He hated Heaven. He really did. He’d have preferred to be out and about messing things up, but they were being difficult. Still, horrid poetry was a good past-time.

Between the Holy Christmas and the Evening Star,
I hopped with my family into a nice, red car.
And because my wife has no sense of direction,
I’ll guide myself by a solar erection.

Lucifer penned a praising letter to the author. It would convince the man that he was a genius and needed to be acknowledged as such. Sheer evilness. He loved himself.

Outside his tower, demons paused in whatever they were doing as a flying sleigh flew down from the general direction of the sky and rushed in the sound of bells towards the tower. With the insight only allowed to those under tyrannical rule since the dawn of time, they scattered in all directions, hiding in fear, leaving hell empty for once (except for the sinners, who found themselves not tortured for the first time they could remember).

In his inner sanctuary, the Archenemy looked up to find that he had a chimney. And through the chimney came a tall, thin man with a Byzantine hairstyle and a long, red coat, a huge sack on his back.

„You’ve got to be kidding,” Lucifer muttered. „Nikolaos of Myra.”

„They call me Santa now,” the man answered.

‘Not with that slim waist and haircut they don’t,’ Lucifer thought, but didn’t say it out loud. „Fancy to see that you really act as a gift-giver! But, say, why aren’t you actually delivering gifts to kids? It’s the night for it.”

„I deliver spiritual gifts, Lucifer, light-bringer.”

The Archenemy burst out laughing. „I’ll call you Santa, alright. The anagram suits you well. You’re evil. Poor children everywhere dream of food and hot chocolate and warm clothes and you give them the right to carol. Smooth, Heaven. Real smooth.”

Santa Claus didn’t answer that. Instead, he did what he had been sent to do. He waved his arms about and the air was purified, smelling of a Christmas Tree instead of fire and pain. Lucifer felt a pang of joy in his heart and heard the sound of the angels singing in heaven again. For a few seconds, he remembered his old life, as God’s favorite, walking through the world, shining stronger than any other being ever created. He remembered the glory and bliss and rightness of it all. With effort, he pushed it away.

„I hate you,” he declared.

„For this one night, Lucifer, if you should seek redemption, you shall find it. This is God’s gift to you on the occasion of His Son’s birthday.”

„I still hate you.”

„Good bye and a Merry Christmas to you! Ho, ho, ho!”

Santa Claus disappeared up the chimney, then the chimney disappeared, then Lucifer waved the fresh air away. If he was correct in his assumption, there was only one more person to face. Well, he wouldn’t make it easy for them, whoever they were.

It was an unusually cold day for Mars. Not that Lucifer cared much. The atmosphere wasn’t breathable, being composed of 95.32% carbon dioxide, but, again, Lucifer wasn’t paying enough attention to give a damn. He just wanted the bloody Christmas over with already.

He saw the third person coming. „You’ve got to be kidding,” he said.

„Happy holidays, Lucifer!”

„Jesus of Nazareth, am I sorry to have killed you.”

Jesus smiled blissfully at him. „That’s alright, dear one. It had its place in the great scheme of things.”

Lucifer lit a particularly noxious cigarette and kept it burning through sheer force of will, contributing his own share to the toxicity of the planet’s air. „Precisely.”

„Look around you, friend,” Jesus said. The devil wondered why heaven was always so buddy-buddy with everyone. He didn’t feel himself to be Jesus’s friend at all, except in the sense that everything he ever did was twisted so as to be for a divine purpose. But that’s heaven for you. „If you had your way, Earth would look like Mars. This is the future that you long for, that you strive for. Is this what you want?”

Lucifer looked around at the barren lands, the toxic atmosphere, the quiet of a complete lack of life. It was empty and unexciting, no fights were necessary over this piece of rock. He threw away his cigarette and lit himself another one. „Yes.”

„But this is death, empty, barren! It’s abandoned and no souls are to be had.”

„Good. That will stop my troupes from getting distracted while training for the next battle with yours.”

Jesus and Lucifer looked at each other for a long while. The devil challenged Jesus with everything he had to say something about Scrooge, redemption and so on and so forth. The Son of God accepted the challenge.

„I am the path – come and you shall be saved,” He said.

„Do you know that joke they have?” Lucifer said, conversationally. „About me and you as computer programmers?”

Jesus shook His head and smiled even more. He seemed to be radiating joy and happiness. The devil thought that nobody had a right to be as overinflated with cheer because it was their own birthday.

„We fight to be the first to create the best software ever. The battle is very tense, we’re neck to neck, doing our best to type faster and win. However, when we’re nearly done, the lights go out. When they’re back on, I start retyping everything, but you win two minutes afterwards. The moral?… ‘Jesus saves’.” The Messiah started chuckling with just a bit too much mirth for the humor of the joke, Lucifer felt. „Your obsessive-compulsive soul-gathering is the laughing stock of humanity. Jesus saves, indeed. You can’t get your eyes off of me. If only you could save the devil, eh?”

„The moral, Lucifer, dearest, is another one.”

„Eh?”

„That you are known to be a bit… sloppy. Not paying attention.”

„Whatever.”

„Come and I will save you,” Jesus intoned. It sounded like a song.

„What? That’s a half-assed attempt, Son of God. You could have done better. But the result would have been the same. See you never, hopefully.”

Jesus left. Lucifer blew out some more smoke, then realized the trial was over and he allowed himself to feel smug. The magic of Santa Claus, Jesus and Christmas, combined with that of „A Christmas Carol” hadn’t been enough to save him. Nothing ever would.

Lucifer went home on Christmas Day, feeling actually happy. Heaven had fucked off, the Nativity was over and things could go back to business as usual, more or less. Sure, there was still a bit of holiday to deal with, but that was going to end soon.

He opened the gates of Hell and found it… empty. The damned were peacefully comforting each other, out of their tar pits and torture devices. That was just wrong. Lucifer growled. Looking up into the world, he saw that his devils were not there, either. The world was uncommonly peaceful and safe.

He cursed and swore, pushed the damned back into their tar pits, screamed and raged for his subjects, but they had all been hiding ever since they had seen Saint Nicholas as Santa Claus descending in a flying sleigh. For a very good reason, it seemed to them as they felt Lucifer’s rage no matter how far they were. They disappeared even deeper into their nooks and crannies, or they tried to blend in even more when they were hiding in plain sight in all the corners of the world. They’d eventually have to go back to hell, but all of them thought it would be best if they were to be the last to slip in, unnoticed if possible.

Lucifer went to his tower, blowing smoke like a train engine and plopped into a chair, ready to plan something horrid when he saw the letter on his desk.

Dear friend,

Divine plans always succeed, regardless which possible outcome you choose. We appreciate your allowing the world to spend this holiest of nights in peace and happiness and thank you profoundly. The world appreciates this as a truly silent and holy night. What evil may have been caused was soon fixed by our people, whom you so graciously allowed to interfere.

Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year,
Yours,
Jesus Christ, John Milton, Douglas Adams, Gabriel, Azrael, Santa Claus, Mulla Nasrudin, Terry Pratchett &al.

A short explanation of the Romanian Santa invasion

Fri, 06 Dec 2013 21:39:44 +0000

So, here’s the deal. I know you English-speaking people around the globe sometimes refer to Santa Claus as ‘Nicholas’ (Saint Nicholas). But Romania, along with a few other countries, is special. We have an abundance of old men getting into our homes in various ways and leaving presents in various places (even if one of old men doesn’t show up anymore).

First, Saint Nicholas, better known here as Old Man Nicholas. He looks sort of like Santa Claus, I assume, although I’ve always pictured him a bit thinner, probably due to religious paintings. He comes on the night between the 5th and the 6th of December, traditionally bringing sweets to good children and rods (usually painted silver) to bad children. If you’re a normal kid, he tends to bring both. He leaves all presents in kids’ shoes.

Then there’s Santa himself. You know him, he shows up on Christmas Eve and leaves the presents for Christmas morning. We call him something like ‘Old Man Christmas’ – Moș Crăciun, where ‘moș’ means old man, and ‘Crăciun’ means Christmas.

And here’s where the third Santa shows up: Romania was a communist country for a few decades and one of the ideas the Communist Party had was to eliminate religion from people’s lives. So in order to replace Santa and St. Nicholas, they imported Ded Moroz from Russia. What did he look like? Kind of like Santa. What did he do? Deliver presents, obviously. His name was translated literally into Moș Gerilă (Old Man Frost) and he showed up on New Year’s Eve. But, after ‘89 and the fall of communism, Old Man Frost vanished and Old Man Christmas and Old Man Nicholas returned.

So yes, we do have an invasion of old men dressed in red who come bearing gifts (one of whom is now obsolete). And they’re probably all just Odin in disguise.

Working with the Big World Network

Sun, 24 Nov 2013 09:20:34 +0000

Flight from Hell is well into its second season by now – the fourth episode is out today and episodes 5, 6 and 7 are ready for when their time will come. 8 has been written, 9 is being written.

And the one thing I keep saying this morning is that I have awesome publishers.

First of all, the reason why I decided to get a novel published with them is that I absolutely loved the concept. I come from the wonderful world of fanfiction, where you wait for a new episode and you text your friends things like „Holy fucking shit! Beside You in Time was just updated :-O It’s alive!” Or you run around and tell people in Canada that silverkytten updated, or that Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality just got a new episode.

Literature can be a domain where you eagerly wait for more, where you can get involved, speculate, hope for more. We’ve kind of lost that in the mainstream when serial novels stopped being published – but fanfiction, where the chapter is the default posting unit, brought the excitement back. The only problem being that many, many series lie abandoned, maybe never to be finished (such as some of my own, actually… hiatuses just keep growing)

The Big World Network publishes one chapter/episode per week, though, so you’re ensured against heartbreak of looking at series that will never be finished. And I love that. It’s brilliant.

And of course, they publish audio episodes as well. Which is lovely, I adore audiobooks.

But. Part 2 of the story of my love for the Big World Network is the unseen one: what happens behind the scenes. After all, sometimes the books that are published can be lovely and so can the concept, but when you end up working with the people who make the magic happen, you can feel like crap (I’ve been in that situation before).

The truth is: I absolutely love the BWN team from this point of view. I’ve been working with them for some months now and they are awesome.

Here, let me bullet point the neat stuff you don’t see from the outside:

They’re great with planning. They take their time to come up with solutions, set deadlines which allow for unforeseen delays and think things through before they act. They know the extent of their abilities, and they know what to expect of the average author. In other words, they don’t rely on optimism and improvisation to get things done – which is a nice change from some of the artistic teams I’ve been in. „Better early than on time” is a decent standard to function by, no? And you always have time to notice whether anything needs more work that way.
They’re transparent about what they do. We get team updates regularly, in which we find out what the Big World Network is planning: site changes, convention participation, events, plans for certain events, what is going on with other parts of the Big World Network. Technically, I don’t need to know some of that (e.g. changes in the way the site looks like), but it does make me feel like I’m welcomed into their home. Which is great. I get to know who I work for and what they do.
They listen. I’m a nitpicking sort of person, and a lot of people grumbled over how evil and criticizing I am (I don’t mean it in a bad way, though). But the BWN guys don’t grumble. They check, explain, fix, improve. Is there a typo anywhere on the site? It will be fixed. A broken link, an audio glitch, anything that falls under the category of „you missed a spot”? That spot will be checked ASAP. And I’ll get replies to things like „Have you tried selling your books with X, Y or Z?”
They also dialogue. Let’s hit the full spectrum of communication here: I can discuss the merits/downfalls of an idea concerning either the novel or the site with them and some solution/compromise will be reached. And they’re polite, nice and assume you’re (trying to be) the same as well (which really helps people like myself, who can put their foot in their mouth regularly).
They try new things: today they’re at a convention, tomorrow they’re finding people on the net who will promote them, yesterday they talked to some people about promoting your work for some time to come, at some point they will do something promotional and neat God knows where.
I should’ve mentioned this above, but it’s obvious from the way the site looks: they’re very skilled at what they do. Novel covers look great – and they look different. My banner is very different from Thralldom’s banner, which in its turn is very different from the banner for Billie vs the Unseen. Perhaps some are less impressive than others, but you can see a personality in them, professionalism. The same goes for editing: Amanda and Wendy (yes, I have two editors) find typos and problems easily, fix my convoluted sentences, tell me when something is wrong and, all in all, save my ass every once in awhile. And, of course, everything runs smoother than smooth on their side.

They make you feel like you’re part of the team and, overall, they make my life a bit more cheerful than I’d expected it to be. Which is why I’m writing this post.

And it isn’t just me saying it, either.

Flight from Hell – 12 episodes, 12 quotes

Wed, 09 Oct 2013 11:13:40 +0000

All of Season 1 of Flight from Hell has been written, edited, fixed and recorded and is steadily going online every Sunday on the Big World Network. Two episodes to go!

So. Flight from Hell is a supernatural/horror series set in Hell (hence the title). The reason is probably the sex – or the mindfuck.

Quotes:

Episode 1 -- „A dying angel, a strange magician human woman, and a carnivorous horse met in sex-Hell. If it was the beginning of a joke, Nakir couldn't wait to hear the punch line.”

Episode 2 -- „Sara was now as tall as a house, her eyes gold, her bared fangs shining in the light as if she were Hell itself. But if Nakir remembered them right, Madness and Ferocity had had a hundred times her strength and ferociousness. Still, not bad. Not bad. He could foresee not dying quite as fast now.”

Episode 3 -- „After the preliminaries of the conversation, Ashmedai was a trip down the rabbit hole. Probably the drug-induced kind of rabbit hole, but still. [..] The way he was still touching the maid-clad woman was both disturbing and as eye-catching as erotica written on dirty sheets by a naked writer with a cigarette between his lips and three-dollar whores serving as muses.”

Episode 4 -- „“Did the devils make this?” Sara asked. She had barely spoken since they'd come to the road. “It doesn't seem particularly Hellish.”

“I don't know. Legends say there was something in Hell before the Fall. They might have just discovered this. Or it might have built itself.”

Sara laughed. The sound echoed around them eerily and loudly, which probably displeased her because she stopped abruptly. “Roads with walls and towers don't build themselves, you know.”

“Here they do.”

Episode 5 -- „“I hate this place,” Sara mumbled. “Deeply. Profoundly. From the bottom of my bloody soul. I loathe it and despise it. I want to tear it into little pieces and throw them into a fire and feed the ashes to elephants. Then I want to kill the elephants and bomb their carcasses, then send their remains to the bottom of the ocean.”

Episode 6 -- „“What do you think he's doing inside?” Nakir asked.

“Abusing hair gel, inflating sex dolls, corrupting the innocent, waiting to see how long it will take us to realize we've been locked on the balcony. Do you really want my theories?””

Episode 7 -- „Heaven was cruel. It was something humans had never been told because they didn't need to know. Its particular branch of painful coldness never touched them directly.”

Episode 8 -- „“I loathe myself, and sing myself, and what I endure you shall endure,” she said. “Or how did it go?”

She'd gotten things wrong, as usual. She'd twisted them into something bad, cynical, filled with anger and hatred.”

Episode 9 -- „He placed his lips against Nakir's ear and whispered, “I want to fuck you into the wall, I want to have you struggling against me while you pant in pleasure, I want you to curse me the whole way and give me that disapproving, spiteful look when your hips buck against me. But until then, angel, I'll have to let you go.””

Episode 10 -- „“There's a dead human in my bed,” the pretty succubus who'd screamed announced to every single person inside in a high-pitched, hysterical tone. “She's awful. Oh, take it away, take it away!”

Episode 11 -- „Nakir would kill him. They both knew it. Any second now, the angel would end the priest's chants and there would be no more Gilbert.”

Episode 12 -- „Nakir opened his eyes and saw a tall ceiling decorated with wooden patterns. He wasn't in his own bed. He wasn't clothed. He wasn't alone. His lips were parched and tasted of blood.”

Amnesia

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 13:10:05 +0000

Amnesia is a scary game
Amnesia is a fright
I love to play, so it’s a shame
It kills my sleep at night.

Insomniac, I walk around
A glass of drink to find
When in the dark I hear a sound–
Steve might be right behind!

I dart around, a crazy girl
In an old, friendly house
I find a box, in it I curl
More quiet than a mouse.

When dawn is nigh, I crawl outside
And glance around in fear
The laptop then I open wide–
The time to play is here.

Discussions on literature (consider us drunk)

Sat, 24 Aug 2013 19:07:49 +0000

Linda’s come over, all the way from the other side of the country. Which is really cool. And conversations are getting really weird. We were talking Flight from Hell and we got to incubi and succubi.

Linda: Do you remember how incubi and succubi used to be so rare in fiction? And now they’re all over the place.

Me: I swear to God I didn’t know Amanda had a series called Incubus before submitting to the Big World Network.

Linda: Speaking of Incubus. *fangirls* I really, really like it. It’s fun!!! But no, I mean, all over the place. Everywhere.

Me: Remember where vampires were a metaphor for sex?

Linda: Yeah.

Me: So we just decided to drop the metaphor part.

Linda: Remember that English lit class?!

Me: YES!!!! O_O

*flashback*

15-20 students are sitting around a table during a literature seminar.

Professor: So, how would you like to die? [note: In her defense, we were talking about Emily Dickinson]

Student: By incubus.

Class: *stupefied silence*

Linda: Do you know what an incubus is?!?!?!?!

Student: Yes. *confused*

Class: O_O *more stupefied silence*

Professor: *starts snickering*

Student: I want to die peacefully in my sleep.

Professor: *barely stops from laughing out loud*

Linda: *dramatically* But they suck your soul and drag you to hell!

[…]

Me: But do you remember that class in which a professor asked what the fuss about vampires was?

Linda: *falls over laughing*

*flashback*

Professor: What’s the fuss about vampires?

Student: [something-something metaphors, literature, symbolism]

Professor: No, I still don’t get it.

Annoyed student: They’re hot, sexy hunks used as sex metaphors!

Professor: Ooooooooooooh. I understand now! *gets wistful look*

[…]

Me: *checks her blog stats* OMG, somebody came from Google Plus! That place is alive!!!!!!!!1 This is the first time this happens. I should write a special ’thank you for sharing my post, single G+ actual user out there!'

[…]

Me: I never meant to put any actual gay stuff in Flight from Hell. Aside from Ashmedai-the-pansexual-devil being a threat in the background. I thought I could just skirt the issue constantly and have Nakir escape him over and over. Then I realized, Ashmedai would go for him in immoral, creepy ways. He totally would.

Linda: *does that dreamy thing fangirls do*

Me: And Nakir’s weak and confused and trying to play reverse psychology at one point and Ashmedai, well… „Lead us not into temptation, because we’ve already been there and proved we were abysmally bad at it.” [note: I have a thing for that ’lead us not into temptation’ saying recently]

Linda: *wiggles her eyebrows*

Me: Not that anything actually happens, mind you. Not really. Not beyond this one thing, this short, clothes-on thing which ends fast and makes the threat and Nakir’s confusion so much worse.

Linda: *does a sad face* I would love to see them together. Maybe all three of them. That would be fun.

Me: Bad idea in the text.

Linda: *puppy eyes* How about in the Alternate Universe Christmas Special?

Me: There is no Alternate Universe Christmas Special.

Linda: There could be. Hey, I knew this author who wrote fanfic of her own stories, ever thought of doing the same?

*conversation dives straight into the gutter*

[…]

Me: So sometimes, I look at the editors’ comments, and they’re, like, so confused, you know? Trying to solve that old question, which for once makes perfect sense: what did the author mean to say over here?

Linda: I only ever get giggles in the margins.

Me: I get confusion. What did the author mean?… And then the author shows up and says, no, no, no, wait! That’s not what I meant! Oh, crap. Let me change it. In chapter two, I had the devil say that thing, you know? *quotes from memory* „For that I, and not your husband, must be their father.” Except the first time I said it like crap and it was confusing. So when the editor modified it for clarity, there was this confused scene between the queen and the devil. He was like, „I won’t be your husband.” And she went, „Good, I’ve already got one of those.” And I went, „ooooh, wait, he was actually saying ‘I’ll be knocking you up myself’. Which is a bit different.”

[…]

Linda: I never thought I’d say this, but I am so happy to get rid of the romance subplot with my story. It didn’t work. At all. So right now I’ve taken the romance down and I’m adding a lot more crazy.

Me: Like?

Linda: Well, there’s a whole new plot with the Physics Department. Some klutzy students did some experiments and that’s why it’s… missing. Carmen goes off to search for the missing South Wing.

Me: You have a vanishing university.

Linda: Pretty much. Oh, and I have to figure out how to put in the vampire bounty hunter. Because I said there would be one – and there will be, dammit.

AU Bleach via hijacked subtitles

Wed, 14 Aug 2013 21:03:10 +0000

Many years ago, I ran into this fan-subtitled version of the Bleach anime. The subs were good – until the second half of episode 41, where they were hijacked by someone out to troll, who replaced perfectly good lines with gangsta „You owe me money, bitch!” and sex-related themes.

In other words, this nice, clean anime about loyalty and friendship and fighting for what’s right turned into its complete opposite under my terrified eyes, thanks to the insane ideas of whoever was in charge of the subtitles. Poof! There goes your innocence.

I don’t know who the people/person who did this were/was, but I would like to thank them from the bottom of my heart. That version of the second half of episode 41 is one of my favorite things ever. The subs just work with the images perfectly – and this was long before Hitler was taken over by Youtube and turned into a meme. And, by the way, Hitler was easier to do, because it mostly just him talking. Here we have a number of characters, with emotions going everywhere, a flashback and so on and so forth – and yet the crazy subtitle person went ahead and created a perfectly coherent if extremely deranged plot.

Whenever I’m in the mood for complete crack, I play it to see the improbable ’everybody owes Ichigo money’ plot, combined with the way more improbable secondary plot of Byakuya being an abusive, perverted, gay (or bi and incestuous?… hard to tell) weirdo.

There’s a few brilliant lines in there. By the way, the first time I watched it, it was probably the following line which tipped me off that the subs were fake.

So, the deranged, gay, money-owing plot goes like this: Byakuya (pictured above) has a bit of a fight with Ganju over money and sex – which is when Byakuya says that line above. Ganju is defeated and ends up in a pool of blood. Byakuya is about to keep attacking, but white-haired Ukitake shows up to complain about being cheated on – and about their relationship in general:

And to drop a bomb on Byakuya (related to, say, the actual plot of Bleach XD):

Then Ichigo shows up on the scene. And he apparently came for a very important reason: to get his money back from Hanataro!

But Hanataro doesn’t have it, so Ichigo turns to Rukia, who has a sudden flashback of the event – we find out she owes Ichigo a lot of money. Like, 50 yen (that’s about half a dollar). Unfortunately, she can’t pay him back.

We switch back to the present, where Ichigo finally notices Ganju lying around looking dead. And he remembers that „that dead guy” owed him money as well. What to do, what to do?… He tells Rukia she’ll pay with her debt with her body. She complains a bit, then says yes. Ichigo is pleased, of course.

But, oh no! Byakuya thinks he also has rights to Rukia. He argues with Ichigo and it gets to drawn swords. Perverted Byakuya takes his out and wants to play this game called „drop your and pants”. He explains it to Ichigo:

Ichigo, as you can see from his expression, isn’t very happy about it. The tension builds and builds – and it turns out that Byakuya owed money to Ichigo, too, because he borrowed money from Rukia!

Luckily, just about the time disaster is about to happen and the perverted, creepy Byakuya is about to fight hard and good with the money-lending pimp-ish Ichigo, Yoruichi shows up to stop the fight with a devastating revelation: Byakuya owes her money.

…to be continued!!!

Seriously, this is some of the most hilarious crack ever. It’s amazing what you can do with the wrong set of subtitles. It’s brilliant without knowing the show and it’s even more brilliant when knowing the show and knowing that Byakuya is probably the most law-abiding, rule-following, elegant and proper person. And the ‘you owe me, bitch, I’ll kill you’ Ichigo is in perfect contrast with his real ‘I will protect you and save you’ anime hero self.

Although I do believe the real Yoruichi would be thrilled to say the „you owe me, too” line.

So, thank you to whoever created this absolutely vulgar, deranged, gangster parody of Bleach. It is in horrible taste and it’s bloody amazing. You are part of the reason why I know how to create subtitles in the first place. And you’ve cheered many an evening for both me and my friends.

Flight from Hell – episode 2

Sun, 11 Aug 2013 18:09:10 +0000

A reminder that the new episode is out and that it’s free to read and free to listen to.

Quote:

[H]e leaned his sword against the warm, reddish stone and it occurred to him that the image created was beautiful in a simple, elegant way. When his sword would drop and his blood would seep into the reddish ground, that would be beautiful, too.

Read it here.

Flight from Hell – episode 1

Sun, 04 Aug 2013 13:46:13 +0000

The first episode of „Flight from Hell” is out!

A dying angel, a strange magician human woman, and a carnivorous horse met in sex-Hell. If this was the beginning of a joke, Nakir couldn't wait to hear the punchline.

Check it out on the Big World Network website!

New episode every Sunday, first three episodes free – look for Roxana Kiril 😉

Audio version also available (read by yours truly)

(genre: Horror/Supernatural; rating: 18+)

Presenting: Flight from Hell by Roxana Kiril (coming next week)

Fri, 26 Jul 2013 19:44:37 +0000

My novel is nearly here. Just a bit over a week and, on August 4th, the first chapter/episode will be launched on the Big World Network.

Until then, I’ll be procrastinating with you and sharing little tidbits. Let’s see… where to start, what to say…

About 9 years ago I realized being a writer was an option.

Picture it: somewhere in Transylvania, there is a village. It has a castle (a very tiny castle) and the castle has a domain. It isn’t much of a domain, but there’s a forest that’s been tamed into a park (or a park that went wild and became a forest). And there’s a lake. It’s a small lake, but everything else is tiny, so why not. And on the lake, there is a very small island. And on the island there’s a table with two benches, all covered by a roof. They’re painted in yellow. Around the table there’s around 10 people. They’re writers.

Wellll, the ‘writers’ claim is dubious. I think one or two actually wrote on a regular basis. I certainly did not. But for all intents and purposes, on that occasion they were writers. Because it was a writing workshop and the people who attend those and scribble are writers, no?

So the workshop coordinator asked me: „What sort of stories do you want to write?”

I said, „Children’s books.”

Give me some slack. I was 16. No, I didn’t want to write for a younger audience. I just wasn’t aware that ‘fantasy’ was its own genre. I knew, what?… The Chronicles of Narnia, Mary Poppins, Peter Pan, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Alice in Wonderland. I wasn’t aware you could write this sort of stuff for, you know, adults. For all of its reputation with vampires and werewolves, Transylvania wasn’t really brimming over with knowledge of this sort of literature. (and I don’t remember if I had even heard of the mysterious ‘anime’ and ‘manga’)

Fast-forward nine years. I’m still writing what I thought back then that I’d be writing, except now I know what it’s called. It’s called fantasy. Except, when I wasn’t paying attention, they went ahead and made up this new category they called ‘supernatural’, so yeah…

Flight from Hell is (apparently) a supernatural story. It’s got an angel. It’s got devils. It’s got Hell and a werewolf and incubi and succubi. And that little ‘18’ in the corner stands for ‘You have to be 18 to read this’. So much for children’s books.

The main characters are Nakir (an angel I stole from the Muslim tradition) and Sara (woman of infamous kick-ass-ery). At the beginning of episode 1 they’re standing in the Hell of succubi and incubi, led by the devil Ashmedai. Nakir, the angel questioning the faith of the dead in their graves, questioned his own role and the justice of God. He never found his way back up to Heaven. And Sara… she tried to bring someone back from the dead. Needless to say, she failed and suffered the consequences.

I enjoy writing every second of it, from the action scenes to the disturbing imagery. But I won’t spoil that.

Just a teaser of what the novel feels like. If both Nakir and Sara had songs that represented them, they’d be something like this:

Sara’s would be „Our Solemn Hour” by Within Temptation:

Because she thinks of herself as larger than life, strong, exploding with energy and fighting spirit. And there must be a woman doing amazing things with her voice in there. She has something about her that’s questioning, confrontational, rebelling – and screaming in Latin and English while comparing herself with Winston Churchill in stressful situations is not entirely out of the question. Definitely prone to thinking of herself in mythic terms.

Lyrics best fitting her:

Is the heart of stone, no empathy inside?
[…]
If we can’t restrain the beast which dwells inside
it will find it’s way somehow, somewhere in time
Will we remember all of the suffering
Cause if we fail it will be in vain

On the other hand, Nakir:

Entirely different sort of beast. Mellow, confused, tired, wary. Uncertain of anything, not much into struggling with fate. Asking himself questions, but finding no answers. And if he dies, well, he’s going to die wishing he didn’t die. He likes thinking the universe has some sort of harmony and order – even if he resents being kicked out of that order.

He carries burdens and fears – and the deep, deep thought that he deserves it all. Even if he doesn’t want it. Closer to resignation than desire to escape.

Lyrics for him:

Been a long road to follow,
Been there and gone tomorrow,
[…]
Is somebody there beyond these heavy aching feet?
Still the road keeps on telling me to go on…

Something is pulling me
I feel the gravity of it all

Both neat songs, but they don’t fit. And that’s why this story might be supernatural, and apparently it’s horror, but nobody ever suggested it should also be romance.

Steampunk apocalyptic dreams

Sat, 13 Jul 2013 08:41:19 +0000

I had this crazy, complicated dream last night. Of which I can barely remember anything, which is a problem since I can remember the plot was awesome and the settings were so perfect they could make Hollywood cry.

I’m talking about huge buildings with their walls crumbling off and their metal structures rusting in the sun. About vines taking over depopulated neighborhoods, growing impossibly green against reddish rubble, against metallic glints of bared pillars. I’m talking about clouds that throw the sky into amazing patterns of darkness and light, of shadows and sunbeams. I’m talking about factories spreading their industrial smoke over buildings and about clockwork that solves technical problems, though I couldn’t tell you how.

My apocalyptic-looking dreams take place in Bucharest, for a reason I’ve yet to determine. In a past dream, the building belonging to the University of Architecture had moved across the boulevard and had taken over a nearly empty factory – yet again with its metal side showing – which lacked windows, but did not lack the stray student spending time there overnight, working on plans in a large, echoing space with rubble in the corners.

This dream took me to the Obor Market, which I’ve visited three or four times at most in my life. Full of people, with little gypsy children playing on mounds of rubble, while merchants and buyers went their usual ways. I can’t remember what I needed, or if I needed anything at all. The city stretched on in all directions, seemingly endless. I didn’t know what came after it, but knew I was heading there, for some important reason. It had been a complicated way there and I could sense a number of things that were going to come to a close before I reached the end.

Writing on the novel (vs writing on TV scripts)

Fri, 21 Jun 2013 14:21:22 +0000

I’m under the weather again today. Somewhat dizzy, somewhat nauseous. It’s either some sort of flu, or the meditations of my ’enemies’ are actually working for once (yes, I live in a context in which people meditating for my downfall is not entirely out of the question, even if I think it highly unlikely – I’m not important enough).

I would go to the gym, but I’m already working out with the lightest weights in existence and there’s nowhere to downgrade to. I’m also quite certain that the people owning the gym would be less than happy about my fainting there.

So I’m working on „Flight from Hell”. Chapter 3. Technically, I need to send it in by July 15th or so (unless I calculated the date wrong). But I prefer having things done a bit earlier.

Once upon a time I worked on TV scripts. I had a ‘reality’ show on my hands and I was supposed to provide a 40-page script on a weekly basis. It was hell on earth and it was probably the worst work I’ve ever done or will ever do in my life. Like, seriously. I’ve come a long way as a writer since then and even now I wouldn’t be able to write 40 pages of quality TV show script from Thursday to Sunday (especially not with the conflicting demands from the other scriptwriter, my supervisor, the director and the bosses). Not sure what I’d do today. Probably kick some ass, demand that they tell me what they want me to write on Monday, so I’d have a full week and tell some people to shut up and let me do my stuff. But then again, I’m much more self-confident now…

Maybe I could write a romance novel about it (romance so it’d be lighthearted). It would work.

Anyways, the Big World Network (whom I’m writing for) are sort of like television in concept. They publish an ’episode’ a week from all their stories. 12 episodes/season. I suppose I should find the concept worrying, considering how badly it worked out for me last time. However, it’s an entirely different sort of thing and the main reason why I submitted my work to them in the first place. They’re sane. They require relatively short episodes – and it’s your story, so you don’t have to come up with something quick on Thursday to be able to throw something on the site not far from then. They do real storytelling, not „Scandal! Scandal! Throw in scandal, because that’s what the audience wants!”

The format appeals to me, when stripped of madness and bad taste and rushing and impossible demands.

Reading a story episodically is an entirely different experience from reading a whole novel in one go. I’m a fangirl and I’ve read a lot of fanfiction, which is published one chapter at a time, unless the author really decides otherwise. Most of the time the distance between chapters in fanfiction is flexible – sometimes the first chapters come quickly, the later ones come hard. At other times the story is abandoned. Sometimes you have somebody like silverkytten who updates twice a year, if you’re lucky (unless she wrote everything beforehand). Or RosieB, who updates whenever. And the excitement! Have you heard, have you heard, there’s a new chapter of „Shades of Grey”, or of „Beside You in Time”, of „Touched”/”Contact”, of „Off the Record”?! Have you read, have you seen, you must!

The news spreads like wildfire amongst fans, the chatter goes a level up and you understand that you’re not alone in appreciating this story or that, that it’s alright to love and enthuse and speculate and wish and desire and demand of the writer – „But when are Sesshoumaru and Kagome getting together?!”

And then you wait some more.

There’s fanfiction writers who are amazingly good at writing regularly, but they’re rare. Still, they’re excellent. There’s lightning on the wave, who updated nearly every day for over a year, writing an amazing 3 million word series which has me crying with love whenever I re-read lines of it. Unfortunately I didn’t catch that one as it was being written, discovering it barely two years ago or so. (and it made me want to read and understand poetry)

My first experience of weekly updated fanfiction was phoenix.writing’s „The Problem with Purity”. I caught it when it was 20-something chapters in and I rushed over the beautiful writing which took its time to describe things properly. I waited for the new chapter to be released on Thursday, I cried out in joy when the author released an extra chapter on special occasions.

Reading something episodically is an experience stretched over time. It lets characters walk with you longer. Immersion in the story happens from time to time, in small batches – but then you get to come back over and over, take another step, see something else go on. It’s a different sort of adventure. I’m happy that the Big World Network decided to throw this sort of experience back into the world of books and literature.

Because yes, it’s been done before. Over a hundred years ago, Dickens and Thackeray and so on would have their huge novels published chapter by chapter in the literary magazines of the age, before bringing everything together in a single volume. But then those magazines eventually died and novels published as novels became the standard – and indeed the only way most people think of stories existing.

I’m happy about the Big World Network. I’m happy they like my novel and I’m happy that we can work together. I debated long and hard whom I should submit to, looking at experiences with writers, at royalties and sales and so on – and then I realized that this was the most fun option and the one I was most excited about from a writing and story experience point of view.

And the best surprise thus far is the editor. Who seems to be a nice person, but who is also a careful professional. I think I nearly cried with joy when I realized she used notes and tracked changes on the first chapter of „Flight from Hell”. To compare yet again with my TV experience, there I never found out which changes had been made to my words (which I have been assured happens with some small publishers, too, although I haven’t had that experience myself).

Yeah. I’m totally procrastinating on writing the novel.

Computer games DO make you violent

Thu, 20 Jun 2013 21:33:14 +0000

Today I felt sort of like crap. I think there’s some sort of virus striking at random and it was my turn to feel as if I were hit by a particularly nauseating bus. So I wrote a bit and played a bit. World of Tanks, because it’s apparently what I play nowadays.

So here I was, in my amazingly fast and sort of powerful tank, dashing across the map like a mad motorcyclist in Greek traffic, feeling sort of gleefully suicidal (you play awhile more seriously and then you want to do something crazy, I suppose). So I went straight through the enemy lines (well, most of them had moved elsewhere, but still), past bigger tanks, stronger tanks, better tanks shooting at me and, for once, not hitting.

Near the enemy base, I saw their artillery, in the open – higher level than mine, I think, but they’re wonderfully weak in close combat, even if they’re amazingly annoying when they shoot you down from half the map away. So I head straight towards it, shooting and hitting just fine. Its health points (or whatever the hell tanks consider health) go down, lower and lower. 80%. 55%. 30%. 15%.

Oh, yeah. For once, I am totally acing this. My suicidal tendency is paying off and I’m not just, you know, dying. I get to take a huge annoyance out with me – and maybe even live to tell the tale.

And just as my gun is reloading and I’m about to shoot one final time…

I get this window opening in front of my game. Yahoo messenger. My nemesis.

Person: hey
Person: needs some help
Person: any ideea what this means?
Person: 択時

Queue, „ARGH, NO, GET OUT OF MY FACE!!!”

I keep the ‘w’ button down, to keep moving. Even if I can barely see where I’m going. I try to figure out how to close a damned window without changing the window you’re on, possibly telepathically.

No luck. Cursing and about to rip Google translate to pieces for not materializing in front of every person wanting to ask me a question related to Japanese (or English), I switch windows really fast and try to get back to the game.

Except my tank is dead. See, no matter how realistic a game like this might be, no matter how well researched, how good in imitating life and so forth, it will always have one feature that will never destroy a tank in real life, but which will destroy a tank in gaming: the edge of the map. I’d crashed into it, stopped, become a sitting duck and got shot down. Probably by the very artillery I had been about to shoot down.

Noob mistake, I suppose. I left my messenger on. And experienced the profound wave of violent feeling that computer games are reputed to have. I had never believed those rumors, but the messenger window proved me wrong. Curses!!!

(also, I have no idea what that means and my dictionary is shrugging at me; for some reason whenever people want me to decipher Japanese for them, they seem to have acquired really odd stuff)

"Flight from Hell" on August 4th

Thu, 20 Jun 2013 09:01:45 +0000

Just a short announcement: my novel, „Flight from Hell” will be launched on the 4th of August on the Big World Network. Keep an eye out for Roxana Kiril 😉

The genre(s): Horror/Supernatural.
Rating: 18+. Apparently I can’t write stuff for a general audience even if I try. Not that I was particularly trying to.

The first episode (chapter) will be available for free. After that, reading is subscription-based, but the subscription is barely $3. And you can get the audio version as well. I’ll be reading it (I’m not that bad).

When the novel’s all said and done, it’ll (probably) be gathered into a volume and sold as paperback, audio and full electronic version, in some sort of pricing combos.

Yeah… Not feeling up to writing anything more fascinating in this blog post right now. So laterz.

Misconceptions concerning writers

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 09:56:58 +0000

There is this wide-spread misconception concerning writers, which I suppose comes from literature lessons in high school: that writers need ideas.

False.

I have yet to meet a writer lacking ideas. They might have a bad case of writer’s block („Ok… Got to this point, what now?”), or writer’s procrastination („I will write the greatest novel ever!… Tomorrow.”), or writer’s stylistic suck („I swear I sounded different than a whiny 15 year-old last time I tried this”). One thing I’ve never seen a writer lack is ideas. Maybe ideas concerning a story, or a theme, or a title, or maybe they just lack good ideas right now. But ideas in general?… Not really.

I am currently trying to keep track of all the ideas I never wrote, which were awesome ideas (I throw away decent ones if they stick around for too long, because they’ll always be at the bottom of the story stack). It’s a nightmare. Lucky me, for the past few years I kept most of my crappy first drafts in a single folder, which comes with me everywhere thanks to the miracle of syncing.

…I’ve heard of yogis wanting to do retreats in caves and dark rooms and stuff. I wonder if any rock-playing cafe would be willing to take me in for a writing retreat. I am getting tired of jazz-playing cafes, I can’t even begin to explain… Plus, they don’t provide accommodation and I end up needing to leave.

Omg. like. Cafe retreats for writers. That’s a brilliant setting for a story! Throw it at some point in the future, since the future is the best place for quirks and… yes. And there’d be a guy writing super-sophisticated stuff. And a chick writing fantasy. And a young man writing romance. And deadlines!

They’re there because of editors. The editors are dead sick of their breaking deadlines, so they were thrown here to work. It’s like a prison/work camp/retreat.

And a murder mystery.

Because, you know, a big-ass Stephen King-like writer decided to play at re-enacting Fowles’s The Magus in his own original, mad style (it’s not a real murder).

Somebody NEEDS to write this. This could be awesome.

(Seriously. I came up with this in 10 minutes. While I was writing the blog post. Do you see what I have to deal with?! And let me tell you something – all ideas look genius at first. They’re like half-naked chicks in front of men imprisoned for the past seven months.)

Flash fics for KD Heart

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 14:57:05 +0000

A friend of mine, KD Heart, is participating in what is probably a really bad idea. Namely, a challenge to record fanfiction. No prizes as such, that I know of, but she’s having fun. This is for her 😛 All the rest of you are probably way better off ignoring this current batch of crazy crap. I mean, you probably like your sanity and all that.

1. That Woman – Discworld x Sherlock (BBC) x Harry Potter. Havelock Vetinari/Irene Adler. Severus Snape/Irene Adler.

It was a secret of Havelock Vetinari that he should get some of the more sensitive devices he needed in order to be a proper tyrant from the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The magic was unfamiliar enough in his own home Discworld that nobody really knew how to counter it yet. And he needed it to solve the issue of a very dead ambassador from the other side of the Disc – there was no point in conducting a war, after all.

It was during one of his expeditions to Hogwarts that he encountered Irene Adler, former Slytherin and current spy in the Muggle world, involved in high politics via her high talents. He first got a hint of those talents when he found himself noticing that she was a woman – such a thing rarely happened to him. Of course, people were classified into male and female, but it wasn’t often that the Patrician of Ankh Morpork would find himself considering notions like ‘feminine mystique’, or pondering on the nature of romance, the body, the spirit and their interconnection. He noticed the phenomenon, classified it as attraction (or even a certain in-love mood) and proceeded to function just the same despite it.

When she caught him alone in an office, as he was waiting for Snape to bring him a potion that would allow him to turn into another’s likeness for awhile (so he could pretend to be said dead ambassador until the mystery got solved), he gave in to her charm and took some delight in her perfume and delicacy as she kissed him. It would never go any further, he told himself. She was attracted to women and he had no attractions.

Except her.

Another time, she came to him out of nowhere, asking him to bring her a bottle of narrativum from his world, because she needed some things to work according to narrative causality. He did it without a second thought, although he asked himself why he felt he should have protested, or asked for anything in return, as he normally would have.

On yet another occasion, a cool Severus Snape told him she had veela blood, so the Patrician would be wiser to stay away from her. Vetinari noted it down – not as warning, he was wise enough never to have disclosed anything of importance to her – but as a curiosity. Although his curiosity peaked when he noticed the very same Severus Snape kissing her hand in deference and attempting to move to more romantic areas, which she seemed to be permitting, within limits.

That woman was a mystery who seemed to be able to get under the skin of any man. So he gave her a huge bag of money and asked her to work her magic on Sherlock Holmes and get him to do her a favor by solving the mystery of the dead ambassador Vetinari had on his hands. If that didn’t work out… well… the person who had sent the ambassador was a very powerful queen who would undoubtedly be interested in Irene.

Vetinari was certain he had a heart, somewhere. It was just very lost in politics. He was sure Irene would understand that.

2. Dreams and Wizards – The Dresden Files x The Sandman

„I’m not in the Nevernever,” Harry Dresden said. „And I’m not in Faerie. I don’t know where I am. What’s this Dreaming? Am I dreaming? I remember there was this pollen, and some guy, and then I was back there somewhere, not sure where.”

„The world is big,” she replied simply. „It’s like spaghetti, everything touching. Now you’re between my brother and I, except he used to be a little boy before he was my brother, so he’s not very good at this yet.”

„So how exactly am I supposed to find my way in all this?” he asked. But the girl had already turned into a goldfish and flown into the dawn. Harry chose a random direction and hoped it would take him home.

3. Masters of the Game – Bleach x Doctor Who. Aizen/female-Master.

There was a loud sound that reminded him of pipes screeching against each other. Aizen smiled a small smile. What they hadn’t realized was that he had planned it all – his rise, his war, his fall, his capture, his imprisonment. He had the entirety of eternity to wait, but he had only needed to contact the right person to ensure that he would return on top when everybody thought he was fallen forever. The fools!

A rather unimpressive Greek column materialized into existence. A part of it opened and… a woman?… stepped out. She was striking, in quite a lot of ways. Long legs, heels, a long red dress, breasts that Aizen was quite certain defied gravity in a few ways, a mane of beautiful, curly red hair and… well. Nobody was perfect. It wasn’t her short stature that was really an issue, but…

„You are finally here.”

„It’s the right day,” she said, cutting him out of his confinement. „I went back in time to ask you if you were sure this was when you wanted to be freed.”

„I recall that. Seven years of waiting. But now, it is all ready. I will ruin your Doctor. I assume he is the reason behind your change of looks?”

„Unfortunately. I will make certain your Ichigo is out of the picture.”

Aizen took her hand. Things like romance were so much more familiar now that the Master was female. He’d never been particularly fond of men. „Yes, my sweet,” he said. „Together, we are unstoppable. Although I must ask…”

„Yes?”

„What’s with the beard?”

The Master scowled. „Dwarf. I get to be a dwarf this time.”

Well, Aizen thought. All he needed was to hypnotize himself out of noticing that. Then everything would go well. Until he got rid of her and ruled the world himself.

4. The Agents – James Bond x The Agency.

Somewhere in a bar. Night. Two strangers talking. One is kind of drunk. The other probably isn’t.

„Don’t you sometimes feel that everybody around you in the office is wayyyyyyyyy too stuck-up and always totally prim and proper and they should lay back and relax?” Lex asked, hanging on to a glass.

„No,” James Bond answered.

„And that women are unapproachable? I mean, there’s these chicks who are soooo hot and classy, but they never go for you because they’re too good for you, know what I mean?”

„No.”

„And maaaan, sometimes they make you fly when you hate airplanes, no?”

„I’m fine with airplanes.”

„You and I, we’re the same,” Lex said. „Let’s be friends!”

James felt his right hand grabbed in a friendly gesture. He didn’t really feel like fraternizing, but it would be too much trouble to say anything.

After five minutes, however, he decided to give Lex a clue on social norms. „Shaken,” he said. „Not stirred.”

On the other side of his hand, Lex kept staring fascinated at Bond’s hand, as he brought it up and down and up and down and up and down in slow, fun little circles.

5. Vampires and Ninjas Buffy the Vampire Slayer x Naruto, Spike/Sakura.

Spike doubled when he saw her hair. Not that his hair was entirely natural, mind you, but the young woman’s was just… pink. She pointed towards him and said something in Japanese. And it was funny, but despite being quite so old, Spike didn’t speak quite any language. Chinese?… Maybe. Sometimes. In passing. Vaguely. Where’s the library, that sort of thing. Japanese?… Nearly nothing at all.

„Alright, kid, you’re going to get out of my way now, I was hunting somebody down,” he told her. She said something back in Japanese, which sounded just as annoyed as he felt. „I’m a vampire and I’ve got a few centuries on you, so why don’t you stop being such a pissy little thing and get away. I don’t want to hurt you.”

She said something else. And got out a knife. He took a step towards her. She took a step towards him. And then there was a fight, right there, right then, in the parking lot, crashing into cars and all those wonderful things. One of those in which you could barely tell the person for the blur. He could barely keep up – but in the end he did.

„A Slayer?” he asked, as they separated and started circling each other. „You’re a Slayer?”

She seemed to get the word. No surprise, considering the number of Slayers around the world, after Buffy pulled her stunt. „No.” Yeah, he could’ve understood the ‘iie’ as well. „Ninja.”

„Ninja?” he said. „Oh, cool. Will you get out of the way now?”

His circling had brought him where he wanted to be, so he started backing off, ready to break off and run after the other vampire. The chit with pink hair didn’t seem pleased. So he turned and dashed off, confident that he was quicker.

…the flying car landed right in front of him. It could’ve landed right on top of him, too, but he’d stopped in time. He turned to see her holding another car above her head, ready to throw that one.

It wasn’t quite love at first sight. But it was love at first throw anyway.

The Piano Demon [Story, Fantasy, Draft 1.03]

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 08:24:00 +0000

Author’s Note: This is another one of my infamously stuck-in-first-draft stories. One day I’ll actually edit it.

The first time I saw her – really, really saw her, not just glanced at her as we tried our best to catch the back seats in the small university classrooms – she was at a piano. Maybe I’d never have really been able to notice her had it not been for that one, strange evening when destiny gently pushed me out of my awkward life and into hers.

If only children can be prodigies, then I wasn’t one any longer. I’d lived through my glory years at school, where I’d gone off and won prizes for art and English, maths and physics, running circles around classmates and less talented professors. Eventually, when push came to shove and I had to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, I hid behind some more studying, delaying that dreadful moment when I’d have to prove that not only was I smart, but that I was also able to do something. I chose English and physics as majors, convinced I could do both easily enough. I wasn’t right. I wasn’t very wrong, either. There wasn’t much of a personal life left between the two, but I took my exams with flying colors and dreamed of the day I’d win a Nobel prize. I don’t think it will ever actually happen, but even fools can dream.

I was going to write a BA dissertation on the impact that 19th century scientific discoveries had on literature. It was an interesting topic and one of the few I could choose to reunite both my loves and get away with studying the history of physics, with its wild theories and random inferences. Word got out and before I knew it, one of my professors was suggesting that I should hold a conference on the matter in this event they’d have at our university. She said I should discuss the birth of science fiction and how its history differed from fantasy. Well, fine by me.

Then, my Renaissance Literature professor and I discussed it over coffee one morning in the underground bar where we waited for classes and in a spur of the moment decision she told me that I should join her and some other members of the faculty for a semi-official planning discussion that afternoon at Stanislaw’s place. I’d never had classes with Stanislaw, nor do I know why he bore that name. He wasn’t Polish, nor did he have any Polish relatives that anybody knew of. I wouldn’t really have cared enough to ask other students, but he was in his early 40s and he was handsome, so he was a common choice of gossip among female students.

I met up with the professors after we all finished out classes. Stanislaw came to meet us so he could lead us to his place and I was wondering how I’d managed to get myself in between all these people who were much above me in training and experience and how I’d fare spending hours with them. Maybe I’d embarrass myself with something stupid, pour coffee all over myself, or say that I’d never read Plato or something of the sort (although I supposed I could keep quiet about my failures).

There a few houses in the same courtyard where Stanislaw had made his home. There was a nasty little dog which tried to bite one of the professors, but he kept away with an extended leg, jumping around to lead us to his place.

„My apartment mate,” he warned us before we could go up – he lived on the second floor -, „is busy playing the piano. She’s a bit strange, but she’s nice otherwise.”

So we followed him up the stairs. There was some piano playing indeed, getting louder with each step. It sounded random, wild, furious, then it stopped, then it started again in rapid succession. Very short pieces of songs, like a storm that smashes itself against the window for a howling moment, then lets up, then starts again. It didn’t take that long to go up, but between the quick, sudden, furious bits of music it somehow it sounded much longer.

My Renaissance Literature professor walked in first – Stanislaw was at the very rear, having kept the dog away from us – and she made the piano playing stop abruptly and not return. Then one of the older professors walked in, and then I did.

I’d looked down on her in class. I’d thought she was one of those je m’en fous rockers, with her big, black T-shirts with strange designs, wolves, witches, Indians, Gothic ladies. She never had any with band pictures, though. Black pants or jeans. Black hair, silver jewelry. Other than her fashion statement, she was quiet and polite. Her grades, whenever I bothered to check, were high, but not at the very top. She wasn’t competing with me in anything, which settled the matter. I didn’t care about meeting her. I thought she was a party goer, a fun lover, all the things I’d never been, all the things I only cared about when I felt shunned and alone.

She was wearing a man’s shirt when we walked in that night. I thought I recognized it as something Stanislaw sometimes wore. It was probably his, now that I think about it. Of course, we all thought they were sleeping together. After all, it was blatantly obvious that they were living together and that they shared clothes. We knew she wasn’t his kid. So we came to the quick and embarrassing conclusion that they were sleeping together. Neither of them said anything on the subject. There was no apology, no explanation. It wasn’t my place to say anything and I think the others were too polite to mention it.

Later it would turn out that there was nothing between them. She was living there because she’d been kicked out by her parents, and by her aunt, and by everybody else who she had turned to. She had an extensible armchair in his library, where she also kept the few clothes and belongings she had. She wore the crazy T-shirts to advertise them – she made them for a living, sold them out to rockers and weirdos. She didn’t draw them, mind you. She came up with the idea, then collaborated with an arts student – later with me – and then she printed them at a specialized shop. Whenever she wasn’t busy wearing her own creations, she preferred manly button-up shirts, like Stanislaw’s.

I don’t know how they ended up living together. There was a history there. I never asked. She’ll tell me one day. Maybe.

That night, she looked a sight. Dark circles under her eyes, paler than usual, hunched over an electronic piano that was thrown against the dining room/kitchen wall. She looked drunk, or drugged. Maybe that was why we didn’t comment on her relationship with Stanislaw. We were too shocked. I don’t know.

„Come in, come in,” Chris said, carelessly. She laughed, but it was hollow. „I know how I look. I know damned fucking well how I look. But I’m not ashamed, so come on already. Sit down. Welcome to the dragon’s den.”

I thought she was maybe half-crazy. But she was just herself on a very bad day. Sarcastic, bitter, with a hint of deliberate insanity.

„Christine!” one of the professors said. He recognized her, or maybe remembered her name now. Or maybe he’d just found his voice again.

„Ah, I’m flattered to be recognized,” she answered. I couldn’t tell if it was meant ironically or seriously. Probably the latter. Maybe both. „And look, it’s Judith!” She’d finally noticed me. „You’re that double-major girl, the genius. How’s that working out for you?” She tittered on her chair as she said it and her haunted eyes followed me as I took a chair.

Nobody honestly called me a genius, even if I suppose I kind of am one. Except my family, they sometimes do. Some of the boys from my school would shout it to my face, tauntingly, ‘ge-nius, ge-nius, geek, geek, geek!’ They looked down on me, I could tell. So did the butcher whom my mum sent me to get our meat from, and one of my teachers. Sometimes girls would say, ‘oh, she can’t come to the party, she’s too busy being a genius.’ Others were just intimidated, or thrilled. I didn’t know how to handle it and in time I became one of those cleverer-than-thou people, but I’m not sure I meant it. Or maybe I did. Anyway, I never felt normal until I went off to college and even then, sometimes…

„Fine, I suppose,” I said. „How are you?”

„Crappy,” she said. She looked up and saw that our professors were still uncertain. As I said, I didn’t know Stanislaw except from seeing him in corridors and from gossip, but they probably knew him better and hadn’t expected to find a female student wearing one of his shirts in his kitchen. „Hey, please sit. Don’t let me bother you. I don’t bite nice people and you look nice enough to me.” She turned back towards me. „Actually, kind of worse than crappy. I got my ass kicked in a fight today and I hurt like no tomorrow.” I’d find out later that it was because of all her fights and irregular hours that she got kicked out of her own house and that her grades weren’t quite up there with mine. She’d been deemed a lost child by her father and by her five younger brothers and sisters. None of her family looked up to her, but they didn’t look up to anybody. Her mum had run off at some point before, after it had been found out that Chris wasn’t really her husband’s. ‘Dysfunctional family much?’ I’d ask her later when she’d rubbed off on me and told me her story. ‘Love, you’ve no clue.’ She called all people she liked love. It’s why it took me awhile to realize she wasn’t sleeping with the professor. ‘Auntie Lisa slept in the attic, thought she was closer to God that way. One of my cousins stole cars and when they caught him he said he was promoting jogging in an innovative manner – and he believed what he was saying.’ The list went on.

Stanislaw was the best host I’d ever encountered. We gave us some excellent tea and cookies and had Chris write down our ideas. She listened intently, wrote it all down, but didn’t say much. She sat at her piano seat all throughout our meeting, laughed at our jokes and when we were done for the day, she asked if she could play for us.

„Gotta warn ya, though,” she said. „I play with an accent. I play like a demon.”

So she played. Gods, she really was a demon with that piano. Her fingers ran so fast it sounded as if she had four hands, not two. She never faltered, never hesitated, never made a single mistake. Her music didn’t just have an accent, it was furious, mad, depressive in the way a full orchestra with canons can play ‘depressive’, biting, snarling and at the same time I wanted it to never end. And when she started singing, her voice was a musical screech, beautiful because it had taken everything in it that it hadn’t liked and beaten it into a pulp. It was strong and strange and wild and pained.

I can’t remember what she sang. Something about fairies ripping the world apart by moonlight, I think. We were rooted to our seats. My Renaissance Literature professor started crying. I think I started crying, too, and I knew for certain that each and every one of us was remembering something that we didn’t really want to remember right then, but we couldn’t help it. Chris was a genius way beyond me, way beyond anything I could imagine. I thought I saw her standing in hell and screaming defiance against all the devils – but then I was carried away and it was all about me. I remembered all the times I failed and every mistake I’d made and every embarrassment. I remembered that my boyfriend had left me because I was too caught up with physics. That I was afraid I’d never make it. That deep inside I was always scared that one day my brains would go away and everybody would find out I wasn’t much aside from that. It hurt so bad I couldn’t breathe, I felt all the air knocked out of my lungs, but it was beautiful. She made it beautiful and sad and wonderful.

„I’m depressive,” she told us before we left. „But I don’t let it bother me.”

„How did you learn to play?” my Renaissance Literature professor asked her on the next meeting at Stanislaw’s place.

„A deal with a demon,” she said. She looked much better than the first time, rested and healthy.

„What?!” I asked. I tried to figure out what she was getting at with that metaphor. „Did you sell your soul or something?” Maybe she’d worked hard, I thought, for years and years and years…

„Gods no. I didn’t make the deal with it, it made the deal with me. It got into huge trouble, said it’d give me anything if I saved its clumsy behind. I guess I could’ve asked for immortality, but I wanted to play the piano. It was so pissed to hear that. Had to go through hell and ask everybody about it. In the end he made a really bad deal to get me piano skills. I’m not sure he ever forgave me.”

We didn’t press her for an actual answer. We didn’t know we’d already gotten it, see. I assumed that it was something about her parents making sacrifices, maybe her mother taking on some really dirty job to get her prodigy daughter lessons – back then I didn’t know her mother hated her for being a mistake that she’d never been able to take back. In those early days, I took much of what Chris said as a metaphor. It was later that I realized she said the truth out loud carelessly because nobody ever believed any of it.

She played again for us, something slow and beautiful. Nothing weird happened. Nobody cried.

„She could’ve been a musician,” my Renaissance Literature professor said. „I wonder why she never went for that.”

Because she’d only been able to play the piano for three years, she’d never been seen practicing and she didn’t like the idea of being in the public sphere. Even so, the word was spread around by my Lit professor. After a month she was offered a job to write a soundtrack for a short film, and then the demands kept coming, a slow trickle of income.

Stanislaw was great. He never minded us using his house after we got closer. My own roommates back at the dorm didn’t like Chris much and they could do without me, too, so I started spending more and more of my free time there. We’d study together, then I’d move on to physics, then I’d draw her T-shirt patterns. Sometimes she’d go out and come back covered in bruises, or with torn clothes. I worried for her.

„I can hold my own,” she told me.

„But who’s doing this to you? Why do you keep going? What if one day you can’t make it?” I asked.

I don’t know exactly when we became friends, but I knew exactly why. I’d felt so awkward my entire life, never fitting in because I was the wrong sort of geek, but she made me feel as if it didn’t matter, because the entire world was outside somewhere, irrelevant. She didn’t make me feel like one of the crowd, which had been my secret wish until then – but she made me feel like a solitary one of a kind and a damned awesome one at that. She didn’t let me walk in her shadow – she cast no shadow. Neither did I. Chris plucked me out of the world and took me with her into another reality. It felt great and wrong at the same time, as if she was doing things with me that were forbidden and wonderful.

„I’ll always make it,” she answered. „I have a secret.”

„What secret?”

„I can keep it myself, thanks.”

She told me about other things, however. How she could sing better than she could study, play better than she could sing and fight better than anything else. Her mother had probably been a witch, she supposed. Her paternal grandmother definitely was, and she hadn’t gotten to die before she was whisked off to hell. Chris hadn’t been in hell, but she could feel the devils’ presence when the old lady disappeared.

„Or maybe my mum was a demon,” she told me. „You never know. Or maybe dad isn’t really my father and the real one was a warlock who sold my soul before I was born. Or I really am a bastard, but to a guy who’s just a man and I have shit luck.”

„My family’s all sane and human,” I said, apropos of nothing.

„I pity you. That’s why you’re so out of place. Me? I’m nowhere, but then I don’t need to be. Hey, you can be with me.”

I felt a warmth in my chest and a smile on my face. „I wish I were happy like you.” But I was happy right then.

She let out a very cheery laugh. „Happy like me? Rich, mate. Really rich.”

There was a gig in a bar once. She played like a demon again. Her hands were blurs, her eyes burned with rage and fire. She brought the audience to roars of approval when she cried-sang her chorus lines and then she looked at them and held them under her gaze, reducing them to utter silence as her hands slowed to a strange, discordant trickle of notes.

I thought then: maybe she got the talent from some crazy deal, but she got the music from herself. My physics could match her fingers, my knowledge of humanities could rival her voice. But she had this thing and she played with whatever it was. I was too scared, too trapped in failure even when I won. I had so much to lose, from my position to my parents’ approval, to my feeble few contacts. She had nothing. I envied her. And I loved her. I wanted to be her. I wanted to be with her, to drink her, to become her. If I were her, I’d win more than a Nobel – I’d win the whole goddamn world. I wouldn’t be Willis Eugene Lamb, who nobody knew about. I’d be Marie Curie. I’d be Albert Einstein. I’d be one of the people who didn’t need a damned prize so you’d know who they are. The people about whom you sometimes talk in present tense even when they’re long dead (Napoleon commands the French armies… Charles Dickens is born… Albert Einstein wins the Nobel prize…).

I’d be somebody alive.

One day, Chris didn’t come back. We waited, Stanislaw and I, until it was night. I went back to the dorm at about 11 PM. She wasn’t in class the next day, nor the day after that. I went back to Stanislaw’s and slept in her armchair for a week or more, waiting for her to return. My calls landed on silence, then her phone went dead. I was afraid she’d lost that fight – the one she was never expecting to lose. She’d never told me her secret.

Maybe she was dead, her body stashed somewhere, or thrown in the river. Maybe some demons had dragged her to hell, like they’d done her grandmother. Maybe her mum had come back for her.

Eventually I didn’t visit Stanislaw anymore. His kids had come home – a daughter my age, a boy a bit younger, living with their mum in Italy. I never knew what to tell them about my being there, about Chris being there, about Stanislaw letting us stay with him even though it was inappropriate. I just felt embarrassed. So I stopped seeing him, too, except on corridors. We talked less and less. There had been only Chris between us and now she wasn’t there.

I think I’d know if Chris were dead. I’d be able to feel it. My life would feel emptier. No, she’s alive somewhere. Maybe she doesn’t want to contact anybody, or maybe she can’t. Maybe she’s amnesiac. Sometimes I think I hear an echo of her piano in songs – she might have gone underground. She could have a small empire of her own, in a hell, or in a paradise, or in a place in between.

If she were dead, I’d know, wouldn’t I?

She never told me her secret, but she has one. She’s using it now. She’s playing dead. And I can forgive her for being away for so long. I can forgive her even if she’s run to LA and become really rich and looks down on me (though she wouldn’t). Because she’s alive. I know it. I know it. People like her don’t die. They’re just away.