Tag Archives: Writing

SCHEHERAZADE’S 1,001 BYTES // Extinction 101

The end began with being told to talk amongst ourselves.

I guess the lecturer had had enough of coaxing a classroom of unruly trilobites to settle down and pay attention. Farrier science is a pretty dry subject, so was it any wonder?

We hadn’t counted on him being preternaturally good at his job. He knew exactly how to tame our youthful sass and steer us aright. Instead of admitting defeat, he drew a circle and square on the blackboard. He then jabbed a very pink forefinger at it, saying to the class, “Listen up, you obnoxious little tackers. This here is what you’re going to discuss.”

We gawped at these shapes as though they were arcane symbols of a bygone age. They reeked of a certain geometric mysticism. Or cabbala. Both options were frightening. As was the lecturer’s toothy grin.

“So, geniuses, what do your sparkling minds make of it?”

“The Deathly Hallows?” ventured one student.

“A manifesto for making horseshoes?” piped another.

“You’re getting warm, Ms. Satana!” The lecturer winked. “It has something to do with shoeing horses.”

That was a relief. My parents hadn’t paid a shedload of college fees for me to end up sitting in the wrong classroom.

The lecturer cast a bemused look over us. He poked the aforementioned pink finger at someone in the second row. “Mr. Pups. Tell me, what’s the shape of the head of a horseshoe nail?”

The student looked completely trapped, as though he’d been asked what kind of death he’d prefer. Hanging? Toxic injection? Students on either side shrank away, as if to remove themselves from the lecturer’s line of sight.

“Cir… circle?”

Someone snickered in the last row. The lecturer turned his head. “Do you wish to add something, Mr. Fernsby?”

“No, sir. Sorry, sir.”

“I’m not interested in your vacuous apologies, Mr. Fernsby. What shape is it?”

“Don’t know, sir. A square, I suppose.”

“You suppose? Come on, Mr. Fernsby. You can do better than that.”

“I only need to hammer ’em, sir. The shape doesn’t matter, does it?”

“An honest answer, Mr. Fernsby. There may be hope for you after all.”

Another voice chimed from the sidelines. “Nail heads come in different shapes, don’t they? They could be round or square.”

“True,” the lecturer shot back. “Even triangles, yes?”

The rest of us kept our silence. We were leery of provoking a new torrent of devastatingly oblique questions.

“Mr. Pups. Mr. Fernsby. I challenge you to a discourse. You, Mr. Pups, shall persuade us that a round shape is the only acceptable shape for a nail head. Mr. Fernsby, you are adamantly opposed to the idea, and ready to prove your point of view that it should be square. Clear?”

They looked at him, slack-jawed and pop-eyed. The rest of us were doing this too. I think we’d expected this lesson to be a cruisy one. So far, it had been anything but.

“Will this be in the exam?” asked someone from the row in front of me.

“Mr. Yelchin, your exam has already begun,” smiled the lecturer, one eyebrow diabolically arched. “Life itself is an exam!”

I hunched down in my seat, making myself as small and unnoticeable as possible. No way was I going to get caught up in this odd little game. I was a trilobite, not a philosophy major.

“Well…” Pups looked distressed. He always did have a slight stutter but now it was quite prominent. “The shape should be cir… circular because… if we compare a squ… square and a circle with a similar pe… perimeter… the squ… circle area will be bigger…” He frowned at his own timid assertion. “Or smaller?” The poor guy closed his eyes and muttered something under his breath. Obviously, he was trying to do the math in his tiny trilobite mind.

“Oh my god!” interjected another student. “Listening to you is making me dumber!” I think his name was Hermes. “It should be a square! A fucking square! Stop embarrassing yourself and sit the fuck down!”

An odd request to be sure. Pups was already sitting down. He hadn’t stood up in the first place.

“Shut your mouth, Henries!” Okay, it wasn’t Hermes. “Someone should remove the bullets ‘cos you keep shooting off with it!”

Henries’s face reddened—quite a feat for a trilobite. Our faces aren’t exactly there, if you know what I mean. “At least I don’t shoot blanks, coffin stuffer!”

A girl from the fifth row—I didn’t remember her name—squeaked, “Leave him alone! If you can’t add two and two then you need to shut up and listen! And anyway, it’s round because circles are sacred. Perfect. A heavenly shape! Everything should be circles!”

Another girl’s voice countered from the sixth row—sweet, yet acidic. How are girls able to achieve such a combination? “Yeah, Dafna, we can see that you strive for this perfect shape. You keep stuffing yourself with perfectly shaped donuts and pizzas!”

That’s when all hell broke loose. A furious shriek was followed by the scrape of chair legs on polished wood, then the sound of slaps. Everyone jumped up and started punching hell out of each other. I dived to the side, and made a beeline for the lectern. I hid behind it, watching with dismay total trilobite warfare!

The lecturer’s face broke out in a malevolent smile. He sauntered to the door, opened it, and let himself out. I followed at a discreet distance, baffled. Why hadn’t he broken up this massive fight? I observed as he sauntered down the hall, opened another door, and let himself in. Huh? I tiptoed to the door and peeped through the window to see what he’d do next. He was casting his eyes over a classroom of young dinosaurs—clearly idealistic, full of ambitious dreams, with plans for a brighter tomorrow.

I watched in horror as the lecturer went to the blackboard, took a piece of chalk, and wrote on it the dullest topic one could ever imagine…

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2020

TATI’S TRANSLATIONS // Axis by Alice Munro (Excerpt)

Avie waited until they were comfortable to tell Grace about her dream.

“You must never tell anybody,” she said.

In the dream, she was married to Hugo, who really was hanging around as if he hoped to marry her, and she had a baby, who cried day and night. It howled, in fact, till she thought she would go crazy. At last she picked up this baby—picked her up, there never was any doubt that it was a girl—and took her down to some dark basement room and shut her in there, where the thick walls insured that she wouldn’t be heard. Then she went away and forgot about her. And it turned out that she had another girl baby anyway, one who was easy and delightful and grew up without any problems.

But one day this grown daughter spoke to her mother about her sister hidden in the basement. It turned out that she had known about her all along—the poor warped and discarded one had told her everything—and there was nothing to be done now. “Nothing to be done,” this lovely, kind girl said. The abandoned daughter knew no way of life but the one she had and, anyway, she did not cry anymore; she was used to it.

“That’s an awful dream,” Grace said. “Do you hate children?”

“Not unreasonably,” Avie said.

“What would Freud say? Never mind that, what would Hugo say? Have you told him?”

“Good God, no.”

“It’s probably not as bad as it seems. You’re probably just worried again about being pregnant.”

Эви подождала, пока они устроятся на сиденьях, и начала рассказывать Грейс свой сон.

«Только никому не разболтай», – предупредила она.

Во сне она была замужем за Хьюго – парень действительно не давал ей проходу в надежде, что Эви согласится стать его женой, – и у неё был грудной ребёнок, который плакал день и ночь. Вернее, орал благим матом, доводя её до белого каления. В конце концов она взяла младенца – это совершенно точно была девочка, – и снесла в тёмную подвальную комнату с толстыми стенами. Она заперла дочку там, чтобы не слышать её бесконечного плача. И ушла, позабыв о ней. А потом оказалось, что у неё есть ещё одна малышка, спокойная и милая, которая выросла, не доставляя родителям никаких хлопот.

Но однажды уже повзрослевшая дочь заговорила с матерью о своей сестре, спрятанной в подвале. Оказалось, что она знала о ней с самого начала – сломленная и позабытая всеми затворница рассказала своей сестре всё, – но теперь с этим ничего уж не поделать. «Ничего уж не поделать», – кротко повторила любимая дочь, отрада и утешение матери. Всё равно, её покинутая сестра ничего не знала о жизни снаружи, она больше не плакала и давно смирилась со своей участью.

«Какой ужасный сон», – сказала Грейс. «Ты что, ненавидишь детей?»

«Не без причины», – ответила Эви.

«Что бы на это сказал Фрейд? Ладно, это неважно, но вот что бы сказал твой Хьюго? Ты ему рассказывала?»

«Боже, нет».

«Возможно, всё не так плохо, как кажется. Наверное, ты просто опять переживаешь, что забеременела».

Original story by ALICE MUNRO
Translation by TETIANA ALEKSINA
© All rights reserved 2011

MMORPB // Tati & Tony in Raiders of the Lost Snark Part Nine (Moderately Multiplayer Online Role Playing Book 18+)

or: EPISODE 9 // Where Tati Battles Demonic Barbers and Tony Falls for a Bounteous Bouffant

In our previous episode, Tati threatened to drop Tony like a lead balloon, and demonstrated an unexpected knowledge of the Bible. And Tony? Well… Tony was just Tony (but with less hair and wearing a whale’s stomach).

“Tony!” Tati whacked another Acolyte of Beguiling Beauty on the head with her umbrella before sharply turning around. “Tony, what are you doing?! Throw away that bloody wig and help me, you fucking hamsters’ lick-spittle!”

Tony was just standing there. There were practically love hearts in his eyes for what looked like a dead rodent in his hands. How that thing could be labelled a wig was beyond her imagining. The Acolytes of Beguiling Beauty had them completely surrounded now, and all he could do was moon over this piece of shit!

“Call me what you want,” cooed Tony, stroking the ‘wig’. “But don’t be dissin’ this bounteous bouffant!”

Tati performed a head spinning, flying somersault and landed right in the middle of the group near Tony. Another second and the wig was swinging at the tip of her umbrella. She grabbed Tony with one hand and brandished the umbrella with the other, driving away the growling and hissing Acolytes.

“What the fuck are these things?” she grimaced. “They’re nothing like any barbers I’ve seen.”

“They kinda look a bit like Edward Scissorhands,” said Tony, almost in awe. “But more androgynous, and with more impressive hair. I just hope they don’t accidentally cut my bits off!”

Tony snatched the wig off of Tati’s umbrella and covered his naked willy with it.

“I don’t believe you!” Tati was furious. She grabbed the calamitous wig from him and threw it away, causing Tony to squeak. “We’re surrounded by an army of Johnny Depp zombies, and all you can think of is your silly doodle?”

“It’s not silly to me. I need my doodle!”

Tati smacked an Acolyte aside. It slid on its back down the wall of the barber shop, and ended up in a crumpled heap on the floor. She yanked Tony with her and cut a swathe through the rest of them, mainlining for the door.

“It’s kind of ironic that we materialised in this hellish barber shop,” added Tony, almost as an afterthought. “Given that we’re now, you know, bald.”

“No, it’s not ironic. You’re bald and a fool!” They were nearly at the door now. “It’s your wishes. The umbrella brings you to the place you wish to be at the most! And while I was trying to think of a safe spot your idiotic fantasies beat me to it!”

“But… but why would I dream of being at the barber shop if I have no hair?”

Tati shoved Tony through the door. He tripped and stumbled into the street, ending up on all fours.

“Just shut up and think of a better place!” barked Tati. She was trying to keep the Acolytes inside with the tip of her umbrella. It was quite sharp, and they seemed to heed this fact, cowering just out of its reach—though this didn’t stop them from clicking their scissor like hands in a rather menacing manner.

“From crater to a whale’s stomach—and now this! How is it that we end up in these ridiculous situations?”

“Stop whining!” snapped Tati. ” Just think! Quickly!”

She tried to barricade the door with her leg, her finger hovering anxiously over the button on the umbrella’s handle. Tony, still on all fours, looked at her horror-stricken.


Catch other episodes in this series:
THE PILOT // Where Tati Makes Tony Blush
EPISODE 2 // Where Tati Makes Tony Choke
EPISODE 3 // Where Tati Gives Tony a Fungus Face
EPISODE 4 // Where Tati Rescues Tony’s Suitcase
EPISODE 5 // Where Tati Grabs Tony’s Shirt
EPISODE 6 // Where Tati Supercalifragilisticexpialidociouses Tony to New Heights
EPISODE 7 // Where Tati Cocks the Hamster and Tony Watches
EPISODE 8 // Where Tati Refuses to be the Mother of Mutants and Tony Pouts

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2020

SCHEHERAZADE’S 1,001 BYTES // A Paltry Fate

Once upon a time there was a paltry palt named Kolobok. He was a good guy, but he also had micaphobia, an irrational fear of breadcrumbs. He fled the bakery where he was made as it was there that he was surrounded by a hell of a lot of crumbs.

So, he ran and ran and ran—or rather, rolled—leaving behind a trail of breadcrumbs as thick as his arm. He was sometimes so out of breath that he needed to stop, but whenever he looked back all he saw was… well, crumbs. So, he kept going. It was a minor miracle that there was anything left of him to run from.

His flight of fear took him to different countries. In Germany, two strange children gave chase through a dark forest, yelling expletives after him. Fortunately for Kolobok, he didn’t know German—nor specifically the Hessian dialect—so their expletives had no impact on his emotional state. It was only the fear of being caught that did, for they seemed excessively hungry given the plumpness of their bodies. Of course, how Kolobok could have concluded they were swearing at him in the first place is another question for another time.

The children kept picking up Kolobok’s breadcrumb trail wherever he went, and throwing said breadcrumbs to slow his progress. They were relentless in their pursuit. They wouldn’t quit until they were sidetracked by a candy house tucked away in a quiet forest clearing. Loud cackling and shrill screams were the last thing Kolobok heard as he ducked back into the dense foliage to make good his escape. Served them right for being ill-mannered, gluttonous brats!

Somewhere near the border of France, Kolobok rolled over something. It felt alarmingly soft and squishy. When he looked back, he immediately wished to unsee what he’d seen. Poor kid! No bigger than a thumb, said kid was now no more than a pathetic mud puddle. Kolobok could only hope that he’d led a rich and full life before his unfortunate demise. But then… the kid began to splash about in the mud puddle, crying bloody murder. Kolobok hadn’t killed him after all! Huzzah! But when he listened closely to what the kid was shouting, it caused him to shudder. Yes, unlike German, Kolobok could parle français pretty well.

Few things are as terrifying than the sight of a thumb-sized child uttering curses in a ground-trembling, ominous voice. He was dooming Kolobok to a lonely death in a labyrinth of his own making. The palt was so frightened at this pronouncement that he was unable to grasp its meaning. He only knew that it couldn’t be good, and fled the scene as fast as he was able. Of course, Kolobok’s French wasn’t perfect. It can be too easy to mistake “la mort” for “l’amour”, which is exactly what he did—now his mind was awash with visions of a googly-eyed thumb pinching his soft, delicate buns. Holy gluten!

So it was that Kolobok moved speedily on, trailing more breadcrumbs. His fairy tale took a turn for the worse at the border of Italy. Said border was closed because the COVID-19 pandemic had just begun, so no one was allowed in or out. Also, no one in charge bothered to note that since Kolobok was made of simple flour and water—not frankenfood and gluten—he posed zero threat to the general public. Actually, that wasn’t strictly true about the gluten. He did have a little gluten in him. People would have been scandalised! Still, as it stood, the Italians were adamant that he was riddled with contagion, and so he was required to move on.

That’s when Kolobok headed for Spain. When he passed through the puddle again, that nasty child (let’s call him a schmendrick) shouted more words after him. Maybe it was “la tombe” this time, but Kolobok couldn’t be sure. It’s just what it sounded like. He was too busy trying to outrun his own crumb trail to listen very closely. His fright and flight response took him past the child as far as the borders of Belgium and Switzerland, both of which also declined entry. It seemed everywhere was closing its borders because of COVID-19. Where was a poor palt to go?

He eventually ended up rolling around on a beach somewhere, trying to avoid the incoming tide as much as possible. Getting wet would mean instant death, and he couldn’t have that. He still wasn’t sure if there was a hell for wayward foods like himself, and he was convinced he hadn’t racked up enough brownie points to get into heaven quite yet, so he’d have to live for a little while longer.

It was a terrible shame. So many difficulties had presented themselves on Kolobok’s long journey here, in the form of rocky terrain, unending border queues, and one bullying chiffchaff from the rough end of the Black Forest. These had caused Kolobok’s gravity centre to slowly and irrevocably become displaced. Instead of his usual, solid, near-perfect spherical shape, he’d turned into something reminiscent of a spitball with a crippling side dent. Of course, this made it hard for Kolobok to roll in a straight line. He would skid left all the time, so getting from point A to point B in a non-circuitous route became an absolute ordeal. He was as murky dish water circling the drain of doom.

And that’s how the hapless palt eventually died. He’d gotten lost in a maze of walls formed from his impossibly long and convoluted crumb trail. The thumb-sized child’s (or shmendrick’s) prophecy had come to pass, and it was only moments from death that its meaning dawned on Kolobok. So, he lay in a malaise of deteriorating pastry and… well, malaise. He’d always dreamed of being a Rolling Stone, not this! Now, all he could look forward to was having his guts carried away by armies of ants. How horribly, disappointingly banal. He should have been a chocolate éclair.

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2020

MMORPB // Tati & Tony in Raiders of the Lost Snark Part Eight (Moderately Multiplayer Online Role Playing Book 18+)

or: EPISODE 8 // Where Tati Refuses to be the Mother of Mutants and Tony Pouts

In our previous episode, Tati and Tony discussed the state-of-the-art hamster porno industry, and proved that no one should buy super secret weapons from James Bond’s personal arsenal in a pedestrian subway in Uryupinsk.

“Please, don’t be a drama queen” growled Tati. “Or I will drop you.”

Suddenly, Tony stopped short. His eyes were as wide as hubcaps, then he began to gasp like a fish in a glass of tequila. He was clearly trying to speak, but couldn’t, mouthing the words instead. In fact, he was trying to draw Tati’s attention to something that was right next to them. Tati raised her eyes from his face to whatever had suddenly blocked the sun.

“What… what the holy, blue, actual huge fuck?!”

And that’s when the whale swallowed them. That’s right. A whale in the sky. A sky whale. It had flippers and it was flying.

Tati and Tony tumbled down the whale’s windpipe for what seemed like forever. There were lots of wet plops and bounces all the way down, until their moustaches and hats disappeared and they were coated with thick layers of saliva. They finally came to a stop in a giant chamber full of a bubbly liquid that was caustic to the touch. Tati clambered up a fleshy protrusion, dragging a hapless Tony with her.

“Shit.” Tati looked down at herself. Her clothes had completely disintegrated and dropped right off of her. She looked at Tony. Him too.

“I am ashamed!” squeaked Tony, immediately hiding his very tiny manhood behind one hand. The other hand was covering his face.

“Well, at least the umbrella’s still okay,” sighed Tati. She didn’t feel the need to comfort her friend in his time of emotional need. There were more pressing concerns.

Suddenly, Tony dropped his hand to reveal a faraway look on his face. “Adam and Eve,” he whispered. “We’re like… you know, Adam and Eve!”

Tati looked at him as if he was a complete, Old Testament bedlamite. She snorted derisively.

“Well… I may not be a Bible maniac,” she said, “but I do believe the ‘Jonah’ analogy is more appropriate here.”

Tony pouted. Obviously, in his wacky mind they’d already been through the Fall, and were ready to provide the whale’s innards with future generations of sticky, mutant inhabitants.

“Fine,” muttered Tony. “Then let’s get the hell out of here!”

“I couldn’t agree more,” said Tati, cocking her head to one side. She was studying the umbrella with renewed interest.

Tony noticed this. “What?”

“This umbrella has a special function. I just don’t know if it’s safe to activate it inside the belly of a flying whale.”

“What does it do?”

Tati glanced at her pathetic friend, then realised something awful. He was bald. The bubbly liquid stuff had eaten away Tony’s beautiful long hair. And his eyebrows. And, presumably, his pubes? In fact, there was not a single jot of hair left on his entire body!

“Why are you patting your head?”

Tati ignored his question, alarmed that she no longer had hair either. Nowhere, actually. She had hair nowhere. What the freaking fuck…

“Well, it looks like I no longer care if it’s safe to activate the special umbrella inside a whale.”

And before Tony could protest, Tati pressed a button on the handle. The umbrella flared wider than before. Sparks flew from its tip and canvas edges, sending what looked like streams of fireworks into the walls of the whale’s insides and gloop. Then everything around them grew brighter and brighter…


Catch other episodes in this series:
THE PILOT // Where Tati Makes Tony Blush
EPISODE 2 // Where Tati Makes Tony Choke
EPISODE 3 // Where Tati Gives Tony a Fungus Face
EPISODE 4 // Where Tati Rescues Tony’s Suitcase
EPISODE 5 // Where Tati Grabs Tony’s Shirt
EPISODE 6 // Where Tati Supercalifragilisticexpialidociouses Tony to New Heights
EPISODE 7 // Where Tati Cocks the Hamster and Tony Watches

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2020