James Grinwis
bio
Quest's End
The Iplodon trudged across the steppe as the
first wisps of windblown slaw began spinning out of the ice
vents to the east. Molegolus’s third sun, like a crisp acorn,
shot its charred light through the magnetosphere. Smokis the
Proud strode beside the lathered withers of the Iplodon, whose
load of quantum grass and sprigots had not gotten any lighter
over the eight day trek. The distant, hazy smudge of light
that was the city of Isfragham held the gaze of both beast
and man. Smokis thought of the honor he’d receive, and the
Iplodon, of the water and hot sac of porridge that would be
brought to him. The road was starting, finally, to show signs
of life: wine kiosks, farrier stations, prefab shelters. The
flimsiness of everything Smokis attributed to last year’s
war, but, he thought, this recent bout with the future was
already a forgotten glint on the backside of every eye. The
Iplodon released an awful groan, as if something inexplicable
was lurking just ahead on the horizon.
Pizza Shop
In a little restaurant somewhere far up north,
a young waitress in fishnets and running shoes brings a pepperoni
pizza and a pitcher of Bud to Betty and Bill, a middle-aged
couple at a corner table. The television anchored to the wall
streams forth CNN’s Headline News. We are in the opposite
of an in-between, high transit kind of place. Here, the roads
are usually encased in ice. There are more plows than cars,
more wolves than dogs. The pizza is hot however, with an adequate
level of sauce, though the waitress seems to have left for
a 15 minute rendezvous in the windowless van out back. The
kind of rendezvous that happens regularly up here, in between
hockey and night shift. Betty gets up from the table and makes
her way to the bar good naturedly to refill the empty pitcher
herself, smiling as the foamy gush of beer pours in. In this
world, drinking is like breathing, until the authority says
no, no more drinking for you. Twenty minutes pass, forty,
an hour, then Bill gets up and sees there is no van out there
anymore, no waitress. We like to think that, tired of her
dead end job in this ice-wracked town, she up and left for
a warmer place, happy, free, full of love. We like to think
the man is like Romeo, though less tragic, honorable, handsome,
with a ton of potential and lots of plans. Gutsy, just like
that, up and left, we like to think.
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