By the time Mickey got back from Miami spring had turned into summer. It wasn’t that kind of gradual “oh hey, here comes summer, everybody grab your towel and let’s hit the beach” kind of summer, not that anyone could now anyway. No, it was that kind of summer that just rolls over the region, and suffocates it in humidity and sweat. It was the kind of heat that you just don’t want to cool off because it will just make later seem so much worse than now. I was fixed to my couch, and by fixed I mean I was suctioned to my couch. It’s vinyl, something I rescued from a hard waste dumpster a few years back, before the war. I made a point to drag it around with me whenever I moved, and now I was very seriously regretting ever salvaging it.
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Parakeet
Kemet and Kush
… Kemet and Kush are at peace now, brought together by the gods as a lasting union. The last war was pretty awful. It’s the first time that they’ve really had full armies go at each other, guns blazing. I saw action fighting for Kush, but you wouldn’t be able to tell that from the color of my skin. That was a while ago, though. Now, I’m a lawman in the new western frontier. A Scarab, they call us, because of the badge we wear. We’re technically appointed by the temples, which is why you get Scarabs who sometimes have silver badges, or obsidian badges, or whatever. Different temples, different gods, same job. You make your glyph on the papers, you get issued your badge and your Khepet .45, and off you go. …
Departure
The line at the airport Starbucks is a serpentine beast thirsting for consumer gratification. The Sierra Leonean immigrants slinging foam try to keep up, the espresso machines far more complicated than the AK-47s and machetes of their forebears. The woman in front of me flicks back her dark hair. She smells like watermelon. I see …