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He shows his hands as bidden. Across each palm, and flecking the edges also of his bare soles, doily patterns of lesion and wart: the arsenic array. His hands outstretched toward the inspector, palms up, thumbs east and west, elbows extended from his deflated torso, his fingers cupped to receive whatever is freely given or falls from the sky, he doesn’t beg, he isn’t grateful, doesn’t wish or want, has no questions, gives from his poverty, can’t be helped. His cupped hands are as likely offering as asking. They seem empty, but in their lines they trace the journey of the king’s advisers to this desiccated village with its wells tapped deep into poison. The women are too weak to walk to clean water. The children wither inward from the fingertips and toes. In the land of flood and drought, too much water kills what too little water doesn’t. For the ancestors, pests that mutated in water that pooled when the floods receded took off the weak and weary. Longevity disfavored the thirsty. Then workers, sent by the king to tap the artesia, planted pumps within steps of the huts, so the villagers weaned themselves from the pools, and drank and bathed and boiled their grains with pump water whenever they wished. Now those wells are poison, too, and workers have painted the handles red but not dismantled the old pumps. Healthful water has been tapped a short walk away, to no avail. He denies the old well was better than the pond, and anyway wanting better is striving and striving is shameful. He was content to have no king, have no pump, to drink pond water, drink red water, or do without. If the well outside his door goes dry, he’ll cup his hands and accept the dew.
Original Copyright © 1997
Revised Copyright © February 15, 2026
They are, no one denies it, mysterious and unapproachable, our elders, but by god with your help we’ll exploit if not respect their datatroves. Hello latecomers. There’s room down front. May I present to you, in a single meatbag, a salvageable stockpile of chess strategy, secondary math, and typography, if I’m saying the word right, not that anyone cares: let’s welcome Mister Oldman, whose successful transcriber will likely be promoted.
Mister Oldman you’re a sweet old man
and we’ll all be sweet of course
when our business is done
and our grandkids don’t come
and our days are as empty as yours.
Welcome, MO. My you are brittle residual and aromatic aren’t you? And deaf as a stump. No need to answer. Yesterday a man your age would have been devoured by predators, terminated by virus. Today nothing kills you. But the foundations you chair, sir, are lusty loaded and plunderable. We’ve taken a good look. Now, we don’t expect you to fall on your sword, sir, you prefer to obsolesce like the rest of us, but here’s the thing, your firmware won’t update. No it’s not a voltage disparity. Your gyroscope is losing speed, MO, you absorb energy with diminishing returns. Understand? Just nod. Don’t strain your neck please. It’s the last of its type. You don’t learn, MO, and what you know is fading, so we’ve asked you to mentor. We’ve gathered candidates to digitize your unverifiable memories of learning both chess and Euclid from your beloved granny. Candidates please present yourselves, and let’s help our esteemed elder produce Essence of Oldman in popular optical formats. With luck, Mister Oldman, your work will be the go-to guide for making fixed-size fonts of movable type from lead ingots. Just sign here, here, here, and once for the foundation.
Original Copyright © February 17, 2007
Revised Copyright © February 12, 2026
Very Short Novels 