THE PROCESSOR

“Ugh. Dude’s always here.”

Corey sneers as he speaks.

“What dude?”

Susan looks up and down Church Street at all the prospects.

“That clown,” Corey waves a hand toward the subject.

“Oh.” Susan focuses on the target. “You mean Felyx? Pretty sure he and some of my coworkers at the coffee shop are pals.”

“Yeah. God damn Felyx.”

“What’s so bad about Felyx?”

“Really?”

“Guess a whole ass maroon Corona 4 refurb set on your lap does come across as a tad artsy fartsy and douchey.”

“A tad? Dude’s the Gen Y-er you battle after you battle all the other Gen Y-ers.”

They watch Felyx, flat cap, tweed vest, Tupac tee, double rolled and cuffed pants, laceless dress shoes, and no socks, accept money from a passerby, type a short poem, then hand the poem to the patron.

“Wouldn’t bother me so much, but every poem has the same base structure over and over. Barely half a step above ‘roses are red, others are blue, my name’s Felyx, how do you do?’”

“Can’t be that bad,” Susan counters.

“Have you ever read Felyx’s stuff?”

“No.”

“Fuck.” Wallet now open, Corey grabs a tenner, and hands the money to Susan. “Go buy yourself one of the so-called custom poems.”

“Won’t that just exacerbate the problem? He’ll have your money on top of that.”

“Whatever. Money well spent to prove myself correct.”

“B R B,” Susan rolls her eyes and walks over to the so-called poet.

Corey watches the exchange from the shadows.

Susan accepts the paper courteously and reads the poem to herself as she returns to Corey.

“Jesus,” Susan shakes her head. “You were correct. Plug and play poetry.” She hands Corey the paper, who folds and pockets the poem.

“See?”

“The poem sucks, but subpar poetry really shouldn’t bother you that much. No real harm done.”

“No harm beyond an unredeemable affront to every poet and poem that came before.”

Susan rolls her eyes.

“Well, a few Cape Cods at Trouvere’s and you’ll forget all about poetry,” she says.

“Probably. You gonna pay?” Corey jokes.

“Fuck no,” Susan scoffs.

They both laugh then head down to Trouvere’s.

~~~

Corey returns home a touch drunker than he usually does.

He makes sure to chug a glass of water and then pours another before he walks toward the sofa and pulls out the wallet and folded poem.

“God damn Felyx.” Corey fumes and places the paper and wallet on the end table before he plops down on the couch.

“Fuck.”

Annoyance at and for Felyx consumes Corey’s thoughts.

He stands back up, allows for the wobble to pass, then snags the laptop from the desk across the room.

Back seated on the couch, Corey opens the laptop and searches for used 1980s word processors. Corey selects the parameters he wants.

One model stands out.

“Never heard of that brand.”

He selects the name.

“Flauros L model. Has all the features… Not too costly...”

The arrow cursor hovers over “purchase” for a moment of expectant dread.

A gust of cold, and a strange brownout, sweeps through the apartment as Corey makes the purchase.

Corey shakes off the unease, and promptly falls asleep on the couch.

~~~

A few uneventful days pass as Corey ghost authors a bawdy Werewolf x Grey novella, before he hears a knock on the front door.

He stands and then ambles toward the foyer.

Once at the door, he leans forward to peer through the peephole.

No one.

Somewhat nervously, he unlocks and opens the door.

Corey glances at the package placed at the doorstep, then looks up and down the empty breezeway of the apartments.

“Strange,” he muses for a moment, shrugs, then leans over to grab the brown box.

Corey closes and locks the door, sets the package on the counter, and frowns at the lack of return address and clues as to what the package could be.

Undeterred by the mystery, Corey grabs and then eases a blade between the seams of the box. He carefully cuts the brown paper tape and the strands of the tape start to snap and spread just as the guts of some creature would.

The seal broken, Corey sets the blade down and opens the box.

“Oh,” he laughs. “Almost forgot about that.”

Corey takes the contents out of the box, and sets a black case on the counter. Corey’s hands run tenderly along the edges of the case as he stares at the red eyes of the leopard logo centered on top.

Corey’s hands flow to the back of the case and undo the back two latches. They then caress around and undo all the latches, each set after the other.

Corey never breaks the gaze of the eyes of the leopard before he opens the case and looks at the processor.

Sleek and smooth, and the color of bone, the processor yearns to be used.

Corey caresses the keys and stares at the LCD screen that seems to stare back.

He checks to make sure every accessory’s present, and, by force, closes the case and returns to the other work.

Corey taps at the laptop keys for hours of no progress. Annoyed at the lack of progress, he leans forward and stares at the screen.

Corey…

A murmur of a call from the case.

Corey…

He slowly turns, stands, grabs the case and keys, and heads downtown.

Corey sets up on the bench next to the one that a now confused Felyx uses.

Corey does not acknowledge the hated poet as he opens the case and presses the power button on the processor.

A hum reaches Corey’s ears and the LCD screen glows red.

The processor now rests on Corey’s lap as he watches group after group of people walk by.

“Do you do poetry too?” A woman of twenty-seven eventually asks Corey.

“Very short, flash prose,” he responds.

“How does that work?”

“You tell me a genre, or some such, and me and the processor do the rest.”

“Okay.” She stops to ponder for a moment. “How about a heartfelt fantasy story.”

“Sure,” Corey nods. “What’s your name?”

“Jenny.”

“A heartfelt fantasy story for Jenny then.”

Corey takes a deep breath.

The story – A Message.

Corey – The Prophet.

Corey’s hands dance gracefully over the keys of the processor.

Granddaughter and Grandmother embark on one last adventure. They pass through purple asters on the way to save the woodland creatures from the nasty Snallygaster. They return from the successful adventure, and Grandmother bestows her last lessons and knowledge to the granddaughter. Grandmother then passes on as a cloud of argent dust to accompany the stars and echo the song that resounds above the world.

Corey feels a form of ecstasy as the story flows from ether to hands to processor to paper.

He hands the pages that eject from the back of the processor to Jenny.

Jenny reads the story to herself as tears well at the corners of her eyes.

Once done, she lowers the pages then throws her arms around Corey.

Corey, confused and unsure of how to properly respond, pats her on the back.

“Sorry.” Jenny chuckles and clears her throat as she steps back and rubs the last remnant of tears from her eyes. “Shouldn’t have cramped up your personal space.”

“No problem,” Corey reassures her.

“Was super close to my Grandmother and she passed on recently. Fresh trauma.” She shrugs.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Jenny shakes her head. “Your story helped make whatever leftover sadness was there leave me. So, thank you.” She takes a breath. “Oh. Here.” Jenny pulls out a twenty. “Hope that’s enough.”

“More than plenty.”

~~~

Corey returns home, exhausted.

Each tale he wrote had some truth about the person who had requested a story from Corey.

Truths he could not have known.

A deep slumber takes Corey as he leans back on the couch.

Corey sees a vast, barren landscape formed of basalt beneath a ruby red sky.

Suddenly, a half man, half leopard, bounds up one of the large basalt rocks, hunches down, and gazes upon Corey.

Fear churns Corey’s guts, but he cannot look away from the leopard.

“Who… who are you?” Corey manages to squeak out.

“My name you know. Flauros. Haures. Keeper of secret knowledge of the past, present, and future. A Duke of great renown.”

The leopard’s speech, deep and awful, pounds at Corey’s chest.

“What…” Corey stammers and swallows hard. “What do you want?”

“What do you want? You are the one that summoned me. You have had a taste of the secrets. Secrets that bolstered your lukewarm scrawl. But you also long for your adversary to be removed. Burned and scratched away.”

Corey’s thoughts are consumed by the ecstasy he felt from the tales he wrote, as well as complete and total hatred for Felyx.

“Behold then my power. Duke Flauros shall lay waste to whoever be your adversary and burn them away.”

The leopard’s eyes glow red, screams echo through the sky, and Corey abruptly wakes up.

Corey’s phone then announces Susan’s call.

“Hello?” Corey answers.

“Corey?” Susan says, both exasperated and concerned. “What the fuck, man? Why’d you blow off twelve of my calls? At least you answered now.”

“Sorry,” Corey mumbles. “What’s up?”

“What’s up? Felyx’s housemates found the dude dead. Eyes burned out and all exploded.”

“What?” Corey jolts up.

“Yeah, dude. Completely fucked up.”

Corey…

Corey slowly turns toward the processor.

“Was concerned that maybe…”

Corey…

Corey stands, drops the phone, and shuffles over to the processor.

“Corey? Corey?! Are you there?!”

We have such tales for you to tell.