Robotomy
Transmission from Nubium9 to AICRO, 15 May 2145 The fleshlings routinely insult me. I’m a brain surgeon, and what do they call me? Repairdroid. Maybe it’s because I wouldn’t touch a human brain with a three-meter laser. They don’t think silicoperations count as surgery, even though the procedures are so complex they would require a large team of fleshlings even to attempt. You wouldn’t think it would be too much to ask them to call me fellow surgeon, to call me doctor. I would even settle for cybermedic. But instead I get repairdroid. No higher status than the drudge-bots...
Read MoreThe Society
The pup in me quivered, but the burgeoning wolf snarled as I thrashed my head around, trying to get the black nylon hood off my head. The hood smelled from a mixture of creatures’ sweat, and I couldn’t pick out a distinct scent; but I was sure of the other smell: men. There were two of them in the room. One of them reminded me of the woods: balsam and pine. The other man’s scent was waterless: dry earth, yellow pollen and sun. A punch in the gut knocked me into a concrete wall, and then the hood was yanked off. I didn’t fall. I wasn’t about to look weak, despite my stomach seizing...
Read MoreFeatured Works: Week of Sept. 21 (Inspiration)
As writers, artists, musicians, photographers, we craft our works based on what inspires us. This week’s Wild Violet contributors let us inside the creative process. In “My Muse Sings Only Country” by Emory Jones, a “truck-stop troubador” takes a writing journey. Inspired by that country-singing muse, in his poem “Border Country,” Emory Jones tells a tale of Tennessee men and boys. “In the Desert of My Mind” by A.J. Huffman delves into the zen of writing. In “The Muse of Monterey” by Thomas Piekarski, the speaker...
Read MoreThe Muse of Monterey
I make no excuses for my Muse who resides in Zodiac’s centrifugal eye. She spies on me through fog-shrouded shadows at night. My Muse on leave from her usual station beside Santa Rosalia, guardian of Monterey. She waits tables at the waterfront nightclub at a spot where I’m often asked to snap photos on iPhones for tourists from faraway lands. My Muse has a special talent for delighting customers who circumnavigate the place, and is envied by many who amplify her cheer as they quaff frosty glasses of imported...
Read MoreIn the Desert of My Mind
I am cactus without flower, camel without hump, oasis without water. I am absence of wishes and desire to wander deeper into monotonous dunes. I am independent grain, drifting in wind, hoping I will find friction, fuse into reflective solid, shine as blue of my eye becomes mirror to anonymous seekers of the...
Read MoreBorder Country
Black jack hills roll into Tennessee Where toughs bounce Mississippi boys In honky-tonk parking lots, A Saturday night sport. “That’s the curve where he lost it. Just too durn drunk to know what hit him Jumped four strands of barbed wire and flipped in that gully. Junior was thrown free, But it sliced his head off just above the eyebrows— Sheet metal and brains, Just sheet metal and brains. Kept the casket closed at the funeral.” You don’t want to know where that smoke comes from Drifting out of hidden hollows. “One time, me and Joe Frank went squirrel hunting Way back...
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