And they've rigged up the pinball so it's free all night

Today: finished another review. Finally finished my changes to the The Carrier, although I couldn't bring myself to read it again.

Later . . .

Thoughts on Mrs. Painter

There's something decidely creepy about old ladies. If you'd asked me yesterday, I honestly couldn't have told you where Mrs. Painter, the peculiar old lady from Curiosity, actually came from. I couldn't figure out what inspired her until I took a bus into Kings this morning.

The next village over from Limbo, let's call it the Dynamic Village, is where people go to die once they get here. They wait their time out in a collection of bungalows and the like at the end of the village. Twice a day or so the bus goes down there to pick them all up. They gather behind the bus stop--sometimes up to a dozen of them--as if they were huddling together for warmth. When it comes they rush forward, chittering. They all look the same--exactly as I described Mrs. Painter, except that I left out the coats they all wear, all-weather polyester creations in varying shades of blue and grey and biege. The chittering continues on the bus, like the insistent squawk of excited birds.

I began to think that maybe I was over-reacting--I mean, what kind of person thinks such things about sweet old ladies? And then a wasp somehow got on the bus, and I watched as one of the old ladies ruthlessly killed it. Without wasting any time she pulled one of those thick bus timetables from her bag, and administered to it the kind of beating that is normally reserved for tendering steak.

I moved back a few seats. The old lady returned the timetable to the bag and resumed her chittering.

I think I'm onto something.