I will be publishing some of my work from past years here. I opened a file the other night containing literally hundreds of (virtual...but also real) pages of short stories and also some unpublished novels. Here is just a little taste.

iBoy

Marc Lowe

The baby, they told us, was upside-down.  In other words, right-side-up.  We had to do something, so I gave my wife my iPod and I put some loud music on.  This ought to get him to move around.  Just stuff it down the front of your pants.  She looked at me cockeyed at first, but then did as I said.  We played it some King Crimson, then some classic Nine Inch Nails and Swans.  I feel it turning, my wife said.  Yes, it’s turning around!  We went to the doctor the next day, and indeed the baby had turned around and was now head-down.  When it was born two weeks later, however, it came out holding a small iPod player and had tiny earbuds in its tiny ears.  Disbelieving, my wife thought it was some sort of a joke.  But in fact, as the doctor told us, this was a birth defect that was becoming more and more common of late.  What can you do? he said.  It’s a vastly different world out there from when we were born!  I see infants coming out with electronic gadgets all the time; you’re lucky he doesn’t have a cellular stuck to his ear, or isn’t a videogame addict.  Despite what the doctor said, I didn’t at all like the idea of my child, my boy, having an iPod permanently attached to its body.  Too much music listened to that way can cause tinnitus.  Can’t we cut the iPod off? my wife asked, but the doctor sadly shook his head.  If you do that, you risk losing the baby.  They cry so much they stop breathing, or they bleed to death.  I don’t recommend it.  We both looked at each other, shrugged, and brought him home.  We have high hopes that he’ll become a great electronic musician when he grows up, rather than a ripper of free online music.  But one never knows.

(Spring 2011)