I had an arguement with a roommate about the comparitive merits of Philip K. Dick and Robert Heinlein. He maintained that Dick was a terrible misogynist and Heinlein was brilliant and questioning. I argued that Dick, faults aside, wrote very refreshing characters in interesting environments, and that Heinlein had a habit of using his characters and settings to lecture about his fickle and sometimes acidic opinions. He'd mostly read the short stories of both of these authors while I had mostly read the novels. In retrospect, we both could hove gotten more out of that arguement then we could ha--
"Sick." said the madam, and she crashed the automoton on the floor.
"But!" her daughter implored.
"Ill!" follorwed by another crash.
"Robots don't--"
"Disease!" Bam!
Science fiction authors wrote about theoretical computer viruses that could infect humans, the young woman thought helplessly as her mother raged against the confused machine, but how could they have known that, oh! it was the anti-virus software they should have worried over?
How could it be that I've become enough of a nerd that I'm willing to write an ethics paper on a particularly prickly scenario encountered while playing Dungeons and Dragons with some friends? Nevermind, perhaps I shouldn't reflect on that while I'm so close to it.
He ducked to move closer to the giant fox-like creature. "I know your real name!"
"Do you, now?" the ancient wonder questioned, her voice as beautiful and powerful as an avalanche.
"Yes, and I know that you'll be bound to any mortal's will that can command that name," the skinny young American opened the weathered book at his chest. "I've researched in libraries lost in sands of glass to find it, swam through my own soul and braved the forest of black pine to find you."
"I'm aware." The creature's knowing smile turned to gentle sadness as the human continued.
He faultered. "Your name, it is Janeth Autumn-Rodes Forever Breaknot?"
She sighed. "I was beside you the whole time, but I could not make you understand that the magic of names is not limited to my kind, but all things. When you name something, or understand its name, you own it in a way, you grasp the very handles of the souls, and that's not something to be treated roughly."
The book droped from his hands, stunned as he understood that his companion was not behind him as she had been, but before him in her true splendor. Before he could speak, she proved her point.
She closed her eyes. "Malcolm Theodore Creigwright, go get me a sandwich."
His eyes downcast, he shuffled into the kitchen that hadn't been there before. As he rifled through the fridge for the sprouts, the kitsune wept for the first time in hundreds of years.
