Flash Fiction: Teeth in the Fog

1 - The Merchant

Supply and demand. The fog has been great for business because . . . supply and demand. Before, a man trying to make a living at the square had a market bloated with glitter and frivolity.

Food couldn't be just food, it had to be nurtured in the cleanest of farms, the animals serenaded by the sweetest of virgins every morning. A coat couldn't just shield a body from the cold, it had to be the perfect cut and color so the body looked slimmer, younger, richer. And the brands . . . no one of consequence would use anything that didn't bear a proper insignia.

The fog purified the system to its simplest form. Food, never mind its history, helped your hollow ache in your belly. The coat was a barrier between your skin and the teeth in the air. Younger people don't seem much significance in a brand anymore; they sort through piles of hand-me-downs for something that fits them without a thought for letters, prints, or stripes.

2 - The Parent

Not smart to have kids no more, so of course people want more. It gets lonely in the dark--lonely, cold, and dangerous. You have a kid because even if the teeth don't get you, hunger and sickness will hobble your back and squash your lungs. Maybe your kid will go hunt for you then, though the odds for that aren't good.

It's a bad investment either way. Kids die more often than not, their little noses clog with the sooty leftover of oily scales and fragments of insect limbs. A sleek, hunter dog would be a better bet. They don't need more than crumbling concrete, empty pipes, and what little meat you can't scrape off the bones of things they kill for you.

People keep trying for kids anyway. There's some instincts the fog can't kill.

3 - The Technician

They write in a language that once ruled the world. The commands flowed through a contained logic born from the abstract envisionings of a class of people with no skills to fight the fog. Their poems now live in sheets of paper dyed black with soot, the words painted in white wrung from the bellies of vanquished teeth.

Eventually, disciples will string together commands without understanding what they mean. The old technicians can't explain their meaning without their old tools any more than they could teach what 'sunny' means to someone blind from birth.

Or after the fog.

4 - The Hunter

There's a craft to growing old in the fog.

Without the comforts from before, no one can get much mileage out of a human body. Bones don't get as strong as the once did, a person's reach remains stunted, and deep restful sleep is suicidal when no one can predict when the wind will take a nasty turn. There isn't a human left that never huddles under their bed as storms slam teeth against their windows, teeth hitting glass, wood, cloth, or cardboard. Only the mournful rumbling of a hungry belly is worse.

It's easier, for the belly at least, to be alone. It takes hours of patience and focus to kill a single, skinny, rabid deer scurrying from building to building, obscured in the smog. The loneliness that eats at your every thought is an ally every time you don't have to hand over a piece of game, longing for every strip of stringy muscle you'll not rip off the twiggy bones.

5 - The Child

Orphans scurry from tower to tower, eyes glued to the ground for scraps. They fear the fog, but not as much as they trust their ears and noses. They're the ones that stay out longest when the bell signaling incoming storms ring, then come fastest when the wind subsides.

So they're the ones who find the carcasses left behind by the smog, and they're the ones who dig appreciate how the teeth in the fog have stripped away the skin and cooked the meat. They might look feral to those who retain the sensitivities of days past.

But they're not. They've just never seen the sun.  

Jessica Jones, AKA I can't believe I actually binge-watched it

I have some time off, technically, so I guess it's not a surprise that at the end of each episode, I saw no reason to not go on to the next. Full disclosure, I did go to sleep after episode nine, proving that I don't have the attention span to marathon an entire season of television. I don't know how people can watch like twenty-four episodes of anything in "a weekend" without losing their minds. Anyway. My initial, exhausted, dizzy impression is that I like this show very much. I liked it better than Daredevil, and I actually enjoyed Daredevil quite a bit.

Control the Controller: I hope this book wasn't as expensive when I bought it

Buy on Amazon, if you can afford it

For a while, videogame addiction was the hot topic of choice among the twenty-four-hour news cycle talking heads. For all I know, it might still be. As gamer who not-so-secretly feared she might be prone to addiction, the subject always interested me quite a bit.

Now that I know a little more about medicine and health, I can say with certainty that I've never actually been addicted to anything. Saying that I could be because "I can't quit chocolate" makes about as much sense as the people who say they're "so OCD" because they like a neat and clean work space.

Nevertheless, the subject still interests me. Since games as we know them haven't been part of our culture for too long, it was a little difficult to find work focused on the subject of videogame addiction, but a few months back, I purchased a copy of Control the Controller: Understanding and Resolving Video Game Addiction by Dr. Ciaran O'Connor, a psychotherapist working with gaming addicts.

What makes this book a special resource is that Dr. O'Connor is a gamer himself, one with background in videogame design. His background lets him see that, while some people probably cannot touch a game without spiraling into unhealthy playing habits, most gamers can reach a point where they can play without letting it become detrimental to their familial, romantic, platonic, or professional relationships. He understands that videogames are a much more like alcohol than . . . say, cocaine, in the sense that, like alcohol, they are perfectly legal to use, and perfectly safe in moderation.

Essentially, Dr. O'Connor doesn't equate gaming itself with videogame addiction, so he avoids the pitfall of talking like the mere act of playing leads to personal, professional, and financial ruin. He does so while acknowledging that game developers do try to create games with the purpose of hooking vulnerable players, even when it means developing a game that's not particularly fun to play. Such tactics have always been part of the business, but they've grown more prominent with the rise of "casual" gaming on smartphones and the development of downloadable content, where developers can theoretically make a game that would be profitable forever.

Daredevil, episode five

Jessica Jones is starting soon and I wanted to have my commentary for this entire series done before that one started. It's probably not going to happen, but Netflix's big advantage is that I can wait as long as I want before writing anything about Jessica Jones. Or maybe I'll start talking about that series immediately. We'll see.

In the meantime, I remember next to nothing about Daredevil's fifth episode. Onward.

Matt, showing more shock and concern when a mobster is shot by the police than when a blind Chinese man is shot in the middle of one of his vigilante scuffles; #so heroic

• For the record, I think Clare's post-kidnapping injuries would show more swelling than this opening is letting on. I guess the Beauty is Never Tarnished trope is in full effect here, and in a show that I distinctly remember bragging about gritty darkness. Marvel's commitment to "realism" for its Netflix properties must not be so strong that they'd risk showing Rosario Dawson in anything less than her full glory. 
• I missed the FSoG reference the first time I watched this.
• "Taste copper in the air". How has Matt not gone insane from sensory overload? Nevermind. Superhero. 
• While I like the "world on fire" concept, I didn't like the effect they used for it.
• Wait, that was the first time Clare and Matt kissed? I have not been paying as much attention as I thought. Or maybe too much attention because I could've sworn they got together like . . . episodes ago.

And now, my shoes

Going on interviews involves a lot of walking and, as a woman forced to wear "professional" attire (not sweats and sneakers), I need to do the walking while wearing uncomfortable shoes. Heels, even. God help me. The suit I found on sale at Burlington Coat Factory is quite long. I've decided it means the manufacturers just expected that any woman buying the suit soon would wear heels. First, I wondered if the retail world doesn't just think that a woman my height should be quite so big, but I'm like 5'10 so how much taller did they expect me to be?

Although, it's entirely possible that Calvin Klein would find me fat. I hear he finds everyone fat.

Anyway, I had two options: go to the tailor and get the pants shortened, or buy heels. I don't know what came over me, but I decided that if Calvin Klein thought the suit needed them, then I should try to find comfortable heels. My friends and the internet assured me that such things exist. I think they're delusional. They all say I just need to "get used to it", but when is pain a sign that I need to get used to something? Regardless, I recognize I know nothing of fashion, so I listened to those who sounded like they knew what they were talking about.

My rotation shoes, from some store in NYC whose name I don't remember

These are the shoes I wore on my clinical rotations whenever I wasn't allowed to wear sneakers. Once I broke them in, I would even wear them with scrubs.

I love them. One of my friends calls them "hideous" (hi, Stephanie!), but I feel nothing but devotion for them. They're black, which means I can get away with wearing them with "business casual" pants, even if they're "ugly".

But they're not ugly. They're gorgeous. I have wide feet and these things genuinely accommodate that. Sometimes shoes claim to be "wide", but I still feel like I'm being strangled when I put them all. Best of all, it was actually possible to break these in. Yes, I got a little vesicle the first time I wore them, but the third time I could have put them on without socks.

I would've wore them to interviews with my suit, but I broke the soles at some point this year. Hey, they were fifty bucks (cheap, for NYC prices), and I wore them almost every day for a year. So I had to look through my closet or buy interview shoes.

By "look through my closet", I meant consider the other pair of shoes I own:

My old boots, bought by mother when I was a teen

The creases at the front give the impression that I've worn these bastards often. The creases are liars. I can count the number of times I worn these things with one hand.

When I was a teen and mom cajoled me into it. Once while I was in undergrad, shadowing a gastroenterologist. And for five seconds around my house while trying to decide if I could use them for my interviews.

When I show these to girlfriends complaining about what torture they are, they look at me like I've lost my mind. Or like they never before realized what a baby I am. They say these torture devices look "comfortable" because the heel is wide. But they. Are. Not. I put these things on, take twenty steps, and my lower limbs paralyze until I take them off. It's like my feet remember what happened when I wore them to that party as a teen, and now they have PTSD.

And I can't blame them. Here's a diagram of the bones of the foot. Normally, the calcaneus (heel) bone takes most weight when a human being stands. Heels force a person to push much more weight onto the metatarsal bones, which are not supposed to be bearing so much weight, except during dorsiflexion. And the heels actually make them bare even more weight during dorsiflexion. Blah, blah, blah . . . heels force feet into an unnatural position.

The worst part is, these things were expensive. My mother paid around $70 for them, and this is like ten years ago, when $70 was real money. (I realize, after typing that, how it sounds. Of course, $70 is still money today, but it was more ten years ago. So I'm just going to leave the comment as is and embrace how out-of-touch it is).

A Medical Examiner's Job

I'm in the middle of interviewing for residency positions. One of the standard questions I'm asked over and over again is if I have interest in any particular sub-specialties, or to describe any experiences with pathology I've had in the past. It's easy enough to talk about my fascination with gastrointestinal or neurological pathology, my time in the surgical pathology labs, or my excitement about blood banking and molecular genetics.

Talking about forensic pathology is a little harder.

When I started the residency application process, I was warned not to sound like I was married to any particular subs-specialty, but especially not forensics. Many medical students get no exposure to autopsy pathology, and fewer still ever see a forensic autopsy or a criminal case. Needless to say, it's nothing like what goes on television or movies.

Though I am considering forensics as a career, I don't have my heart completely set on it. Still, I am seriously considering it. Morbid as it sounds, I did enjoy my time at the medical examiner's office. I also don't have the option of glossing over the interest due to a quirk in the application process for forensic fellowships. Most pathology residents need to apply early, towards the end of their second year, but many residency programs schedule forensic training in the last year of residency. I have to ask about the possibility of altering the schedule so I can get my residency training in forensics earlier.

So over the last month, I've been asked why I'm interested in forensics. I've found that it's not the easiest question to answer. Saying I like to work with my hands feels shallow, true as it is. The most diplomatic answer would be to say that forensics is often essential for families looking for closure, but that's more about the result of the job rather than the job itself. Saying that death is fascinating is crass, but that's at least part of the appeal. Either way, it can get painfully draining.

(I will talk about my experiences at the ME's office under the cut even though I don't plan to get into gory details. Much. There are issues of confidentiality to consider.)

Crimson Peak and Hollywood's inability to market a movie

By now, it's obvious that my wish for Crimson Peak to cause waves at the box office isn't coming true. It had an abysmal opening weekend, did not bounce back with word-of-mouth, and didn't shake the international box office. According to BoxOfficeMojo, it made back its budget, but you don't need to be a finances maverick to know that a studio doesn't sink fifty-five million into a movie (plus the promo budget) to make back under twenty million in profit.

There are probably many reasons why this movie failed, or close to it, at the box office. Some of them are obvious. The economy is poor and consumers have less money to spend on entertainment. When they do go to the movies, they're much more likely to throw down some cold cash for a franchise that has proven itself to be competent, if not groundbreaking. Del Toro, much as I love him, just isn't a wow-type director that will put asses in seats with his name alone (is there such a director anymore?). Maybe the movie just wasn't as good as I thought it was (I recognize when I enjoy something because of nostalgia and personal taste rather than inherent quality).

But mostly, I think the promo for the movie was just inadequate. I mean, just look at this trailer:

I liked it, but then I liked almost everything about the movie. And as I said in my first post about the subject, I would go see just about anything by del Toro.

Daredevil: episode four

The way I remember from my first viewing, this was the first episode that managed to wake me from the fog of post-IM at the VA service. And I'm pretty sure it had to do with this dude:

• I have no idea what Russian prisons are like. They might exactly like this, for all I know. But it does look a little overly dramatic.
• I'm not entirely sure why I still watch the opening credits.
• The guy Matt threw from Claire's roof would've died from the fire extinguisher that fell on his head.
• So I get it's part of the superhero/comic genre, but I always wonder why professional, grown up women don't run in the opposite direction when they run into these admitedly hot dudes. Like, why isn't Clare going "well, he's dreamy . . . but he does dress up in a black suit and beats people into a coma at night". I mean, she's already out of her apartment, wasting sick days from work to hide from anyone that might associate her with him. Where's her sense of self-preservation? 

Black Snake Moan: I suggest rather than recommend it

Yesterday, while wondering around TVTropes, I ended up on the page for Black Snake Moan. Like the poster, the trailer is . . . well:

Now, in all fairness to the film itself, it is not the exploitative big-scary-black-man-kidnaps-pretty-white-girl-drug-addict-and-turns-her-into-his-sex-slave thing that the trailer and poster make it out to be. Samuel L. Jackson's character (Lazarus Redd) and Christina Ricci's character (Rae) don't have a sexual relationship in the film. Instead, they form an unlikely friendship (almost a father-daughter relationship) that ultimately helps both of them become better people.

I will put the rest under a cut to avoid spoilers.

Daredevil on Netflix: Episode Three

Gif from this recap.

• I know from watching before that this blondish goatee guy is gonna go cray-cray, but I almost want to believe he's a random nice guy again. The actor is good.
• That being said, I never liked this "X amount of hours/days/lifetimes" thing TV shows like to pull. Why can't scene one just be scene one? I'm already watching this thing on Netflix; clearly they don't need to fight hard for my attention.
• Especially a pointless one like that one. Also, people still waving those guns around like they're nothing, aiming them wherever (sometimes at their own body parts).
• The intro is still boring but the music is really nice.
• "Used to be if you killed a man you sent his wife flowers. Now you just send the wife with him." If the point was to get it across that things are getting desperate, than mission accomplished.