Reyna Cobb is a single woman in her early thirties. She writes
technical specs for engineers at a large semiconductor
manufacturer in the dirty industrial outskirts of San Francisco.
From eight to late R.C. works in a development lab without
windows and is the sole female on a team of thirty engineers.
Lately, finally realizing her job is dead-end and about as
interesting as a sheet of drywall, R.C. has worked while listening
to her Walkman and fantasizing about her coworkers in the
extreme sterility of the lab.
Product: Ches Czeweski
DOB: 74/03/20
Inspiration: “Love Potion No. 9,” The Searchers
Specification:
Ches is from another planet—or likes to think he is. He’s the kind of
guy who played the tuba or the triangle in your high school band and
gave it his all, perfect and prompt for those few notes he was blessed
with in any given march. Somewhere along the line he got into Star
Trek, then UFOs, rods, sound baths, conspiracy theories, haunted
Hollywood, and anything else that happened by. You can ask Ches
just about any question and he will have an answer, usually the right
one, a fact about which, for his age, I marvel.
So in my fantasy he will have a love potion, something he has to travel
to the hazy dens of a strange flat in the Mission and bribe a curandera
for. In return he gives the old woman a pamphlet he’s written on the
magical properties of the venom of Southwestern spiders, since he
would assume that she didn’t already know and would be more than
fascinated to learn about the topic. When he is instructed how to use
the love potion, he listens intently since she forbids him to write
anything down. He memorizes the old woman’s gestures and
intonations for each step he is to perform, as if those details will extend
the potion’s potency.
The day before we are to rendezvous, I catch him snooping around my
bench, a Post-It note I had scribbled on quickly shoved in his pocket
as I approach. Later in the day, as I’m on my way out, I see him run
his index finger along the surface of my bench, as if trying to wipe my
skin-dust onto his lab scrubs (like there could be that kind of build-up
in the first place). I smile to myself knowing that Ches works only for
the greater pursuit of knowledge and human mystical development.
He'll give the Kama Sutra a run for its money.
I skip out to the bus stop, dizzy with anticipation.
Product: Hippo Crockett
DOB: 71/03/22
Inspiration: “I Feel For You,” Chaka Khan
Specification:
This is about unleashing the power of a married-too-young Christian.
Repression is the name of the game here. Hippo, from some
unidentified international city with a slightly-off-from-Caucasian-but-
can’t-quite-place complexion, has fallen in crush with me. I can see it
in the way his eyes hold mine just a little too long when we’re talking
about our weekend plans. It’s as if he wants me to extend our
friendship outside work, but aside from my fantasy, it’ll never happen.
There’s Wolfgang, anyway.
So we’ll dance all night long at a hip-hop club, somewhere far out in
the flats, a place my brother Gato tells me about since I don’t like that
kind of music. Under the crazy lights and the jumpy bass beats, I’m
bold. I grind against Hippo’s legs. I roll my head around to the beat
and time it with the sway of my breasts. I’m seductive. Hippo has only
seen me in my clean-room scrubs at the lab. Now in my red polyester
dress I raise my arms in the air and slowly kneel to the floor, rise, and
then turn around and shake my ass at Hippo. He’s having a great time.
He can’t not smile anymore. I see him breaking out of his shell. He
turns around and shakes his ass at me too, half joking, half challenging
me.
Lovemaking with Hippo is fantastic. He moans, braces himself with
one hand against the wall behind me. We laugh, his skin fairly sparkles
with gratitude, his shame completely passed now. I feel I’ve given a
gift to Hippo and the best part is seeing him wide open, his heart afire,
singing to a new world. How different and beautiful he will be now.
I’m strangely hopeful the rest of the afternoon while working on a
datasheet.
(page 1 2 3 4 5)
technical specs for engineers at a large semiconductor
manufacturer in the dirty industrial outskirts of San Francisco.
From eight to late R.C. works in a development lab without
windows and is the sole female on a team of thirty engineers.
Lately, finally realizing her job is dead-end and about as
interesting as a sheet of drywall, R.C. has worked while listening
to her Walkman and fantasizing about her coworkers in the
extreme sterility of the lab.
Product: Ches Czeweski
DOB: 74/03/20
Inspiration: “Love Potion No. 9,” The Searchers
Specification:
Ches is from another planet—or likes to think he is. He’s the kind of
guy who played the tuba or the triangle in your high school band and
gave it his all, perfect and prompt for those few notes he was blessed
with in any given march. Somewhere along the line he got into Star
Trek, then UFOs, rods, sound baths, conspiracy theories, haunted
Hollywood, and anything else that happened by. You can ask Ches
just about any question and he will have an answer, usually the right
one, a fact about which, for his age, I marvel.
So in my fantasy he will have a love potion, something he has to travel
to the hazy dens of a strange flat in the Mission and bribe a curandera
for. In return he gives the old woman a pamphlet he’s written on the
magical properties of the venom of Southwestern spiders, since he
would assume that she didn’t already know and would be more than
fascinated to learn about the topic. When he is instructed how to use
the love potion, he listens intently since she forbids him to write
anything down. He memorizes the old woman’s gestures and
intonations for each step he is to perform, as if those details will extend
the potion’s potency.
The day before we are to rendezvous, I catch him snooping around my
bench, a Post-It note I had scribbled on quickly shoved in his pocket
as I approach. Later in the day, as I’m on my way out, I see him run
his index finger along the surface of my bench, as if trying to wipe my
skin-dust onto his lab scrubs (like there could be that kind of build-up
in the first place). I smile to myself knowing that Ches works only for
the greater pursuit of knowledge and human mystical development.
He'll give the Kama Sutra a run for its money.
I skip out to the bus stop, dizzy with anticipation.
Product: Hippo Crockett
DOB: 71/03/22
Inspiration: “I Feel For You,” Chaka Khan
Specification:
This is about unleashing the power of a married-too-young Christian.
Repression is the name of the game here. Hippo, from some
unidentified international city with a slightly-off-from-Caucasian-but-
can’t-quite-place complexion, has fallen in crush with me. I can see it
in the way his eyes hold mine just a little too long when we’re talking
about our weekend plans. It’s as if he wants me to extend our
friendship outside work, but aside from my fantasy, it’ll never happen.
There’s Wolfgang, anyway.
So we’ll dance all night long at a hip-hop club, somewhere far out in
the flats, a place my brother Gato tells me about since I don’t like that
kind of music. Under the crazy lights and the jumpy bass beats, I’m
bold. I grind against Hippo’s legs. I roll my head around to the beat
and time it with the sway of my breasts. I’m seductive. Hippo has only
seen me in my clean-room scrubs at the lab. Now in my red polyester
dress I raise my arms in the air and slowly kneel to the floor, rise, and
then turn around and shake my ass at Hippo. He’s having a great time.
He can’t not smile anymore. I see him breaking out of his shell. He
turns around and shakes his ass at me too, half joking, half challenging
me.
Lovemaking with Hippo is fantastic. He moans, braces himself with
one hand against the wall behind me. We laugh, his skin fairly sparkles
with gratitude, his shame completely passed now. I feel I’ve given a
gift to Hippo and the best part is seeing him wide open, his heart afire,
singing to a new world. How different and beautiful he will be now.
I’m strangely hopeful the rest of the afternoon while working on a
datasheet.
(page 1 2 3 4 5)
Short Stories
 | |  | |  | |  | |  |
Spec of Love
(Winner of the 2006 Editor's Choice Short Story
Award from Ooligan Press)
(Winner of the 2006 Editor's Choice Short Story
Award from Ooligan Press)