Enter your email Address

ENTROPY
  • About
    • About
    • Masthead
    • Advertising
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Info on Book Reviews
  • Essays
    • All Introspection
      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      Meanness Tints the World Inhuman

      February 15, 2019

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      Outstaring Darkness

      February 14, 2019

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      Foster Care: Not All Families Belong Together

      February 14, 2019

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      WOVEN: In Your Sleep: A Me Too Story By a Woman with Developmental Disabilities

      February 13, 2019

      Introspection

      A Review of My New Yorker Subscription

      October 10, 2018

      Introspection

      Mausoleum

      July 24, 2018

      Introspection

      On Weather: Creeping Cedar

      July 1, 2018

      Introspection

      Life Writing: A Visit From My Nancy

      June 1, 2018

  • Fiction
    • Fiction

      BLACKCACKLE: Serious Inquiries Only, Please!

      February 15, 2019

      Fiction

      Mourning Morning

      February 13, 2019

      Fiction

      The Birds: Baby Bird

      February 13, 2019

      Fiction

      BLACKCACKLE: The Secret Storm

      February 8, 2019

      Fiction

      Home Economics

      February 6, 2019

  • Reviews
    • All Collaborative Review Video Review
      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      Meanness Tints the World Inhuman

      February 15, 2019

      Review

      What Mishima Teaches Us About Love

      February 14, 2019

      Review

      The Silences that Amount to Us: F. Guevara’s Reddest Herring

      February 11, 2019

      Review

      Review: Joseph by Dena Rash Guzman

      February 7, 2019

      Collaborative Review

      A Street Car Named Whatever

      February 22, 2016

      Collaborative Review

      Black Gum: A Conversational Review

      August 7, 2015

      Collaborative Review

      Lords of Waterdeep in Conversation

      February 25, 2015

      Collaborative Review

      MOUTH: EATS COLOR and the Devoration of Languages

      January 12, 2015

      Video Review

      Entropy’s Super Mario Level

      September 15, 2015

      Video Review

      Flash Portraits of Link: Part 7 – In Weakness, Find Strength

      January 2, 2015

      Video Review

      Basal Ganglia by Matthew Revert

      March 31, 2014

      Video Review

      The Desert Places by Amber Sparks and Robert Kloss, Illustrated by Matt Kish

      March 21, 2014

  • Small Press
    • Small Press

      Stubborn Mule Press

      February 12, 2019

      Small Press

      Thirty West Publishing House

      January 29, 2019

      Small Press

      Arte Público Press

      January 15, 2019

      Small Press

      FutureCycle Press

      January 3, 2019

      Small Press

      Green Linden Press

      December 17, 2018

  • Where to Submit
  • More
    • Poetry
    • Interviews
    • Games
      • All Board Games Video Games
        Featured

        Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the Spirit of Generosity

        December 31, 2018

        Games

        Best of 2018: Video Games

        December 17, 2018

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: The Real Leeds Part 12 (Once in a Lifetime)

        November 10, 2018

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: The Real Leeds Part 11 (Karma Police)

        November 3, 2018

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: The Real Leeds Part 12 (Once in a Lifetime)

        November 10, 2018

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: The Real Leeds Part 11 (Karma Police)

        November 3, 2018

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: The Real Leeds Part 10 (Pretty Vacant)

        October 27, 2018

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: The Real Leeds Part 9 (Savoy Truffle)

        October 20, 2018

        Video Games

        Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the Spirit of Generosity

        December 31, 2018

        Video Games

        Best of 2018: Video Games

        December 17, 2018

        Video Games

        Silent Hill Shattered Memories: Biography of a Place

        September 3, 2018

        Video Games

        Silent Hill Downpour: Biography of a Place

        August 3, 2018

    • Food
    • Small Press Releases
    • Film
    • Music
    • Paranormal
    • Travel
    • Art
    • Graphic Novels
    • Comics
    • Current Events
    • Astrology
    • Random
  • RESOURCES
  • The Accomplices
    • THE ACCOMPLICES
    • Enclave
    • Trumpwatch

ENTROPY

  • About
    • About
    • Masthead
    • Advertising
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Info on Book Reviews
  • Essays
    • All Introspection
      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      Meanness Tints the World Inhuman

      February 15, 2019

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      Outstaring Darkness

      February 14, 2019

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      Foster Care: Not All Families Belong Together

      February 14, 2019

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      WOVEN: In Your Sleep: A Me Too Story By a Woman with Developmental Disabilities

      February 13, 2019

      Introspection

      A Review of My New Yorker Subscription

      October 10, 2018

      Introspection

      Mausoleum

      July 24, 2018

      Introspection

      On Weather: Creeping Cedar

      July 1, 2018

      Introspection

      Life Writing: A Visit From My Nancy

      June 1, 2018

  • Fiction
    • Fiction

      BLACKCACKLE: Serious Inquiries Only, Please!

      February 15, 2019

      Fiction

      Mourning Morning

      February 13, 2019

      Fiction

      The Birds: Baby Bird

      February 13, 2019

      Fiction

      BLACKCACKLE: The Secret Storm

      February 8, 2019

      Fiction

      Home Economics

      February 6, 2019

  • Reviews
    • All Collaborative Review Video Review
      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      Meanness Tints the World Inhuman

      February 15, 2019

      Review

      What Mishima Teaches Us About Love

      February 14, 2019

      Review

      The Silences that Amount to Us: F. Guevara’s Reddest Herring

      February 11, 2019

      Review

      Review: Joseph by Dena Rash Guzman

      February 7, 2019

      Collaborative Review

      A Street Car Named Whatever

      February 22, 2016

      Collaborative Review

      Black Gum: A Conversational Review

      August 7, 2015

      Collaborative Review

      Lords of Waterdeep in Conversation

      February 25, 2015

      Collaborative Review

      MOUTH: EATS COLOR and the Devoration of Languages

      January 12, 2015

      Video Review

      Entropy’s Super Mario Level

      September 15, 2015

      Video Review

      Flash Portraits of Link: Part 7 – In Weakness, Find Strength

      January 2, 2015

      Video Review

      Basal Ganglia by Matthew Revert

      March 31, 2014

      Video Review

      The Desert Places by Amber Sparks and Robert Kloss, Illustrated by Matt Kish

      March 21, 2014

  • Small Press
    • Small Press

      Stubborn Mule Press

      February 12, 2019

      Small Press

      Thirty West Publishing House

      January 29, 2019

      Small Press

      Arte Público Press

      January 15, 2019

      Small Press

      FutureCycle Press

      January 3, 2019

      Small Press

      Green Linden Press

      December 17, 2018

  • Where to Submit
  • More
    • Poetry
    • Interviews
    • Games
      • All Board Games Video Games
        Featured

        Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the Spirit of Generosity

        December 31, 2018

        Games

        Best of 2018: Video Games

        December 17, 2018

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: The Real Leeds Part 12 (Once in a Lifetime)

        November 10, 2018

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: The Real Leeds Part 11 (Karma Police)

        November 3, 2018

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: The Real Leeds Part 12 (Once in a Lifetime)

        November 10, 2018

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: The Real Leeds Part 11 (Karma Police)

        November 3, 2018

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: The Real Leeds Part 10 (Pretty Vacant)

        October 27, 2018

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: The Real Leeds Part 9 (Savoy Truffle)

        October 20, 2018

        Video Games

        Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the Spirit of Generosity

        December 31, 2018

        Video Games

        Best of 2018: Video Games

        December 17, 2018

        Video Games

        Silent Hill Shattered Memories: Biography of a Place

        September 3, 2018

        Video Games

        Silent Hill Downpour: Biography of a Place

        August 3, 2018

    • Food
    • Small Press Releases
    • Film
    • Music
    • Paranormal
    • Travel
    • Art
    • Graphic Novels
    • Comics
    • Current Events
    • Astrology
    • Random
  • RESOURCES
  • The Accomplices
    • THE ACCOMPLICES
    • Enclave
    • Trumpwatch
Fiction

Their Days Are Numbered X

written by Christopher Higgs March 10, 2015

Their Days Are Numbered is a new year-long project authored by the collective Entropy community. It is a collaborative online novel written by the Entropy community on a weekly basis. A different author will write the next “chapter” each week, to be posted every Tuesday, following the previous post from the previous week, and following a very limited set of guidelines (that each author has one week to write the next piece after the previous week’s installment goes up, that installments should range between 150-1500 words, and that pieces should somehow incorporate a real-life occurrence, current event, news item, or other happening from that week).

Follow the entire “novel” here: Their Days Are Numbered.

The tenth installment is presented this week by Christopher Higgs.


X.

Wait.

A terrible mistake. An incoherent city, littered with dust fields and barren lots? Even the herons

don’t want the rocket to launch? The trees were audible, but only to some?

Wait.

A woman in a bathtub?

Wait.

The source code cannot attain corroboration. Failure to integrate. Story reboot.

Wait.

Elsewhere. Meanwhile. Earlier.

I speak. I maintain the humidifier. I am an irreproachably essential task. Without my hand to

water the base, to fill the base with water, without me the land you have imaged cannot exist, the

rocket you invented could never exist, the woman in the bathtub would cease to exist. I am the

single most important entity in this entire narrative; but I am not an entity.

Wait.

How difficult the act of speaking. I want to say, but cannot. Who disallows me? For whom do I

speak? Myself, naturally. Naturally? Is naturally even an option? Are we not all doing drag?

We drag. He drags. She drags.

Wait.

A performance represents the limit of our experiences. Your performance, my performance, her

performance, his performance, their performance.

Wait.

I drag the straight white middle class male alone in his room awaiting a phone call from the

doctor detailing the terms of an unspeakable condition or else maybe I am attempting to pull

heartstrings, using pathos, but what pathos have I earned in such a short amount of time?

Heterosexual heartstrings, no doubt.

Absolutely.

Never mind.

The toilet lid slams shut, I can hear it. Can you hear it? Where are you? Can you see the smoke?

Wait.

A spell inside the mirror of her face. A blinding scowl. Fragrant isosceles triangles radiate from

the curb appeal of her father’s abandoned heart. Make sense of the fugitive questions and

stammer out some type of provisions, we’re going inside the cave.

Inside the cave we see drawings we draw on the walls we separate the past from the future and

now we are seeing the drawings we drew more than three hundred thousand years ago.

Wait.

Absolutely no one can know the truth. Please. Hide it. Please. Whatever you do, hide the truth.

Wait.

Hands up.

Wait.

Their Days Are Numbered X was last modified: March 9th, 2015 by Christopher Higgs
Their Days Are Numbered
0 comment
0
Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
Christopher Higgs

Christopher Higgs wrote As I Stand Living (CCM #RECURRENT, 2017), Becoming Monster (The Cupboard, 2013), The Complete Works of Marvin K. Mooney (Sator Press, 2010), and the SPD #1 Bestseller ONE (Roof Books, 2012, in collaboration with Vanessa Place & Blake Butler). His shorter work has appeared widely in print and online venues such as AGNI, Denver Quarterly, and The Paris Review Daily, among others. He holds a Ph.D. in Post-1900 American Literature from Florida State, an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Ohio State, and he’s currently Assistant Professor of English at California State University Northridge.

previous post
H_NGM_N Books
next post
Wednesday Entropy Roundup

You may also like

The Great American Term Paper

June 5, 2017

The Birds: The Haunted Pillow

April 26, 2018

On Weather: Squall

March 12, 2017

BLACKCACKLE: Meat Angel

November 23, 2016
Facebook Twitter

Recent Comments

  • adelaidedupont Gurba's memoir of Mean is so spot-on, especially this part:
    Gurba argues that even though someone is mean they don’t deserve to be dehumanized. This is shown by the way her younger,...

    Meanness Tints the World Inhuman ·  February 17, 2019

  • Wizard Jaislin I had a really weird dream. i was taking a walk in terrace when on the moon i saw eye of horus. as i moved the eye moved . the moon was red and i was scared,but i felt like it was trying to tell me...

    GOTHIDEAS: Dream Interpretation ·  February 10, 2019

  • 4859 Heh. Snowed in and started playing shattered memories again. Surprised to see such a recent article on the game. It really was a great game. Still ranks of one of the best uses of videogames as a...

    Silent Hill Shattered Memories: Biography of a Place ·  February 8, 2019

Featured Columns & Series

  • The Birds
  • Sunday Entropy List
  • Dinnerview
  • Variations on a Theme
  • Their Days Are Numbered
  • Disarticulations
  • On Weather
  • Mini-Syllabus
  • Birdwolf
  • Session Report series
  • Literacy Narrative
  • Comics I've Been Geeking Out On
  • BLACKCACKLE
  • Small Press Releases
  • WOVEN
  • The Poetics of Spaces
  • Notes On Motherhood
  • 30 Years of Ghibli
  • Tales From the End of the Bus Line
  • YOU MAKE ME FEEL
  • Ludic Writing
  • Best of 2018
  • The Weird Interview
  • DRAGONS ARE REAL OR THEY ARE DEAD
  • Pop Talks
  • The Concept World is No Longer Operational
  • Splendid Grub
  • LEAKY CULTURE
  • Jem and the Holographic Feminisms
  • Foster Care
  • The Talking Cure
  • D&D with Entropy
  • Stars to Stories

Tweets

  • Oscar Snub Sunday: Can You Ever Forgive Me? - https://t.co/KrpahtYGcS

    17-Feb-2019

    Reply Retweet Favorite
  • "From this point on, your job will be to care for these worms that will hopefully contain some of my cellular memor… https://t.co/WKsfbl1xDO

    17-Feb-2019

    Reply Retweet Favorite
  • We have a few free, no-cost ad slots available again for small presses and literary journals. DM us if you're inter… https://t.co/e6p6T4jfaJ

    15-Feb-2019

    Reply Retweet Favorite
  • Meanness Tints the World Inhuman - https://t.co/EVW7I0MfqO

    15-Feb-2019

    Reply Retweet Favorite
  • Mini-Syllabus: Query into Academic Queer History - https://t.co/CDU8y8Dog7

    15-Feb-2019

    Reply Retweet Favorite

Find Us On Facebook

Entropy
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram

©2019 The Accomplices LLC. All Rights Reserved.


Back To Top