“The first morning I really sat and watched him it was a Tuesday. I know that because Tuesday is trash day for our neighborhood. Unlike me, he leaves gathering up his trash for the morning of pickup instead of doing it the night before. My alarm went off at 6 AM and I went in to start the coffee maker, and as I went about selecting a bit of fruit from the bowl on my kitchen table I looked out the window. It was just a casual glance, and the human eye is attracted to movement.”
— Benjamin R. Smith
“Some people, when there’s a threat of everything they have being ripped away at a moments notice, they place value on the things they can keep with them, or find anywhere, so they can say ‘these are my things, nobody else can touch them.’”
— Benjamin R. Smith
“It’s a big spooky place when you’re in it alone. It’s like you can hear all the whispers of all the voices of all the actors who ever played here. Kind of creepy. Like a church can be creepy when it’s empty. You ever been in a church after hours?”
— Benjamin R. Smith
“When I was a kid, they had a saying, ‘to err is human but to really fuck it up takes a computer.’”
— Benjamin R. Smith
“Since you haven’t got a name,” he said. “I guess you can pick one for yourself. Would you like to pick one for me to write down?”She stopped rocking and looked at him. “I can do that? It’s legal and everything?”He smiled. “It’s a free country again,” he said. “At least in theory.”She nodded. “And when I pick a name it can be any name I want?”He nodded.“What’s your name?”“Victor,” he said. “Vic, for short.”“Okay,” she said, leaning forward and taking the pad from under his large thing hands. “How do you spell that?”He spelled it and she wrote it down. Her handwriting was perfectly small and legible. “Can I be Victor, too?” she said, looking up from the pad.He smirked. “It’s a boy’s name,” he said. “You’re a girl. You have to add an i and an a to the end if you want to make it a girl’s name.”She looked down at the name she had written and added the letters i and a to the end. “Victoria,” she said, passing the notepad back to the cop.“Hello, Victoria,” he said, smiling, taking the pad and pen back and presenting his hand for a shake. “It’s nice to meet you, officially.”
— Benjamin R. Smith
“On a wing and a prayer.” (After being asked how the angels make love in Milton’s Paradise Lost).”
— Benjamin R. Smith
“I’m sure the ‘I wouldn’t fuck a murder conspirator’ argument wins over many an internal affairs review board. Bring him in. It’ll be in your favor.”
— Benjamin R. Smith
“Don’t you read the statistics? Guns are unisex these days.”
— Benjamin R. Smith
“I’m going to become a beat poet and a lesbian!”
— Benjamin R. Smith
“The name Atlantis came from an old book Victoria had never read. A lifetime residency in the ASM paradise was rumored to cost anywhere from 15 to 20 million dollars. The rich and powerful lived under the dome because they considered themselves separate and superior. Few of them left the comfort and security of Atlantis. To them the outside world was weak. Second Sector citizens where miscreant dregs of a defunct society. In order to enter the Atlantian dome one first had to be cleared by a resident. Gate security personnel strictly enforced this rule, even when outsiders carried a badge and gun.”
— Benjamin R. Smith
“Nice dress,” Victoria said.“Thank you,” Perpetua said. “Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”Victoria blinked. “Uh, what?”
— Benjamin R. Smith
“I built them what they wanted and I made a profit off of it. Now they call me a god…What fools these mortals be.”
— Benjamin R. Smith
“I see a cathedral, for instance, one that’s stood for centuries and I marvel and I wonder… How many people passed through the doors? What did they pray for? How many wars did they wish to see ended? How many christenings, weddings, and funerals? Same thing with a record, I guess. Who bought it? Did they ever make love while it was playing? How many times did they read the notes in the cover? Did a song on the album change their life? I suppose it’s odd to think about things like that.”
— Benjamin R. Smith
“. “We’re both… I mean, you’re more so, but we’re both really fucked up emotionally. I mean, how do I know you’re not still loopy from being shot full of… of…”“Benzodiazepine,” he said.“Yes, that.” Victoria’s eyes met with his a moment and then looked away. “It’s been awhile for me,” she said at last. “I mean, I’ve slept with people…”“So have I,” he said.”
— Benjamin R. Smith
“After a good roll in the hay, when he’s all peaceful and serene and he hasn’t a worry or a care in the world, and the euphoric calm of release is drifting through his cerebrum, that’s when you broadside him with the cold cruel fact that his life as he knows it is over!”
— Benjamin R. Smith
“I haven’t got time for a love life and that’s usually frustrating to the would-be lovers. Care to make a run for it?”
— Benjamin R. Smith
“Human’s aren’t concerned with reality, merely their perceptions of it.”
— Benjamin R. Smith
“It isn’t easy when life tears away the one person in a million you thought you could always trust.”
— Benjamin R. Smith
“In some literature, I’ve read, weather is used as a metaphor. The darker and stormier the weather outside the more diabolical the deeds done. When the clouds roll away, however, the rain has washed away all the blood in the streets and the world is clean and new again, as if all the violence and destruction of the storm served a divine purpose.”
— Benjamin R. Smith
“Several things ran through my head as I watched this silent ballet: First, I was running low on pears, my favorite morning fruit. Second, I, as a woman, am much smarter than men, I having displayed foresight this male apparently lacked in regards to trash day. And finally, I desperately needed to see more of this man in his boxers.”
— Benjamin R. Smith
“Writing Vampire Erotica is like writing sex scenes for porcupines.”
— Benjamin R. Smith
“Madness doesn’t get off wearing gloves. It needs to feel skin on skin, smell the blood and shit as it brings itself off.”
— Benjamin R. Smith
“The Angel of Death is always a young person, or a group of young people, you’ll begin seeing them left and right soon.”
— Benjamin R. Smith