Recent trapphic:

* * *

‘Eternal life, somatic control – they needed to rebel somehow. Odd though, the young hobbling down the streets, wrinkled and silver-haired.’

* * *

Diurnal amnesia is common in incipient lycanthropy. Some women learn of the condition only when an ultrasound scan reveals a litter of cubs.

* * *

After all he had seen during his grand tour of Heaven, Hell and Purgatory, Dante was naturally perturbed when he died and went to the Bardo.

* * *

Outside the immediate blast radius, the first reaction of hundreds of people was to attempt to look up ‘Electromagnetic Pulse’ on Wikipedia.

* * *

39yo w m, 5’3” 180lb ,seeks petite, buxom w / asian f, 18-25, for regular bodyswap (12hr / week, 7pm Sat - 7am Sun). No time wasters please.

* * *

Now, piggybacking on solar emissions, my uploaded consciousness will carry his Gospel to the stars.
It’s true: Jesus wants me for a sunbeam.

* * *

The late Pope’s upload was contesting his clone’s election, threatening a schism. Things got confusing when the original rose from the dead.

* * *

‘Mom, can I get a proper BrainPlant? CHECK OUT MINDGAMES CASINO – IT’S LIKE HAVING VEGAS IN YOUR HEAD! The adware on this one really sucks.’

* * *

I woke hungry. Nothing in the freezer seemed to satisfy me – I needed something more substantial. If I could just break out of the morgue...

* * *

Here lies Billy Joel Underton (1984-2011, 1947-1981) with his beloved wife Deborah (1925-2010). This monument erected by his son and father.

* * *

DISCLAIMER: As with any other household appliance, in the event of emergent sentience you will be considered your JoyGirl™’s legal guardian.

* * *

‘Miaow,’ opined the Animal Biologist. The Inorganic Chemist sat stony-faced. So far none of the attendees had met the Theoretical Physicist.

* * *

Galatea loved Pygmalion, but as a statue she had been at peace. After his death she bade farewell to their children and sought Medusa’s aid.

* * *

Everyone has had a premonition of where they’ll be and what they’ll be doing when they hear that President Kennedy has risen from the grave.

* * *

‘Aye, I’m a godherd. Got a pantheon in a peninsula down south. Good worship down there. Only problem’s stopping the randy buggers breeding.’

* * *

A dinosaur in a Southern Baptist church would have been embarrassing enough without the confusion caused by Greg yelling, ‘It’s the Raptor!’

* * *

‘Dual nationhood makes it feel like you don’t fit in anywhere. It’s even worse when your dad’s Lilliputian and your mum’s from Brobdingnag.’

* * *

Wrinkles are tricky. Students start at Scarlett Johansson and work their way up to Dot Cotton. W H Auden is for advanced shapeshifters only.

* * *

The invaders were sentient vortices, complex self-replicating patterns of atmospheric current. They wanted the Midwest to farm tornadoes in.

* * *

‘My evil twin killed my decoy double and replaced him with a clone of himself... I’ve decided to have plastic surgery and leave them to it.’

* * *

Wind-dandies: Literary or kinematic phantasies supposing that the advances of our Steam Era occurred in ages past through use of wind-power.

* * *

‘In exchange for the natives’ labour, the Raj brings them education, culture, religion... nearly a fifth of English peasants are Hindu now.’

* * *

‘Is this Dr Faustus’s “Achieving Health through Well-Being” class?’
‘Sorry, the sign’s wrong – it’s “Achieving Wealth through Hell-Beings”.’

* * *

‘A mage enchanted to believe he’s a cyber-jock stuck in a fantasy sim? Er, no. You’re a non-speaking character in an extremely short story.’

* * *

‘This the 1815 service to Waterloo – calling at Dunkirk in 1940, Ypres in 1915 and Strasbourg in 1870, before arriving at Waterloo in 1815.’

* * *

One day all the immigrants, and all the people descended from immigrants, went home. The area around the Olduvai Gorge became quite crowded.

* * *

‘It’s like my whole life’s nothing but a joke!’ lamented John.
Paddy and Angus nodded sympathetically, and steered him into the nearest bar.

* * *

More troubling for Prague’s pest controllers than citizens who turn into giant cockroaches are the insects who make the opposite transition.

* * *

Ironically the gravity-cap technology used in NASA’s Mars launch was developed to simulate lunar weight when filming the fake Moon landings.

* * *

After an incident with Bast and Jenny Mouse, Mr Higgledy Hedgehog’s Anthropomorphic Animals Club voted to bar Egyptian gods from membership.

* * *

The dyslexic shapeshifter had thoroughly researched humanity. She only betrayed herself when, in a moment of distress, she burst into teats.

* * *

Irritated at how easy it is to fake a death in an era of animatronic replicants, Presley refuses to have his former son-in-law in the house.

* * *

‘A zombie master from the future? That’s... stupid.’ ‘You always said so,’ he smiled, pointing at the mute manservant he’d brought with him.

* * *

The Earth ambassador wore a dangling arrowhead of cloth, pointing at his genitals. I tried not to smirk as I farted the ceremonial greeting.

* * *

‘The coffee beans are Faer Trade. I thought that was a typo, but some fell in the garden and... well, just don’t climb that tree out there.’

* * *

The queen of the fairies is a daughter of ancient gods, an elemental spirit of diamond-white metal. She resents ships being named after her.

* * *

In Stabilan law, irrevocably changing a person equates to killing them. Children are sentenced to education for the murder of their parents.

* * *

The Victoriana Sequence:

‘It’s true,’ Alice conceded. ‘I can climb from a room into its mirror image. But however would my ability be useful to this Dr Van Helsing?’

‘This “Time Traveller” had the means, then. But whom did the dinosaurs’ extinction benefit?’
‘Watson, have you encountered Prof Challenger?’

The drug taken, I misgave. Jekyll had had but one inner self awaiting release. I, compounded from the corpses of many, might be outnumbered.

‘Yet history is fragile,’ the Time Traveller said. ‘Our forces might have won at Dorking, had the traitor Timothy Cratchit died in infancy.’

As the war of worlds rages they wait beneath. Surface-dwellers or invaders, the victors will be weary. The Vril-ya will win the coming race.

* * *

The Victoriana Sequence Kaiju Special:
(sequence of five, 22 May 2009):

‘Miss Liddell, it’s a 40-foot Megalosaurus! On Holborn Hill! And you propose to fight it off with nothing but a bottle labelled “DRINK ME”?’

‘Miss Liddell’s bravery notwithstanding, other crises call on us. A monstrous albino whale is locked in combat with a kraken in the Thames.’

‘A gigantic hound has been prowling Bloomsbury, while as we speak a creature described as “burbling and manxome” is ravaging Oxford Street.’

‘The Holborn Lizard hails from neither the Jurassic Era nor Challenger’s Plateau, nor yet from the Centre of the – am I boring you, Watson?’

‘I can only conclude that the Emperor of Japan has allied himself with a scientific specialist in monsters. I detect Moreau’s hand in this.’

* * *

The Exotic Weapons Dealer Sequence:

‘A gestalt gene-targeted nanovirus, programmed to take out the members of the House of Windsor in order of succession? Hmm. It’ll cost you.’

‘A meme-bomb to subvert your enemies, by making them believe they’re you? Hmm. Well, Mr Napoleon, I can’t guarantee it’ll work on everyone.’

‘Reverse-alchemical femtoware – to turn gold reserves to lead and crash every currency in the world? Right you are. How will you be paying?’

‘Against them? Hmm. Best bet’s a disinformation campaign to provoke widespread disbelief. Then start putting exploding teeth under pillows.’

* * *

The Mythological Hybrids Convention Sequence:

We should never have let a minotaur book the conference centre for the 2,789th annual Mythological Hybrids Convention. The place was a maze.

‘I’m meant to be here,’ Bill insisted when the sphinx on the door quizzed him. ‘Look, I’ve got the beard. Plus, you know, horns and hooves.’

The day’s first seminar. ‘Less than Human: Are beast-beast hybrids marginalised?’ A griffin squawks a vociferous yes. A hippogriff says nay.

‘I can hear a siren.’ ‘Fire drill?’ ‘No, they’re rehearsing for this evening. You’ve got human ears – better ask for earplugs at Reception.’

A drunken attendee in the bar leers at a flapping harpy. ‘Oi!’ her companion yells. ‘You got the horn for my bird?’ The satyr headbutts him.

* * *

* * *

‘You teach, like, anthropology?’
‘No – lycanthropology.’

* * *

Oedipus Rex embarrassed his brother Tyrannosaurus.

* * *

Decimate: one tenth of a friend.

* * *

LITERARY VENDETTA – Amis Shoots Self, Self.

* * *

www.infinitarian.com created and maintained by Philip Purser-Hallard.
trapphic icon extracted from Sapphire and Steel logo © and ™ Associated TeleVision 1979. No infringement is intended.
All material © Philip Purser-Hallard 2009 except where otherwise noted, and not to be used without permission.