The opening tale is Nancy Gold’s ‘Showtime’. This focuses on three children or young men who work as part of a travelling circus, performing simple morality plays which portray the classic conflict between good and evil. One of the trio wears wings made of collected feathers, playing the role of an angel; another, facially disfigured, plays the opposing part. The equilibrium of their triumvirate is broken when a young woman appears, a strange girl who collects wings but is drawn to the scarred ‘Gash’ rather than the boy who likes to play at being an angel. Ultimately, the strangeness of desire trumps the appeal of earning a buck through crude showmanship. The story touches upon themes of alienation, and highlights how an alliance built upon convenience and lack of alternatives is no match for equality between partners.

After a brief break for Feng Sun Chen’s poem ‘Eclipse’ – which, alas, I am unsure what to make of – there is Hayes Greenwood Moore’s ‘The Creature from the Lake’. At its heart this story is also about desire. A couple find an odd creature, wounded, near a lake, and nurse it back to health. The story is written from a woman’s perspective, and her partner soon becomes besotted with the beast they are caring for. As for the creature itself, it appears capable of singing, although more often it merely cries out in pain, and how much of the former is a misinterpretation of the latter is left to the reader to decide. The story ends with an unmade decision that, intended or not, functions as a metaphor for how easily relationships can be thrown askew by a variety of factors; children, marriage, affairs. Both of these initial stories have a strangeness about them that dissuades simple interpretation, a characteristic shared by many other offerings in this issue.

Kristine Ong Muslim (who I believe I recognise from the ‘zine Greatest Uncommon Denominator) offers  a sequence of poems focusing on the character ‘Conrad’ and exploring the idea of “monster love”. They are at times sinister and grotesque whilst also being heartfelt and dedicated, juxtaposing the banal with the monstrous to explore ideas of unconditional love.

‘In Borges Bookstore’ by David Misialowski is the first story present I did not get along with. Its prose is less alluring, though by no means shabby, and its curmudgeonly protagonist fails to convince, as such characters often do. There are also better stories about magical bookstores, although I do like the allusion to Borges’ Labyrinths. Borges himself was supposedly obsessed with the term as a metaphor for how impossible it is to truly understand our world; this is a theme of Misialowski’s story but it is deployed a little too literally for its own good.

Demond Caldwell’s ‘Collector of Van de Voys’ is a more interesting story, and a quote illustrates the slipstream character of this magazine nicely: “he seemed fond of blurrings and blendings of what should have been clear outlines and well-defined borders”. This curious story does not easily surrender meaning but focuses most clearly on the sinister things that lie just beneath the surface of what may appear to be benign, pastoral scenes. Alternatively, it may be intended to reflect the ease with which viewers can misinterpret what they behold and are enthralled by.

Barry Napier’s poem ‘Sleepmaps’ muddies the line between the states of wakefulness and dreaming, rendering it unclear which is the nightmare that terrifies, although in its close it implies that interconnectedness emerges – perhaps can only emerge – during sleep, and that this interconnectedness – these sleepmaps – may offer a thread of hope.

I’m a little disappointed that I did not enjoy ‘Movie Man’ by Melissa Ross more. It’s an odd tale about a man who lives along in a tower and has always done so, and who has learned to define himself wholly through the films that he watches (his tower is a movie theatre, of course). He is an artificial construction built of cliché and archetypes, though of course he himself does not know that. One day, his birthday, a girl climbs into his tower, and despite his self-effacing excuses she is curious about him. She has strings attached to her that trail away, out of the tower, and in some way he causes them to break. The obvious interpretation is that the story functions as a metaphor for how even a socially estranged enigma can prove to be compelling enough to draw someone else to them. Despite this being the only understanding I could discern from the story I thought it a little cheap and unconvincing, although I do wonder if the story might be based on personal experience retold in weird.

Charlene Logan Bennet’s ‘Circling of Cranes’ clearly and attractively articulates a child’s desire for escape, a theme which recurs in Amy DeBevoise’s stranger ‘Antarctica’ – although the latter has an ironic edge whereby the narrator wishes to transplant herself to a new environment yet retain her old habits and traditions. Between these two poems is ‘Birds Every Child Should Know’ by Kate Riedel, a story in which dead birds, visible only to the narrator, appear atop garbage cans outside houses. These appear to represent discarded hopes and dreams, perhaps souls, with some deliberately killed and others expired through neglect. The narrator attempts to care for them but, even when nursed back to life, they always return to those who killed them. Eventually he finds himself in the position of working to save his own bird. If one accepts that this metaphor fits these birds the story’s meaning becomes clear, and from the title and the narrator’s behaviour emerge two strands of hopefulness from the latter’s thankless, impossible task.

‘The Snake Charmer’s Teeth’ by Amy DeBevoise is told in the form of a fable, wherein a charmer eats his snake to force it to talk. In this he succeeds, but the snake curses him, fusing itself into a bracelet in the form of Ouroboros. The snake’s curse never transpires although the charmer dies destitute; perhaps the curse was empty but it appears to have haunted him. The bracelet is lost, then stolen, then sold, and is eventually given to a girl dreaming of a better life by her incestuous father. During one of his attempts to force himself upon her the snake returns to life, crying out angrily as it devours her father – yet leaving him untouched. The girl weeps, the snake falls still, the father is perplexed, and little changes except, perhaps, the death of several more dreams. I suspect that I may have missed something fundamental about this story, alas, as I found its thematic circularity frustrating. But perhaps that Ouroborean circularity is the point.

Travis Blankenship’s poem ‘Molesting the Legend’, as one might expect from the title, features some wonderfully grotesque imagery. There is ugliness in much beauty, it suggests. It’s certainly less mawkish than ‘The Abandoned City’ by Benjamin Robinson, a mildly tongue-in-cheek tale of two men who make ice cream to salve the worries of a city threatened by war. One of them devises ‘tragedy flavours’ that help the city ‘find courage’. Although this appears to whip up some fervour the last few paragraphs leave it unclear just what ultimately occurs. Perhaps the bravery the citizenry found was simply enough to leave their homes; the atrocities of war were not prevented.

A man possessed by demons can be expected to have a hard life, even more so in a time of messiahs. ‘Somewhere Near Gerasa’ (modern-day Jordan) by Alex Myers follows an individual who has been cast out by his community, but is ultimately “healed” by a passing saint. Unfortunately his demons aren’t destroyed but simply forced elsewhere – into some pigs, which promptly kill themselves. The local swineherds are unimpressed, but the narrator seizes his second chance and sets out to spread the word. Whether that word is that one man’s salvation may be the loss of several others’ livelihoods is not described.

‘: sign language :’ by Jason Jordan boasts an interesting structure, its mid two stanzas appearing as interlopers within the poem. As best I can tell it is meant to apply a sort of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principles to poetry, to indicate that roving eyes and hands are intruders within the mood of a poem, changing it by the act of observation. Its disparate strands are interwoven with skill.

A more light-hearted story is next: ‘Pestilence’ by Jason Jordan. A journalist visits a man who is one of five living in a very strange house; every day of the week it is afflicted by a different plague. One day it floods, upon another all oxygen is removed, and on another corpses mysteriously appear and must be carted out. The journalist is invited to tell this story, with the residents’ representative hoping for sensitivity, but predictably what goes to print is a “travesty” and the subsequent media circus is a far more difficult plague to live with than the house’s predictable eccentricities. This is an obvious conclusion but I still found myself enjoying the story, perhaps as it doesn’t overstay its welcome.

‘Let This Be My Refuge’ is one of the few poems in this magazine that I found both easy to interpret and engaging. The refuge of the title is music as played by a lover, the delicacy of a musician being applicable elsewhere, too: “your fingerplay, my oh!”

Also featuring a musical theme is ‘Einstein Plays Guitar’ by Tania Hershman, featuring a maudlin genius who cannot seem to understand that he is not a genius in all things. He’s a terrible sax player, a mediocre pianist, and a somewhat entrancing violinist. What conclusion the story leads us to I cannot say, except perhaps that it’s worth tolerating the eccentricities of the brilliant.

Lisa Grove’s poem ‘The Cat and the Fiddle’ offers the startling observation that sex is preferable to chores; uncontroversial, yes, though by presenting this in the form of a nursery rhyme it more effectively delivers its message of carpe diem – live like innocents. At the opposite end of the age-scale is ‘Life Story of a Chilean Sea Blob’ by Theodore Carter, in which an old man reads in the news of an odd life form found in Chile. He’s enthralled by this story, and after he suffers a heart attack his devoted wife invents a fabulous continuation and conclusion of the sea blob’s tale. Deep down he recognises that it is untrue, but he loves her all the more for knowing him well enough to give him the excitement and mystery he desires. It’s a touching and sweet story with a gentle humour to it, and is one of my favourites in this issue.

‘How To Fall Down’ by Nathaniel Taggart appears to represent a moment frozen in time; as a man plummets from a window on an ordinary day he sees and hears “everything, always, at once”. But, of course, “the concrete hits hard”. It presents beauty but that is transient and its tale must end suddenly.

Another somewhat obvious story that succeeds by dint of being grossly over the top is ‘The Crushing’ by Phillip Neel. A man waiting in the DMV (US Department of Motor Vehicles, though I’m sure even non-USians are familiar with this hellish environment from any number of TV comedies) collapses and begins to vomit, first the contents of his stomach, then blood, then faeces. The building is overwhelmed, then the local village. From the ceaseless stream of vomit emerges trash, produce, food, raw goods, and toxic waste. Some of what is retrieved from the vomit is briefly usable but nothing can stop the flow. Ultimately the entire country is overwhelmed. A community and even a country can survive for a time on a foundation of bile, but eventually everyone will be buried and crushed.

The last two poems are ‘What the Calf Daughter Knows’ by Rob Cook, which dwells on the limitless hunger and cruelty of man, and ‘Fragmentation’ by Anna Jaquiery, which observes how parts of oneself are left behind everywhere, and how nostalgia is built of the desire to return and recollect these pieces. The last two stories are ‘A Tale of a Snowy Night’ by Naoko Awa (trans: Toshiya Kamei) which sadly I didn’t find at all engaging. The magazine ends with ‘Shades of Grey’ by Catherine Sharpe, a remembrance of a past, lost love which occupies similar thematic territory to ‘Fragmentation’, its shared locales and objects binding two people together through memory no matter the distance. I found it a resonant story to end on if only because I have plenty of memories of sitting in laundrettes feeling melancholy and dreaming up ideas for stories…

All told, I found Acapella Zoo #5 a mostly engaging collection of stories. It was often confounding, at times amusing, sometimes resonant, and occasionally thought-provoking. Its fiction and poems are arranged well enough that where they overlap and interlace thematically they flow together pleasantly – a delicate editorial approach. Whilst there are no stories here that I am likely to remember forever there were a few that touched me and a few that impressed me, and any collection that manages this is worth reading.

Official site | Issue #5 | Facebook

Disclaimer: these aren’t formal reviews so much as musings on what I’ve read. Full reviews can be found here.

Previously: Books 1-2, Books 3-4.

5 – Marc Ellerby & Jamie Rich – Love the Way You Love Vol. 4, 5 & 6

I finished reading the series back in January, but I’ve been procrastinating over finishing one of the books I subsequently picked up for so long that I’ve not posted about them until now. Fortunately it’s a pleasure rather than a chore to revisit them to refresh my memory.

Volume 3 ended on a high note, with Tristan and Isobel mutual attraction seemingly leading towards a more solid relationship – although Isobel’s fiancee, Marcus, remained in the picture, and was stepping up his vendetta against Tristan’s band, Like A Dog (do you know, I’ve warmed to the name, even though it being terrible becomes a running joke in the comic). Without wanting to spoil the story, volume 4 sees Marcus’ campaign against Like A Dog bear fruit as well as Tristan and Isobel’s relationship becoming rockier. Various other characters continue to emerge from the background and their stories develop into entertaining and/or sweet subplots.

The story, the characters and the writing in general does become fleshier as the story goes on; the same is true of the artwork, which becomes more confident and bold in each volume. This is particular obvious in the action scenes, where the dynamic sequences and images compare favourably to the more static snapshots on the earlier volumes. (Coo, look at me talking about artwork like I know a damn thing.)

I really can’t comment extensively on the series as a whole without issuing spoilers, and even though this isn’t a review so much as my initial thoughts and reactions, I don’t want to do that. Suffice to say that while I like the final volume, think it ties up the various threads of the earlier volumes nicely, and ends on a suitably upbeat note, I’m not too sure about the way that resolution is delivered in the form of deus ex machinae. One is definitely more convincing than the other; the latter essentially dispenses needed wisdom like a tap, and drags the Tristan und Isolde subtext into plain light, where I’m as yet unconvinced it needs to be. But it’s thematically satisfying and the resolution to the central plot is, as I said, well-handled, and I’ve got only warm feelings toward the series as a whole.

P.S. As recompense for mentioning another Oni Press series in my last post, I hereby resolve to order some more books from Oni and resist lazy comparisons.

6 – Guy Adams – DCI Gene Hunt’s Rules of Modern Policing

I picked up this frivolous media tie-in book in a charity shop. Guess where it’s going back to?

Okay, in the interests of putting some effort into this, I’ll add that it’s far too knowingly ironic. Life On Mars managed to crowbar a lot of humour into its formula primarily because the clash between the inherent bigotry of 1970s Britain with “modern man” Sam Tyler wasn’t played ironically. These characters genuinely just didn’t understand each other at times. The humour is derived by the audience as voyeur, not because the bigotry is hammed up. This clearly rapidly-put together book leaps beyond that basic subtlety to repeatedly nudge you in the ribs and wink at the ribaldry.

I’d possibly forgive that were the book actually amusing, but sadly it’s not. In fact, the funniest thing about it is that one of the photographs in it that isn’t a still from the show was clearly taken at a second-hand bookshop. For no apparent reason the shelves are full of books on Irish history, and most of the volumes on display quite obviously postdate the ’70s. Smooth.

7 – Michael Crichton – State of Fear

You may be thinking that I’m not a likely Crichton reader, and you’d be right. Beyond reading the Jurassic Park books as a young teen I’ve mostly avoided his work. As a pretentious slightly older teenager I looked instead to “more serious” science fiction, an an older and still pretentious 20-something I sneered at his simplistic prose and antagonism towards the scientific community.

Still, over Christmas my dad gave me this book to read, and he said he was interested in what I thought of it, so I figured I’d give it a go. After all, I reasoned, it can’t possibly be worse than the Da Vinci Code, and I got through three chapters of that before the laughter overwhelmed me.

Having now actually /finished/ this 700-page airport thriller (if you’ve been wondering why it’s been so long since I posted a P52 update, it’s because I found this novel a struggle to get through)… I find myself in two minds. One of these minds occupies a position of relative ignorance. Allow me to elucidate.

This is a polemical novel, but not quite in the way I initially expected. Whilst Crichton’s (many) mouthpiece characters are presented as rational, intelligent human beings and his straw men… are not, there isn’t the simple climate change real / climate change faked dichotomy I’d expected. Crichton has at the very least put a lot of effort into fairly representing his argument and supporting it with data and footnotes. Unfortunately because the argument in the novel is so very one-sided it’s hard to feel like this is a debate or dialogue rather than an extremely persuasive misrepresentation. This has the further unfortunate result of somewhat undermining the central thrust of the point Crichton is trying to make in the last 100 pages of the novel: that idealistic zealotry, mis- and over-representation of research and data, and the intrusion of self-interested politics and self-reproducing bureaucracy into science, all do serious harm to our ability to understand the world in which we live, the ways in which we are exploited, and the unique ability humans have to consciously manage their home planet. It is a good point and one I can’t possibly argue with, even if I don’t share all of the author’s other opinions.

As to the arguments Crichton makes about climate change… well, climate change, resource scarcity and environmental concerns have occupied my thoughts and guided my life choices for many years now. But I’m no idealogue, and I have to admit that I have no means of countering a lot of the information he represents. I often found myself thinking that Crichton could have been quite selective with what information he put into his arguments, but that’s unfair as I have no basis for thinking it other than that he is violating my preconceptions. Hence the ignorance I mentioned just above. I have a few germinal arguments but I would have to go away and spend some time doing some research (which I may yet to do, but right now I’m easing out of a week of alcoholic and musical excess). Still, I’m impressed by the fact that insofar as Crichton’s position is concerned, it seems well-presented and it has made me question my preconceptions and opinions, which is always a good thing.

I mentioned the other mind in which I find myself. This is well positive. Put simply, this is a simply written novel and really quite shallow. Crichton’s prose is clearly consciously intended to be parsed quickly and easily; I’m sure it’s the reason for his success. Everything is presented very literally, very matter-of-factly, and this grates long before 700 pages have passed. His characters, too, are utterly flat. Only a few exhibit some occasional moment of humanity; even these spend most of their time as automatons marching to the twin beat of Plot and Argument. The book’s female characters are laughable, almost all either hyper-competent hotties with the smarts to match, eye-candy bimbos or just rather useless. All the stuff I talked about in the paragraphs above works okay as a polemic, but as a novel the book is disjointed and oddly constructed. And, of course, the central conceit is utterly ludicrous, although I did find the super-science villainy of the ELF zealots very amusing. They have machine guns and create flash floods to sensationally drown children, and do not fear death! Grrrr!

Still… it was hard work, but I’m glad I read this. I’m less looking forward to discussing the above with my dad, haha…

8 – J. G. Ballard – Kingdom Come

Believe it or not this is the first Ballard I’ve ever read. And to think I occasionally review books, eh? Talk about being underqualified.

This novel sets its sights on a cultural monolith that has attracted criticism for decades, ever since its inception: the shopping mall, and more broadly the effects of consumerism on human society and psychology. The protagonist, a sacked ad-man, comes to one of the orbital M25 towns that ring London. Here, in true suburbia, lie the heartlands of mall culture. In the latest and greatest of these creations, the Metro-Centre, his father met an untimely demise at the point of a gunman’s bullet. In searching for the truth behind his father’s killer the protagonist uncovers both the promise and the darkness that lie at the heart of the people and towns that align themselves with the life and culture of consumerism… and gives birth to a monster.

That’s a bit of a shallow summary, but it highlights all the key points. At first the novel focuses on unpacking a murder mystery set against a sinister backdrop of racism and football hooligan violence, but soon this is put to the sidelines as the protagonist turns his own skills to breathing life into the nascent beast of hyper-consumerism. Both threads slam together for an impressive climax.

This is a good novel, and Ballard’s prose is delightfully well-observed. His ability to highlight the sinister and the intimate in the everyday is superb. Any criticisms I have are either political or superficial: on the most shallow level, early on there are some geographical transitions that don’t work. I wondered if these were deliberate and supposed to make a point, but this isn’t the case. It’s not a major problem but it broke the flow for me as I flipped back and forth trying to see if I’d missed something. As for the political criticisms, these aren’t really relevant as they’re subjective. I’m also not entirely sure if the ideology of consumerism could work in the way this novel posits; it’s an overarching structure and a lifestyle, but not one to which people owe any loyalty beyond habit. As a conceit it’s convincing, and its easy to suspect disbelief while Ballard tells this story and explores the ideas related to it, but it lends the book a veneer of unreality. Which, all things considered, is actually quite appropriate.

9 & 10 – John Allison – Scary Go Round Books 4 & 5 (The Retribution Index, Great Aches)

Whew. After writing about ‘State of Fear’ at length I don’t really have the energy to go into these. In short, they’re collections of John Allison’s webcomic Scary Go Round, I’m a really big fan, and I wish I’d bought books 1 to 3 before they sold out as they will NEVER BE REPRINTED. Sobs!

Scary Go Round is a very English and extremely whimsical comic strip with wonderfully likeable characters, truly fine dialogue, and adorable artwork. I absolutely love the way the stories, concepts and characters range from slightly-askew surrealism to the cartoonishly silly (killer robots, minotaurs, midget vampires, Paninatu the volcano demon, etc.). I’m a little bit in love with several of his characters, which just goes to show how warm and human the comic strip is because falling for fictional characters is DISTURBING AND WRONG.

If you’ve never read Scary Go Round, go correct yourself. Personally I like Allison’s hand-drawn art a lot more than the computer stuff, so would recommend starting with one such story. You may want to just pick a random storyline and begin there since even if you go right back to the first strip you might still be puzzled; Scary Go Round features many characters and settings from its predecessor, Bobbins.

9.5 – Marc Ellerby – Ellerbisms Vol. 1

A short comic, so it gets a half-entry! I ordered this alongside Vols. 2 and 3 and Ellerby’s latest comic, Chloe Noonan: Monster Hunter. I’ll do these in a later round-up.

It’s interesting reading Volume 1 of Ellerbisms as the strips are a couple of years old now and (I think) mark Marc’s first foray into diary comics. The tone, composition and art is less consistent than the strips you’ll now find on his website, but there are still plenty of gems in here. Particular favourites include Marc wondering if he’ll ever live up to the heritage of Moleskine notebooks and contemplating napkins instead, the one about the joys of making mixtapes, and all of the strips about ATP.

Whilst reading this I was repeatedly beset by the vague recollection that I may have been slightly rude to Marc at the Wired UK launch. Oh dear. If I was, and he’s reading this, I apologise. I’d just been tricked into drunkenly fanning at Warren Ellis and was overcome with a desire to flee.

9.647839320 – John Allison – Ghosts

A lovely short comic featuring Scary Go Round regulars Shelley, Amy and Ryan, along with a ghost who likes to play the trombone. <3

Yeah, I’m pretty much made of fail. Oh well. Here’s today’s flash fiction. This one’s about punk rock, which will no doubt impress my regular readers as it’s a subject which I so rarely touch upon. The soundtrack for this one is (Shut) Up the Punx!!!

If you missed ‘em earlier in the week, here’s Wanderlust and here’s Heralded By Iron.

.

PUNK’S NOT DEAD

By the time he makes it outside the club, squeezing through sweat-soaked bodies and bar queues, she’s gone. The car park outside is quiet and empty, occupied only by discarded fag-ends and metal barriers with no crowds to corral. He swears and glances skywards. The night sky is mostly clear, although wisps of cloud drift high and dark.

Something sharp glances off the back of his head. ‘Ow,’ he says, and turns to look up. He sees a pair of boots above him, attached to legs that dangle from the roof. Of course it’s Elana. Glancing around to make sure that none of the venue’s bouncers are watching him, he puts a foot on the nearest windowsill and boosts himself up, finding familiar handholds as he climbs.

The rooftop’s as full of old cigarette boxes, bottles and other rubbish as he remembers. It’s been a while since he climbed up here to hang out or smoke a joint. He sits down beside Elana, dangling his feet over the edge of the roof.

‘Hey,’ he says.

‘Jack,’ she replies. She reaches into the hemp shoulderbag sitting beside her and pulls out a can of cheap, extra-strong cider, which she hands to him wordlessly.

‘Cheers,’ he says, and cracks it open. The hiss of the can opening is louder than the distant sounds of traffic, louder than the thump and roar of the bands playing below. He takes a swig and waits for her to speak.

‘I’m so fucking tired,’ she sighs, ‘of all the bullshit.’

‘The bullshit?’

‘You know. Everyone in this goddamn town. Everyone in this… fucking scene. All these little-pond big-fish bands with their egos and their tattoos and their… all the fucking pretention. The shallowness. The politics. It makes me sick.’

Elana punctuates her point by hurling a half-finished can of cider into the night. It arcs clear over the car park, leaking a trail of chemical-tinged and apple-flavoured alcohol droplets behind it. It vanishes out of sight behind a fence, into someone’s garden.

She sighs, reaches into her bag and pulls out another can.

‘I get you,’ Jack says. ‘You know I do. It doesn’t get under my skin as bad but I don’t like it either. But you have your ‘zine.’

‘Yeah,’ Elana sneers, cracking open the can. ‘Albini would be proud. I have a fucking diary that, like, three people read.’

Jack opens his mouth to speak but she shoots him a glance before he can say a word. ‘Don’t. I know every single person who has ever read more than a paragraph.’

He shuts his mouth. He knows it’s true.

Elana sighs and leans back, bending her Mohawk against the concrete. Rubbish rustles and scrapes as her leather jacket presses against it. She kicks the air aimlessly. Jack takes a few more sips at his cider and pulls two pre-rolled cigarettes out of his pocket. He lights them both and hands one to Elana, who takes and smokes it lying down.

‘Did you see Harri?’ she says, breathing out hard and watching the smoke erupting above her like a geyser.

Jack laughs. ‘Yeah. That girl… seriously. What a walking tragedy.’

‘Walking or lying down. Two months ago it was Fingers/Thumbs she was following around, trying to get someone to let her suck their cock. And now she’s making eyes at Austin, just because Choppy Sincerity got a review in rock sound. Girl needs a new hobby.’

‘You see,’ says Jack. ‘Harri’s just funny. How can you get so pissed off at that sort of thing? It’s so trivial and stupid.’

Elana sits up and slaps Jack’s arm. It stings; he’s only wearing a t-shirt and it’s cold.

‘You’re missing the point, Jack. It’s not about idiot kids like Harri. It’s about what they mean. Take Harri: she stands for all the stupid, fawning sycophants who drape themselves around preening peacock arseholes like doormats ready to be walked on. All the women who debase themselves just to get closer to fame. All the wankers who mistake what’s transitory for what matters.’

‘So what matters?’ asks Jack. He draws on his cigarette and blows smoke into the cold night air, watching Elana. She sighs, staring down at the car park below. Below them the door bangs open and a couple stagger out into the moonlight, leaning on each other and laughing.

‘Punk means something. You know. It means everything to the people that care about it: honesty, respect, kinship. A place of our own… something that holds itself up to better standards than the world around it.’

She’s frowning as she says this, forearms resting on her thighs, cigarette and cider in hand. Jack admires her: the creasing around her eyes beneath thin, sharp eyebrows, the half-faded colours of her sharp-edged hair, and the bunching sleeves of her too-large leather jacket. There’s nothing sexual in the way he watches her: he admires and respects her strength, and her doubt.

‘You know, your problem,’ he says. ‘Is that you focus on the big picture so much that you don’t notice all the little things that make it up.’

She’s silent, so he goes on. ‘Our friendship. All of your words. The fact that you’re always trying so hard to make things live up to high standards. Every song that touches your heart, every song that makes you want to scream at the world and force it to be better. Nights like this. Talking and being honest with ourselves.’

She turns her head and looks at him again, and this time the sparkle in her eyes shows she actually sees him.

‘I guess you have something there,’ she says. ‘And you call me the romantic.’ She throws back her head and downs the rest of her cider, then raises the empty can in a mock salute.

‘To the small things,’ she says. ‘And to the big picture.’

He joins her in her salute, and they link arms and laugh and swear at the sky.

.

Breaking the Circle

Hawkins feels uncomfortable about the Dictaphone hovering right in front of his face, but he’s committed to the interview now. Besides, he reasons, at this point any publicity is good, even if it is just an interview in a local fanzine.

“We also have a blog,” says the girl holding the Dictaphone, as if reading his mind. Hawkins nods and clears his throat, fidgeting with the beer bottle clasped between his hands.

“Start whenever you’re ready,” he says. The girl nods.

“To begin with,” she says, enunciating her words clearly for the recording, “perhaps you could tell us a little about the band and yourself.”

He holds back a sigh, wondering if he was wrong to hope for questions that were a little more penetrating than this.

“Malaise originally formed two years ago,” he says, slipping into a practiced spiel. “Ed and I were second-year university kids, still enjoying a little freedom. Si and Al were working the same shitty jobs they are now and playing grindcore in Al’s flat. We met at a show, got on, and formed the band. After a break while Ed and I studied and graduated we reformed and started taking things seriously. Since then we’ve self-published an EP and we have a single out next month from Satanikbatwingdeath, both of which we’re currently playing in support of.”

He pauses and swigs his beer, and adds “we’re keeping the shows pretty local, though.”

The interviewer smiles, and Hawkins instinctively smiles back, cracking his studiously stony demeanour. He realises he hasn’t asked her name, despite knowing that she writes for a ‘zine called Self Checkout. He shifts his gaze over her shoulder into the orange-tinged gloom of the club. There are only a few people hanging about, mostly in small groups, talking and laughing and sipping at nearly-full pints. Si and Al are sitting on the stage rolling cigarettes whilst Ed talks animatedly with the sound guy.

“The official biog, huh?” says the girl. Hawkins moves his attention back to her. She’s still smiling and holding the little tape recorder.

“That’s cool,” she continues. “You must get asked that a lot. I’m sure you have quite a lot of stock answers.”

“Yes,” Hawkins says, stupidly, realising immediately that it was a rhetorical question. “Uh… you can strike that from the interview, yeah?”

She laughs and he smiles again, this time not trying to stifle it.

“Okay, let’s hit you with a technical question. Is your decision to eschew effects a deliberate aesthetic choice, or is it just how things have turned out given your playing styles?”

“When we first formed we were determined to use an absolute minimum of effects,” Hawkins replies. “We agreed with bands and musicians who thought they were a distraction. It was obviously pretty ironic that we put so much gain on Al’s guitar, but for some reason distortion always gets a free pass. Anyway, later on we stopped being so militant about it, but by that point we’d found our sound, and there wasn’t any need to change it.”

“That Malaise sound is a good example of why ramping the gain on just one guitar gets a free pass,” the girl says. “It’s a sort of textural backdrop to the high-end clean sound you use.”

“Yeah, that’s it. Well put. Although that was accidental, originally. I just didn’t have an amp with built-in distortion and like I said, we didn’t use pedals.”

“Cool. Okay, thanks Hawkins. Mind if I go for a more personal question?”

“Sure,” says Hawkins. He feels relaxed now, and is even pleased that she evidently understands his band. He guesses retrospectively that the first question was fluff to serve as a generic introduction for readers.

“Your lyrics are very personal, although not in the confessional style that’s in vogue at the moment. They’re all written in the first person, and they’re usually directed at an unnamed second party.”

“Oh,” says Hawkins. He takes another swig from his bottle, swallowing the last few dregs of room-temperature lager. “Well, it’s a writing style, I suppose. Everyone has their own approach to songwriting. That’s just the way I feel comfortable, addressing my songs to other people.”

“But is it other people, or is it… another person?”

Hawkins isn’t sure how to react: for a moment he freezes.

Of course the girl is right, but this is the first time anyone has noticed. Even Ed, a close friend for many years, never picked up on the way Hawkins’s songs were all directed towards the same individual. The subject matter was always different, as was the tone and angle of approach, and Hawkins often wrote in an abstract or heavily metaphorical fashion, but all the same he should have guessed that someone would figure it out one day.

He still doesn’t know what to say, so he coughs and looks at the ground, trying to think quickly.

“Oi, Hawkins!”

He looks up, saved. “Si?”

“Better wrap up mate. Time to sound-check.”

Relieved, he looks back at the girl. “Sorry. It’ll be a short interview, I guess. Maybe some other time.”

“We could pick it up after the soundcheck?” she asks, hopefully, switching the Dictaphone off and slipping it into her jacket.

He shakes his head. “Sorry, we need to go grab food right after. Then the supports start.”

“Shame,” she says, evidently disappointed. “I wanted to hear your answer to my last question.

Hawkins smiles and slips away to the stage.

—

After the show he weaves the crowd and catches the interviewer’s attention, drawing her away from a pair of friends at the bar.

“Good set,” she says. “What did you want?”

“You’re right,” he tells her. “You figured it out. It’s just one person.”

She doesn’t reply or pull out the dictaphone, just asks: “Why do you do it?”

“That’s easy,” he replies. “I’m doing it for the day I’m no longer doing it all for her.”

She smiles at that, and her eyes glisten in the lights of the club. He smiles back, and asks her name.

1. Our Bright Horizons – A deliberate stylistic and thematic departure from much of what I’d written before. Difficult, but fun.
2. We’re Never Going Home! – the first of a series of latter-’08 tales with titles stolen from my favourite bands, and an attempt to fuse my love of punk rock with my love of surreal fantasy/horror.
3. Interdiction Zone – a mildly amusing – and slightly inhumane – piece of post-apocalyptic SF set in the same dying world as several other F3 tales.
4. Love Story – an experimental piece of fiction that tries to bind language directly into the narrative, a trick I freely admit I stole from Ellis Sharp (who does it much better than me).
5. My Mother the Robot – yet another stylistic experiment, this was written in the style of a young girl’s diary. You can either take it literally, or regard it as the sort of fantasies children develop to deal with parental divorce.
6. Watching the Valves – another post-apocalyptic SF piece which is inspired by both Mad Max 2 and The World Without Us (specifically the chapter about the Texas oil refineries).
7. This Urban Aesthetic – probably one of the few F3 stories I wrote that works well as a stand-alone story. One of only a few of my stories to receive a positive response in Zinos-Amaro’s review of Illuminations.
8. Bitterness the Star – it’s very recent but, to paraphrase Neil, I like the macro/micro scale juxtaposition. Has some thematic similarities with ‘Love Story’, above. I wonder why that might be!
9. Earthbound – the other F3 writers who commented like this quite a lot, perhaps more than I did. Just goes to show that writers oughtn’t listen to themselves too often.
10. Releasing Moments – a flawed 2nd-person perspective experiment that revisits the concept central to Carry These Songs Like a Comfort Wherever You Go.

I think the calibre of my writing has improved greatly over the last 12 months, especially where flash fiction is concerned. I’m proud of these stories.

This year I’ve written 23 pieces of fiction, which is a bit less than one every fortnight. I think my poor output over the last three months has really dragged this figure down. So it goes. Still, ‘Bitterness The Star’ last Friday brought my overall total to 39 pieces (or 40 if you include Excerpts from Eastercon as two, or 39 again if you exclude the over-long Half-day of the Dead). Roll on F3 ’09.

Hopefully over the weekend I will be bringing you some live and recorded music reviews; we’ll see how that goes. Also, somewhere out there are two book reviews for Vector. I’m puzzled that the latest issue hasn’t appeared yet. Semper fi, eh?

.

CARRIED OUT TO THE SEA

The moon is high in a cloudless sky, and the reflected light of that thin crescent jostles with the hundred thousand twinkles of citylight to illuminate the streets below. Some of the competing light bounces off the surface of the river that splits the metropolis in two, wavering as the water is stirred by a chill night breeze.

The Axeman is walking across the great bridge, instrument slung diagonally across his back by the shoulder strap. Its strings are naked and cold in the night air. The pickups glow momentarily as the instrument’s bearer walks beneath a streetlight. People used to call him FR. People used to shout his name.

He stops at the centre of the bridge, slim hands fingering his companion’s strap. There are rings on his fingers and in his dreadlocked hair.

He remembers parties where laughing kids danced and fought in every room, the floors strewn with the detritus of good times: beer cans, empty cups, cigarette butts and well-trodden trash. There were always couples kissing in corners, there were always the dedicated circling the stereo and arguing over records.

He remembers shows where a hundred people thrust their fists in the air, eyes squeezed tight shut or ecstatically wide as they roared and sang in unison with the song. Feet stamped to the rhythm of the drums and bass; guitars and sometimes pulses of synthetic sound sang over the crowd, keeping heads and hearts aloft.

He remembers walking streets at 4am, hand-in-hand with strangers, heading out for food or sex or both. The band sank beers and shots on nights off, getting drunk or high with friends and strangers alike. They spent long days and nights in vans and living rooms, snatching sleep where he could.

He remembers the parties started lovely, but then things got druggy and then they got ugly. The white spectre that has ruined so many bands before reared its head. An intervention saved the band but left relationships fractured, almost sundered.

He remembers the crowds and music turning ugly, the camaraderie vanishing like the hopeful dream it always had been. Violence began to characterise the stage as well as the pit. Fists swang, drinks were thrown, harsh language exchanged. Blood was spat, literally and metaphorically.

He remembers the day the dream finally splintered, when everything fell apart in calamitous intensity. The tour that never was, the suffocating disillusionment; awareness of disappointed fans and the realisation that the band was gone, that reality had finally pressed its fingers through the cracks and wrenched the artifice apart.

He remembers, and thinks, and watches the river flow by.

He throws that damn guitar over the rails, watches as it tumbles and turns toward the river below. Its lacquered red finish catches the light as it falls, but finally it vanishes from view when it meets the darkness below. No sound reaches the bridge bar a soft and distant splash, which is soon drowned out by the passing traffic.

The title, fact fans, is lifted from the best live/tour film you’ll ever see: Against Me!’s 2004 DVD We’re Never Going Home. It sums up most of the reasons why they were so special in the first half of the decade (for the record I think they’re still pretty special now, but they’re different people in a different band because of the success they’ve experienced – something the band spends a lot of time grappling with in the film).

.

WE’RE NEVER GOING HOME!

Life on the road: good times for all time. The drink flows forever, the girls are easy to find and easy and always young. So long as the van gets you from state to state, town to town, show to show, and the band stays together, we’re never going home.

The names of the towns all blend into meaningless syllables, stumbling from slurring lips. The driver must know but never tells; who’d remember? The roadies are blacked out and we’re feeling spaced out. We’ve made a game of the towns, marking them with arbitrary measures. This one has four Burger Dumps down the same horizon-linking stretch of road. That one has unhealthy and plastic-green trees unevenly spaced between places where trees shouldn’t be. This one had the prettiest girls. That one had the loudest fans. We sold the most t-shirts back there. One dive had too much neon strip-lighting. Dan threw up behind his drumkit – twice – in the town where we met the rich promoter who took us all out for steak. Raz, still clinging to his vegetarianism by a few delicate threads, had some kind of quiche. God bless the improbable American millionaire.

I remember city lights in the rain the best. They lose focus and the glare stretches diagonally across my vision. I grin like an idiot every time I see that, every time I hear the rain pattering or hammering on the roof of the van. We have a routine when this happens: Dan jams a sock in the hole in the roof, and I replace whatever’s playing with the mixtape for rainy days.

Yeah, the van’s got a tape deck. We’re old-school guys in an old-school band in an old-school van, playing to old-school fans and living the old-school life. We’ve never been assholes to anyone who didn’t deserve it, and we’ve always helped out the bands we play with. It’s not exactly ‘do no evil’ if the devil has all the best tunes, but for the scene we circulate in we’re the good guys.

But that was then, and this is today. We’ve been on the road for what must be half a year now, playing a new town every night, or every other night – America’s a big place in a small van. And it’s been no surprise that the towns all began to look the same, but tonight is different. I’m standing in the tiny corridor between the backstage area – a big cupboard for stashing gear – and the venue’s tiny stage. I’m ringing out a t-shirt soaked in sweat and blocking C’s path.

‘Did you see them?’ I ask. ‘The kids from the last town.’

‘Out of the way, dude,’ C says. He rubs a sweat-slick hand over his forehead, brushing sodden hair out of his face. ‘I have seriously got to hit the bar.’

‘This is important, man. Tell me, you recognise those three kids right at the front? Big girl in yellow, two skinny kids in denim and This Bike shirts?’

‘They were just kids. Shift, asshole, I need a beer.’

‘They were at the front of our last show. And the one before that. And not just them. I recognised a whole lot of people in the crowd.’

‘So we’ve got kids following us. That’s pretty cool, man. Listen, I still-‘

‘You ever see anyone following us on the roads? Ever?’

That shuts him up.

‘Seriously, dude, this shit is fucked. Something seriously weird is going on. You remember the last time we saw anything, like… the fucking news? Read a paper? Heard a band we hadn’t heard before?’

‘We always watch the support acts,’ says Dan, walking up behind me. I hear the sharp pop of a can being cracked, and C catches a second thrown beer. Dan hands one to me, too.

‘You remember what any of them were called?’

‘They were all just local kids. Who remembers? They were okay; nothing amazing. What’s with the paranoia?’

‘I’m just sayin’… it seems like we’re literally playing the same towns, to the same people, with the same bands… and nothing’s changing. No matter how far we drive.’

C shakes his head and smiles. ‘Sounds like Groundhog Day, and you’re no Bill Murray. Listen, I seriously gotta get some fresh air.’

He pushes past me and walks off. Dan raises his beer to me in mock salute and winks before ambling away to find a drinking buddy or an easy lay.

I feel suddenly woozy like I stood up too fast and I sink to the ground, leaning back against the wall. I crack open the warm can of beer and swig. For a few moments I feel better, until I look down the corridor and catch the eyes of a girl I realise I’ve seen at least half a dozen times before. Her eyes shine in the low light and she smiles invitingly to me, but I feel suddenly sick and lurch away toward the exit.

I spend a sleepless night in the van, waking up only when we’re already en route to the next show. My friends laugh when I stir, drop a bag on my chest with a cold burger and chips inside. I fake a smile and try to force down a few mouthfuls. I withdrawing into myself and soon enough the others decide I’m not feeling well, so conversation flows comfortably away from me.

When we reach the next town I don’t dare look from the windows, afraid I’ll see the landmarks of a place we’ve been before. When we find where we’re playing – a basement party – I shiver because I’ve seen the boarded-up windows of this squat before.

I’m moving mutely as my bandmates laugh and joke and swig from cans. I take the cases I’m handed unquestioningly, carry them inside, looking around me at the familiar faces that smile or and glance shyly away. The posters on the walls all display designs that seem simultaneously old and new. I can’t make out any of the dates. And when we take the stage, I know with a chilling certainty that I’ve been here before.

Always the same faces, always the same venues, always the same town. If this keeps up it’ll always be the same songs, too, because this rut in which we’re trapped is sapping our creativity clean away. Why write something new when there’s nothing left to you? Wherever we go, whatever we do, we’re never going home.

.

OUR BRIGHT HORIZON

We set out for the horizon with laughter in our eyes and dreams in our hearts. The future was a great unknown, alive with possibilities that we felt compelled to explore. Together we traversed great swathes of land, moving like blood cells along the capillaries and veins of the tracks and roads that bound the flesh of nations together. Sometimes we walked, sometimes we hitched, and for a few hundred miles we drove a small convoy of almost-junk cars. After the cars and our legs gave out, we switched to the railroads. Trains running on tracks like impulses down nerves: tightly bound, but with clear purpose and destination. We joked and called ourselves intruders, micro-organisms riding electric impulses as we journeyed to nowhere.

The metaphor gave out someplace, sometime, so we clung to cities for a spell. That bright horizon still surrounded us but was hidden from view by the high-rise towers of the rich and the shanty-towns of the poor. Other cultures’ inequities always seem the more naked and exposed, and for a time we sat and meditated upon this, waiting for our preconceptions to be stripped away. Eventually, lacking the intervention of a being spiritually greater than us, we hit the backstreet bars and their dangerous, honest alcohol. Soon enough we forgot the horizon, dwelling in the cramped darkness of a rambunctious underworld. Eventually the bullet came round in our game of Russian Roulette in the form of a string of brutal beatings, so we cut our losses and bailed out, unfinished business streaming behind us like torn parachutes.

Back we went to the trails, slowly hiking our way across hills and vales, circumventing great treacherous peaks, admiring their splendour and smiling at the fear they conveyed. Fueled by such arrogance we walked for months, buying food where we could and foraging where we couldn’t. By now we had become part of the landscape, indistinguishable from the flora and fauna that surrounded us. Even our rutting became bestial, crudity and tenderness intertwined in an inescapably animalistic double helix. As we explored the world around us we explored what was within us. Drugs helped; at times we felt messianic, sharing with one another our wisdom and insight.

Eventually we had all but traversed the world and we found ourselves back at our point of origin, not in any literal sense, nor spiritual or metaphoric, but deep down we knew that the wheel had turned a full cycle and our backs were broken upon it. Though we no longer knew of a home to return to, we traced back along our memories until we found what might have been a point of origin, and there we returned.

The issue opens with a piece of artwork, ‘Fools and Intellects’ by Cameron Gray. It’s a delightfully sinister and wicked piece, which I interpreted as poking fun at those men who would be fished (in this case by a large but childlike figure, itself distracted by a nearby butterfly). This is followed by ‘Day of the Dead’ by Jamie Dee Galey, a simpler and less evocative drawing but one which leads nicely into the first story, ‘El Alebrije’ by D. Richard Pearce. An American émigré named Natalie has taken up residence in a small Mexican village. Her constant companion is el alebrije, a bird-sized creature that appears differently to each onlooker, which appears to feed on expression and emotion. The story has a great sense of place that grounds its thematic concerns: the interaction between culture and self, outsiders, foreignness, change, and their explication in dream and nightmare are all explored through Natalie, who ultimately is afraid of letting herself be. ‘El Alebrije’ is a wonderful story and a great way to start the magazine.

Next is a poem by Lucy A. Snyder titled ‘Subtlety’. I sometimes struggle with interpreting poetry but I enjoyed the comparisons drawn between pornography and the use of language, and wondered if this might be a jab at dressing up inadequately-developed concepts in “lacy, coy underwords” – after all, what’s really interesting is what’s underneath.

The next piece of fiction is ‘Four Judgements and a Torment’ by Erik Williams. This tale is told from the perspective of the demon Yarsloth who must force a priest to endure four trials. The portrayal of hell and its denizens as a bureaucratic nightmare is surely a cliché, and Yarsloth, although entertaining enough, does little to shake this burden. The priest does stand out through his unshakeable righteousness, but overall this is a slight story with an unsurprising conclusion.

Following ‘Four Judgements’ is another poem, ‘Hepatocellular Carcinoma, Stage IV’ by Samantha Henderson. I had to look up the title; it refers to a cancer of the liver. I’m not sure if Stage IV refers to its development or treatment. The poem evokes an everyday image of a smalltown street with hints of desolation before turning inwards and exploring the self:

We are, at best, smears,
Water with a little dirt to make it more interesting.

The philosophical observations of this second stanza, coupled with the scene-setting of the first, produce the sad but liberating conclusion of the third. Following this poem is ‘Sam-Sharp Walls’, an ink drawing by newel anderson that recalls Rorschach inkblots: it’s part of a triptych that I’ll comment on later.

Next there is ‘Painlessness’ by Kirstyn McDonald. A young woman named Faith has moved cities, hoping to make a new start in life. Her plans are hampered by illness and sounds of violence from the apartment next door. Mara contrives to meet and attempts to bond with her neighbour, Mara, a woman who cannot feel pain and heals quickly, and thus sells her services to men as an object to visit pain upon. The well-meaning Faith repeatedly attempts to rescue Mara, which offers Mara spurns. The tale builds to a crescendo that is as cold and hard as ice, and as sad and bittersweet as human experience. Recommended.

‘Watching the Playoffs’ by Jim Kacian is a stream-of-consciousness style poem, almost like a fever dream in which the poet searches for patterns, rules, logic, rationality – and thus control. Of course these things continually slip away. I concede that I may be projecting my own childhood dreams “through a fog of flu” onto this poem and that other readers may glean something else from it. Following this is ‘Dolls’, a poem by Kristine Ong Muslim, which unfortunately left me none the wiser for having read it. Some secrets cannot be unlearned, and dolls are faceless dead things, but the significance of this escaped me.

Author John Walters shifts between second and third person perspectives to tell two interwoven stories in ‘The Disappearance of Juliana’. Juliana, a dysfunctional young artist, searches the world for an ex-boyfriend she long ago abandoned. In pursuit of her is her stepfather, the cause of many of her problems and a sexual abuser of children. Over the course of her journey Juliana learns to both let go of and seize hold of life. Her stepfather earns no such wisdom. This is a beautiful and strange story, in parts introspective and poetic, in parts harsh and cruel. The different perspectives which constitute the story are well-told and envisioned, letting us see two different worlds through these pairs of eyes.

Next there is ‘Sam’, a second piece of art by newel anderson. Here the Rorschach blots of the first piece have been replaced by the unmistakeable form of a samurai warrior in battle regalia. He is seen from behind, and in contrast with the first piece the inkwork is sharp and precise.

Neal Blaikie’s ‘Offworld Friends Are Best’ is told in first person perspective with an unusual diction. It’s a mix of old and new slang, which I at first imagined as a stereotypical good ‘ole boy drawl coupled with textspeak and SFnal lingo. Occasionally this slips and whole sentences are presented in clear contemporary English, but for the most part it’s sustained and skilfully made comprehensible. This use of language conveys the strangeness of the story’s future far more effectively than mere description could.

Unfortunately I found that there was little beyond the language to sustain the story; by the mid-point the sense of strangeness had petered out. The story’s small mysteries I found insufficiently intriguing, and there was no obvious plot or character arc driving the story forwards. Possibly the strangeness that first intrigued me led me to miss what was significant about the story itself, and this is why understanding escaped me, but this possibility aside the story wrapped up with only partially explicable events that were outside the protagonist’s control. As in much of the story things happened to or around the narrator, but they were rarely an active participant. In summary I found this tale wonderfully written but disappointing.

A triplet of shorter tales follow the lengthy ‘Offworld Friends Are Best’. ‘Monkeyshine’ by Hugh Fox is an odd little story centred on a family gathering. It’s an endearing, referential, superficially nonsensical tale that teasingly puts the lie to the “loss of the old ways”; a universal human concern in this age of globalisation and homogeneity. The family speak many languages, picking up bits here and there from the many peoples and cultures they mix with on a daily basis. This is a story that takes great joy in language and play, and I’m pleased to say that this pleasure is infectious. Jeremy C. Shipp’s ‘Baby Edward’ focuses on an ex-musician named Ed. Reality and surreality intermingle as Ed and new girlfriend Annabelle spend time together. Annabelle sees Ed’s guitar locked away inside an old VW Camper, whereas Ed sees “baby Edward”, a monstrous thing that feeds and consumes and grows. The conclusion to the story is sweet, though, a pleasing paean to accepting the past and living in the past and for the future. And then there is Vanessa Gebbie’s ‘Jamie Hawkin’s Muse’. The eponymous Jamie was born with a hump on his back and one leg three inches shorter than the other. He has never fitted in the world, feeling passed by and overlooked. “Not a real person, not really” he tells himself. But he still searches, in sight and sound and smell, for the “closeness between people that he felt but did not know.” After his mother dies Jamie applies for a job at the mortuary, wishing to be a poet. At first the harsh chemicals and stark environment wash away his words but Jamie does, eventually, find the poetry he has been searching for.

‘Freight’ by Joseph Love is another story that left me bemused at its conclusion. There’s a warmth to the story quite at odds with its setting, and a beguiling innocence to its characters, but it also feels as though there’s a hole in there, an absence that none of the characters will speak of. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to unpack the answers to my questions, and so I can only say that this story didn’t work for me. Next up is ‘Untitled Collaborative’ by Mike Capp, Justin Hillgrove, and Shana Marcoullier. It’s a delightful piece of artwork that mixes various different styles to produce a suitably strange and unusual whole. If there’s more to the piece than whimsy and weirdness I didn’t catch it, but it’s fun and aesthetically appealing and so in this case I didn’t object to the lack of answers. Completing my little trilogy of obliviousness is ‘Under the Flowers a Carcass Waits’, a poem by Rusty Barnes about loss and waiting for something that never comes. There is some well-drawn imagery here, and I found the juxtaposition of idling and deep loss unusual. I’m assuming that the title is the key to unlock the poem’s meaning; if “carcass” is symbolic of something else I’ve missed the point entirely.

Cameron Gray boasts a second piece of art in the form of ‘Worldly Divine’. This is almost Giger-esque, depicting a line of three baby-like figures. The central figure’s skull unfolds into outstretched tentacles with suckers, whilst those of the flanking figures are open and hollow. Hovering behind them are hints of feathered wings. These are certainly not the innocent and vacuous cherubim one most often encounters. (There’s rather a lot of angelic imagery in this issue, which is an odd companion for the recurrent theme of self-acceptance.)

Tina Connolly’s ‘The Salivary Reflex’ is a story of love, life and first contact. Allison knows people intimately by their taste, seeking in this some unique aspect of who they are. Her life with her husband has grown cold and tasteless, but during this decline aliens – colloquially known as “pinkies” – have arrived. They appear to have travelled to Earth to proselytise although, as might be expected, a few salient details have been lost in translation. At times this tale of detached strangeness reminded me of Kelly Link’s fiction. Allison is wonderfully drawn, as are her husband Tom and friend Paul, and the aliens are used in an intriguing and unusual manner to complete her story.

Another brief tale follows in the form of ‘Nan’ by Scott Christian Carr. Nan is a sapient ape or simian, and his constant companion is the narrator – a dog which shares an unexplained psychic link with its master. Together they run through the cities that humanity built and, for whatever reason, departed. The story is a curious portrait of a world after humanity, of what we might leave behind, of the analogues that might arise and how life could continue to learn and grow.

‘By Zombies; Eaten’ by Christopher Buecheler starts out in over-familiar territory. Zombification has spread across the US in a serious epidemic. The story starts out in a small town being steadily worn down by unpredictable zombie attacks. Survival “is a full time job” characterised by hopelessness:

Better to batten down the hatches, keep your guns clean, keep your Bible open, and wait to die.

It appears that this is the slow and pointless death of humanity. Even lies have lost their power to comfort. But this lack of hope is not what this story is about. Wonderfully, unexpectedly, the conventions of zombie stories are inverted in a simple and powerful way. I highly recommend this story. To be fair I nerd for zombies, but I think this is an effective spin on an old concept.

Completing newel anderson’s triptych ‘Rise’ portrays an aged or despairing figure on its knees, reaching upwards with elongated fingers and unnaturally long nails. Its eyes are blacked-out and streaked; it lacks defined edges and its shape bleeds into the negative space above it. Looking at the three pieces side by side I see chaos and the promise of form giving way to strict, martial precision, in turn failing and fading as time takes its dues.

Paul Haines retells the Hindu myth of Holi in ‘The Festival of Colour’. A traveller named Shane finds a little more than he expected when he arrives in Pushkar, a small town surrounding a lake. Far from the easy lays and cheap drugs he’s been enjoying during his travels to date, he discovers a great deal about the town and his own past.

It is something of a cop-out to present two of the three mythic characters as visiting Westerners. Arguably this has the benefit of allowing most of this English-language story’s readers to relate more easily to these characters, and removes the difficulty of convincingly writing a character from a very different culture, but it’s nonetheless a lost opportunity. Instead we spend most of the story reasonably aware of what is going on, but are expected to play along with Shane’s ignorance and denial. Overall the story is well-written with great pacing, and is only disappointing in that it follows the form and format of most of these mythic retellings, with few if any surprises in store for the reader.

‘Thou Shalt’ by Hugh Fox is a playful mocking of the social mores and rules of contemporary society and a witty embrace of life’s joys and pleasures. It provides a brief moment of uplift before Jeff Somers’ ‘closer in my heart to thee’. A plague known as the Sweat is tearing through the country, killing thousands in a matter of days. It is highly contagious, almost instantly communicable, and Bobby Williams’ wife has contracted it. She is locked inside a room in their apartment, itself under martial quarantine, and Bobby is on the outside, trapped between the outside world and his dying wife. This is a beautiful and tragic story awash with liebestod, and a fine note on which to end this issue of the magazine.

Having already spent almost 2,500 words exploring this issue of GUD in depth, I shall not waste time on an overlong conclusion. If the praises sung above have convinced you to read this far they’ve probably also convinced you to try GUD out for yourself. Trust that impulse.