Tesseracts 14
Strange Canadian Stories
Edited by
John Robert Colombo & Brett Alexander Savory
E-Book Edition
Published by
EDGE Science Fiction and
Fantasy Publishing
An Imprint of
HADES PUBLICATIONS, INC.
CALGARY
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Foreword
John Robert Colombo
Reader, I urge you to read the stories that appear in this rich and varied anthology of strange Canadian fiction. Be sure to read them in the order that they appear here. If you do that you will find yourself caught up in the deceptive charm of the opening sentence of the first story. The sentence goes like this: “Genevieve and Ben examined the map of Italy on a placemat.”
What a great beginning for a short work of fiction! It sounds so innocent and yet it seems so … odd. I am sure that you will want to read on … and on … especially when it dawns on you that nobody is traveling to or about the boot of Italy … but that the reader is being led, not cap in hand but hand in hand, through the shadowy side of life in a small community in Canada.
If you continue to read story after story you will inevitably come to the last line of the last story in this anthology. There you will read the following ominous words: “I knew that if she came for us, I would hold Celia back, even if Celia looked up to be saved.” What a great ending: ominous, mysterious, meaningful … even if by now you know who is speaking and why Celia is being held back.
Once you have finished reading the stories in this anthology, a contemporary collection of such surmises and surprises, I am sure you will agree with me that story after story probes the darker side of human nature, even the darker side of what might be called inhuman nature. The stories shed eerie lights on the shadows of realities and existences we only suspect.
Readers of the earlier annual anthologies in this series will appreciate the fact that, in common with its thirteen (fourteen including Tesseracts “Q”) predecessors, Tesseracts 14 is a collection of contemporary Canadian fantastic literature. It is not a reprint anthology or a commissioned collection, but an open collection of stories submitted by the country’s most arresting writers. The publisher does not charge for submissions; instead, the publisher pays professional fees for all the literary works that we have accepted for publication. When I write we I have in mind myself and my fellow editor Brett Alexander Savory.
We selected twenty stories and twenty-one poems (in three collections) —from a total of some 450 submissions. I found it a great and at times bewildering experience to read, over the course of a few weeks, so many works of the fantastic imagination. After a while I began to yearn for the easy certitudes of reading a new work by a recognized writer like Stephen King or (to keep it Canadian) Robert Charles Wilson. The “easy certitudes” are the fact that from the byline I would know in advance what to expect. I had no idea what to expect when I turned to these manuscripts, manuscripts written by writers new to me and probably new to you too. The stories were contributed by writers — unknown, hardly known, barely known, known, even well known — and I had no idea what they would write about and how they would write about it. That is why the subtitle Strange Canadian Stories was chosen. Strangeness is characteristic of this collection … strange almost to the point, the breaking point, of estrangement. At first I wanted to subtitle the anthology Really Strange Canadian Stories — it has a ring to it! —but with some reluctance I came to the conclusion that the adjective really was inappropriate: The prose in the collection, while vivid and vital, is in no way experimental or subversive or demanding. In fact, the quality that I most detected and admired in the prose is its accessibility, its professionalism. The writing here is the work of professional story-tellers, many of whom reach out for artistry and memorability.
Up to this point I have been using the word stories to describe the contents of this collection. I should really stop doing that. Once you have worked your way through the collection, you will realize that not every work that has been included here is a work of fiction, for there are also highly imaginative poems and even one speech (albeit a highly inventive one that only a mature writer would dare to compose and deliver). One of my editorial determinations was to insist that no single poem would be accepted; only groups or suites of poetry would be given serious consideration. Poems would not be used as “fill” but would be treated as full-fledged contributions in their own right. I think the poetry included here needs no excuse: it is an exercise of the fantastic imagination, the same imagination that finds vivid expression in prose fiction.
Now I have been using the words imagination and fantastic with abandon, for I maintain that they express the dimension that most characterizes all the writing that appears here. The writers themselves are Canadian — by birth, by choice — but that is almost (but not completely) incidental when it comes to works of the imagination. To the degree that a writer is an artisan or an artist, he represents his time and place, and most of the locales of these stories will be seen (I believe) to be imaginatively or intuitively settings that are Canadian. But what is most important is not the nationality of the writer or the region of the world or the zone of space , but the nature of the writing itself. That nature is fantastic.
Now I like to use the words fantastic literature because these words refer to writing in the various genres (stories, novels, poetry, documentary) when it is informed by the fantastic imagination. This imagination is to be distinguished from the imagination that forms mainstream fiction or mundane writing which focuses on psychological realism. The literary works here are concerned with psychology, human inevitably, but they are additionally concerned with psychologies that may be distinctly non-real, man-made perhaps, even decidedly non-human. To simplify the discussion, let me suggest that fantastic literature includes imaginative writing that is Science Fiction, Fantasy Fiction, and Weird Fiction.
This generic division is three-fold, but is not cast in concrete or scripted in the akashic records. Yet it does seem to permit an ad hoc classification of the contributions here: SF is oriented to technological change and the future; FF is confined to peculiar powers and realities in the past or alongside our own in the present; and WF describes our present world and its society altered in one or two specific and irrational ways. It is possible to classify the stories in this anthology using this scheme. I do not recommend doing so, but it is often useful to attempt to determine “the center of gravity” of a given story to see if it is consistent with its premise and genre. Really strange stories might not be fully consistent. These stories, while strange, are consistent. (Their consistency may well be the single Canadian trait that they share!)
Brett and I had no trouble deciding that the stories included here were well deserving of publication, and we accepted them with close to unanimous agreement, right off the bat. We selected them on the basis of how they affected us, on how well they are written, and on how well they cohere. Some attention was paid
to representing all the regions of the country, but no attempt was made to do this on the basis of population. We wish there were more contributions from that quarter of the population that is francophone, but stories in French that we read, while interesting, sounded as if they had been rendered into English by “translation generators,” as indeed some were. (In the past twenty years, machine-translation has come some distance, but not enough to outpace the skill of the talented translator. Would that there were more translators to match the richly talented writers of French.) As for gender representation, we never kept count of female vis-à-vis male writers, so the two editors, being male, are relieved that so many women are represented on the basis of quality.
We are only sorry that so few submissions could be accepted. As it is, we exceeded the publisher-imposed upper limit — the “speed of light” of 100,000 words. Apologies are due to the many talented men and women who were not represented here but who are writing science fiction, fantasy fiction, and weird fiction with distinction. Yet the admission of an editorial basis is in order. We grew weary of stories with such sentences as “When Hassan the Cripple made his way to the sordid but colorful slave quarter…” or “It suddenly dawned on me that the twin lights were those of the eyes of vampires, glowing like hot coals in the night….” An anthology fully representative of popular tastes might include a lot of High Fantasy and Vampire Fiction, de rigueur in 2010!
What has been chosen for inclusion here leads me to conclude that there is much wisdom in the observation made by the endlessly insightful and inventive writer William Gibson. I have in mind this remark of his: “As I’ve said many times, the future is already here. It’s just not very evenly distributed.” That insight is now more than a decade old, for he first said it during a panel discussion broadcast on National Public Radio’s “Talk of the Nation,” November 20, 1999. It is one of those observations that becomes truer with the passing of the decades. At this very moment the seeds of the future are sprouting all around us, underbrush obscured by the older growth of the past. I believe that Gibson’s observation applies to the writers in this anthology. There are writers represented in these pages whom we are reading today and whom we will be reading repeatedly in the years and the decades to come, for they are chroniclers of our present and our future, alas!
Acknowledgements
I am pleased to acknowledge the assistance that I received from my fellow editor Brett Alexander Savory and also from other editors and writers. Brett’s acknowledgements appear later on; mine appear right here.
Brian Hades, the publisher of EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing, Calgary, Alberta, is to be saluted for his dedication to the publishing of fantastic literature, and expressly for his on-going commitment to the Tesseracts series. Erik Mohr created the arresting cover. (Do not let it unduly unnerve you — it depicts no particular story or poem, though it does suggest the “pink-eye” experienced by the editors as they read all these submissions!)
A general and ongoing indebtedness is acknowledged to the grande dames of Canadian speculative writing, Phyllis Gotlieb and Judith Merril. Along the way I sought and received advice from a clutch of people (none of whom shall remain anonymous): Carolyn Clink, Cory Doctorow, Christopher Dewdney, Candas Jane Dorsey, Peter Halasz, Don Hutchison, Robert Priest, Robert J. Sawyer, Lorna Toolis. If you have enjoyed reading these literary works, they are to be praised. If you have doubts about the quality of any of these literary works, my colleagues are not to be held responsible!
Every reader will appreciate the fact that in the final analysis, thanks are due to the innumerable writers who submitted their works, to the writers whose works were almost included, and particularly to those writers whose “strange Canadian stories” add excitement to the pages of Tesseracts 14.
Giant Scorpions Attack
Tony Burgess
Genevieve and Ben examine the map of Italy on a placemat.
“How big are whales?”
A whale with a sunny smile and a jaunty plume sits off the toe. Genevieve knows that Ben is trying to gauge the size of things on the map. If the whale is a mile long, then it is about four miles from Roma to Milano. Ben’s first instinct is to trust what he sees, then try to understand it. Genevieve smiles. She has no idea how big the boot is, but she knows that there is no way to tell by looking at this drawing.
“Whales are bigger than any animal. Ever.”
Ben studies the map again. “Where’s Duntroon?”
Genevieve tosses her hair back with both hands. She’s about to settle for Ben the impossibility of knowing everything when, as she often does, she decides that Ben’s on to something.
Genevieve pulls the paper cup of crayons over and starts to draw lines across Italy.
“What’s that s’posed to be?”
Genevieve takes a stubby pencil and writes Sydenham Trail. Erie Street. In a heavy cross in the middle she writes 124 and 91.
“Now, it’s a map of Duntroon.”
“Write that.”
Genevieve writes DUNTROON in big blocks across the word Italy. Making the I an N, the T a bolder T, the A an R, the L an O. The best she can to with the Y is a Q. Ben sees this and can now accept that it is a map of their home town.
“Now we have to put stuff from Duntroon on it. We don’t have whales.”
Ben looks at her as if she’s crazy then puts thinking fingers under each eye.
“Like what?”
“I dunno.”
“Raccoons?”
Genevieve looks out the tall window beside their table. Ben watches her do this, then lays his head down. A heavy truck hammers past. A small red car. Blue. A long white truck with a milk logo. Genevieve sits back as if stung. She points without pointing. Ben turns his head on his arm, then sits up quickly.
“Poo Lady,” he whispers.
Poo Lady appears once a day in Duntroon. She pushes an old-fashioned blue baby carriage and wears a green housecoat. She has curlers in her hair. Local children believe she rolls poo that she finds in the park, and maybe even her own, into her hair. They also believe that there is a baby made of poo bouncing around in the pram. There is a literal aura around this woman, a fecal spell, and it is believed that if you even say her name, Poo Lady, or, God forbid, ever spoke to her, that your breath would smell of farts for the rest of your life. Everything about her, the color of green, the thin black wheels, the filthy fart cigarette in her mouth had done something unspeakable to someone at some point. The worst part of her is the lie, the horrible pushing as if a baby was actually in there. Genevieve and Ben shudder. She has passed the window.
“Put the (whispered) Poo Lady on the map.”
Genevieve sighs. She suffers for having a younger brother. Ben’s forehead lands hard on the back of his hands and stays.
“Okay, okay, I know. I know exactly. We’ll do a weird map of Duntroon. All the things that are here that no one talks about. All the stuff we know about.”
Ben sits up.
“Poo Lady?”
“Poo Lady.”
And so they begin to make their map starting with a drawing of the Poo Lady on the 124. She is encircled in light brown. Then there is the House of Cruelty at the end of Erie Street. A pilot lives there who has gone mad because he spends more time in the sky than on the ground. The only way he can keep from killing children is to drown cats in a barrel in his back yard. Then there is the Stab Forest. A heavy tangle of thorn trees down the hill behind the legion on the west route out of town. The body of a woman was found in there five years ago. Her husband was taken away but the children know it was the spikes that got her. Piercing through her clothes and literally pulling out her heart and flinging it to the ground. Then on Sydenham, the Cherry House. In it lives a giant woman and her daughter who is grown up but only as tall as a two year old. This woman sings songs to God under her breath and the daugh
ter cackles and twists when she walks. Half of her body never came out of her mother, and is still growing inside somewhere, tightening the old woman’s shoulders. The mother is in so much pain that she sings to God under her breath every second of every day. The daughter is a kind of devil.
Genevieve and Ben sit silently for a long while trying to think of other things to put on the map.
“The fishing hole.”
“That’s not weird.”
“All the grade sixers pee in it on their way home from school.”
“So? That’s just gross.”
“Yeah. But nobody knows. Might be good to tell them.”
Genevieve makes a blue circle and fills it with yellow. Gross alone is too low a standard but gross and informative isn’t.
Genevieve and Ben stand on the narrow walkway at the side of their house. Genevieve turns and faces the heavy ivy. She lifts the back of her shirt and instructs her brother to press the map against her bare back then pull the shirt over it.
“Mom and Dad don’t need to know about this.”
She instructs Ben to hurry. Wasps are emerging from the shadows beneath the leaves. She closes her eyes until he is done.
That night Genevieve lies awake in her bed. The map lies in the dust beneath her box spring. She is waiting, as she does every night, for fear to creep up before falling asleep. She has to select what the fear can rise into safely. Usually a sound, or rather, the space between two sounds. The ductwork snaps somewhere in the house. Too alert, too random to make a proper space. A pump scrolls through water in the basement. Across the hall, Ben is coughing in his sleep. Then she finds it. The electric clock groans and ticks and then is silent. Not silent really, more suspended until the next groan and tick. That is the space. Genevieve focuses on the space. She needs to be accurate or the fear will never come and she will never sleep. The space is a hole. A gap. A non-groan and a non-tick. It is a thing covered or a thing removed. She races around it trying to make it what it is. It is a groan breathing in instead of out. It is all the silent ticks awaiting selection. Genevieve feels her ears grow larger than her pillow. It is the thinking about groaning and the remembering about ticking. Her eyes reach down and draw heavy bedding up into her thoughts. Genevieve feels her heart start to plink in the space. It is dying. The space between the groan and the tick is dying. Genevieve’s hands release around the bear at her chest and she falls to sleep.
Tesseracts Fourteen: Strange Canadian Stories Page 1