Tanks. Fluid pressing in. Aquariums for the dead.
Jules could not turn and run. Could not cycle away. But she also could not move toward that tank.
"Please,” said Marnie. “Just try it."
There was quiet except for the generator, and then Jules said, “Okay."
Avar immediately picked up the body that seemed less and less to belong to Jules. She stomped up stairs to a platform behind the tanks, turned, and lowered Jules in. The fluid filled in around her, cushioned her stone body. Avar fitted a mask around Jules’ nose and mouth, and then she slipped beneath the surface. Her right ear closed with gel, and the world cut off except for dry directions coming from the earbud.
With her left arm, Jules directed tubing as her sister commanded, Avar reaching in to assist. There were gloves of stretchy black rubber with yellow dots, and for a moment loss transformed into panic that rose like a bird in her throat and beat against her stone body.
She swallowed. She braced herself against the tank to wiggle the left glove on, one-handed, and then smoothed it as best she could against the hard surface of her leg, trying to leave no bubble or ripple in the fabric. Sensors. Tubes. Patches. Long rests. A headset—a stripped-down version of her flying helmet. Her stone fingers shook as she tried to put that on. It took ages before she could fit the clear band to her eyes. “And now what?” she murmured, half to herself and half to Marnie.
An explosion of pink light answered. It streaked, striated into painful white and red, spun clockwise, counter, and then the red darkened and marbled and the white slid into a blinding blue lit from within, the blue that only occurred in the early fall over her own red cliffs.
She thought at first it was a video of another day. A memory of last fall, captured by Marnie. But the nests were in this season's arrangement. She looked at her equipment, and it was too new and shiny to be her flycycle, though the controls were the same, and there were hands holding them in just the asymmetrical way she always did.
She lifted one and stared. It was a hand from the past. Fleshy and supple in black gloves with yellow dots, and when she stretched its fingers out and in, they moved.
Except it was thicker. The joints puffier.
Mechanical.
Jules folded and unfolded the hand for a while, until the vidfeed suddenly sparkled, turned blue.
"They're still working out the bugs,” Marnie said. “You wouldn't believe the trouble I had with Avar."
Through the watery glass of the tank, Jules saw the form of Avar leaning against the wall. Eyes closed, immobile. And there, always there. Jules whispered, “Marnie...."
The feed came online again.
"So what's the weather pattern today?” said Marnie.
Jules looked up at the sun, the real sun, and the brightness pricked tears. “Sunny morning. Probably clouds by noon."
"And the birds?"
In the tank, Jules imagined her fingers curling around the controls in familiar patterns, and the new flycycle obeyed just as the old one had. She took the new body off from the squarish rock and dropped a few feet, angling back to hover at the first nook. Speckly Grey Mom cooed and hopped along an outcropping. “The nests are thick with down,” Jules said. It was a sure sign that no down had been stolen in her absence—but it meant something else as well. “Too thick."
"Hard winter coming."
"Yes,” said Jules, and she reached out the black-clad arm that she saw. The hand closed around fluff and slid it into the suction bucket at her thigh, seeming both miraculous and matter-of-course.
Speckly Grey Mom warbled and hopped, uncertain about the intruder with the unfamiliar smell and slightly strange reflexes, rearing back as if she would slam her bill into the strange black hands. For a moment there was panic again as Jules thought this whole arrangement wasn't going to work, and she felt herself back in the tank, cut off from the air, cut off. But she swallowed that and crooned to the mother bird. “It's the fall harvest. Time to give up your down. Just like every year."
The eiddar hopped again. Then settled on the rocks and stuck out her bill toward the new cycle contraption.
Jules ran a finger along the bird's bill, hardly daring to breathe.
The eiddar cooed again, watching with eyes of beady black. Jules slowly reached down to the nest and drew forth another handful of feathers.
There was silence in her ear as three sets of eyes watched her hands slide and pluck at Speckly Grey Mom's nest.
Jules breathed out. “Where are you off to this week?” she said.
"Good question,” said Marnie. “I hear the cliffs are nice this time of year."
"Sunny mornings, clear evenings. At night the birds settle into their nests and great tufts of their down fluff into the air. You might like it."
"I might, I might."
Jules nodded, spreading her wings to seek out the next nest. Her hands were sure on the controls and her weight shifted to counter the gyropics as wind swept along the cliffs. Below her, Speckly Grey Mom rose, fluttering into the air alongside Jules, then arced back into her nest, nosing it with her bill. She plucked a cluster of fluff from her chest and patted it into place, rebuilding.
It would be a good harvest this year. The nests were thick with down, as the birds prepared for a long season of snow.
a father a son a disaffection by S A Tranter
I mind one time, maybe 1981? Well, it was a Sunday. And it was very cold and it was wintertime and very early—five a.m.?
My father had a subcontract job at some extension for a hospital. Plastering the walls of the empty shell of the building.
He'd asked me a few days earlier if I wanted to help him. He said he'd pay me. So aye, you know; too right I would.
We didn't have a car and there were no buses. So we walked in the dark for three miles to the job through the snow and the ice. We had to carry the tools. Hard work. Felt like a husky carrying those tools in the snow.
I mind walking up the Frogstone Road and seeing a used condom lying twisted on the ground, full with white spunk. Just lying there; must've been used and discarded on the Saturday night, a few hours before we walked by it.
I mind feeling very shy at seeing it. I wonder now, as I did then, if my father also saw it. And if he would remember, and laugh about it, if I mentioned it to him. Strange. But everything is strange.
We got to the site.
My job was to take two pails and carry the water back and thro fifty yards from the outside tap to an old tin bath where I was to mix the plaster with a broken old rusty shovel.
Hard work. But I liked it. I liked the ache in my arms, shoulders, back, legs. Cold air burning my lungs. Very sore. But it made me feel like a man when I was still a twelve-year-old boy.
It was hard doing that thing. The water-carrying was okay, but mixing the plaster was an agony. The cold made the plaster hard, made it set too quickly. I wasn't fast or strong enough.
My father had to keep leaving the wall-plastering to help me mix the stuff in the tin bath. Then the plaster on the wall would set and get all fucked up. He was getting angry with me.
We stopped and had our pieces. Cheese on white bread for me. Jam and cheese and treacle together on white bread for him. And hot tea from the tartan flask.
After we ate, it went on like that, me not keeping up and he getting angrier. Fuck.
We didn't get the job finished. But I knew he had to for the money. If the job wasn't finished that day, there'd be no payment. And we didn't get it finished. My father sighed and sat down. I just stood there before him with a pail in each hand.
He said to me, When you get in a fight, never ever go down, and always keep your back to the wall. Remember, Scott, it's what you're prepared to do, how far you're willing to go. If you're prepared to go further than those against you, then you'll win.
What a philosophy.
But he was right, I suppose.
I can't remember how we got home from that job. It's lost to me now. But I do remember h
e was adamant he'd be paid, and him coming home from work the next day with two black eyes and no money.
No money, but two black eyes.
That used johnny discarded in the street.
Monster Flights by Jessica Nicole Hill
* * * *
* * * *
Hunt of the I-Don't-Knows by Matthew Chad Weinman
Silence. Soft blue moon lights burnt-grass prairie.
Man with grey beard, “Shh.... Don't make a sound."
Bryce the Scribe to me, “What did he say?"
"I don't know."
"Shhh!!!!” looking over his shoulder to glare back at us.
Bryce the Scribe, “Why does he want us to be quiet?"
"I don't know."
Then a murmur. A wave of hectic whispers. Comes like a tide out of the darkness that surrounds us. Fills dry night with nervous chatter. Then a hush. Gone.
Silence. Looking around. Dark ashen forest in dim-blue distance behind.
Bryce the Scribe, “What was that?"
Man with grey beard, “Shut up!"
Bryce the Scribe, “What's going on?"
"I don't know. How should I know?"
Bryce the Scribe to me, “You're a goddamn penguin."
"I'm not a fucking penguin."
"Are too."
"Am not!"
Bryce the Scribe, “Bach-Bach!"
Me, “What the hell was that?"
"That's the sound a penguin makes."
Man in loud hoarse whisper, “Shut up!"
Silence. I stare absent-minded into the darkness.
I backbone-freeze as I see them. Their two-eyed pale human faces hover low to the ground. Their movements slow. Their lips moving in hunger-licking.
I point. Whisper, “Look."
Bryce the Scribe, “Oh yeah, I'm going to fucking look where a fucking penguin is telling me to look."
"Look."
"What do I look like to you? A toaster oven?"
Man, “Shut up!"
Bryce the Scribe, “Oh, don't mind the penguin, sir. Their species isn't culturally evolved enough to understand the meaning of silence. They just Bach! Bach-Bach! Bach!"
Man in anger, “You're a fucking moron."
Bryce the Scribe grinning towards me, “Get it. Like the composer. Come on, that's funny!"
"Look."
Man, “Both of you shut up!"
Their eyes hypnotize mine as they bob low and listless in the moonlight.
Out of the corner of my eye I notice Bryce the Scribe backbone-freeze. A whisper, “What are they?"
"I don't know."
Man turns frenzied eyes on us. Then quick-snaps head back towards low-heads. Contemplation on his forehead as his eyes snap back on us. He starts to run towards us. He sprints past.
Bryce the Scribe in loud voice, “What's going on?"
Man yells as he disappears into darkness towards forest, “I don't know!"
A low-head perks its ears.
Bryce the Scribe, “Jesus, no one knows anything."
A second low-head perks its ears.
Third low-head has a frenzy of slow thought come upon its eyes. “I don't know."
First low-head turns to third, “You don't know?"
Third low-head, “I don't know.” Its face strange-twisted pale frozen in moonlight.
Second low-head in background to self, “I don't know. I don't know? I don't know."
Bryce the Scribe and I watch in horrified silence-shock.
A fourth low-head, “What if, like, none of us know?"
A fifth and sixth join in, “Know what? Know what?"
First low-head, “We don't know."
A seventh and eighth, “We don't know! We don't know!"
Now there are twenty. Now there are thirty. They begin quick-filtering out of darkness. Their pale faces come ghost-like into moonlight. All in nervous panic-huddle, “I don't know! Do you know? I don't know! I don't know!"
Some of the low-heads jumping up and down out of frustration, “I don't know! I don't know!"
Arms begin waving frantic in moonlight, “I don't know! I don't know!"
White-knuckled hands begin tearing at hair, “I don't know! I don't know!"
Fierce-rubbing foreheads with tremble-fingers, “I don't know! I don't know!"
Arms on each other's shoulders mad-shaking, “I don't know! I don't know!"
One spots Bryce the Scribe. It slow-steps forwards. The frenzy quiets. A solemn low-head accusation, “He knows.” It grins. All grin.
Bryce the Scribe, “Bach-Bach?"
Another low-head steps forwards, “He knows."
Bryce the Scribe, “I don't know shit."
Another, “He knows."
Another, “He knows."
Bryce the Scribe, “Come on, fellas, I'm about as witless as a widdle."
Me, in a whisper, “A widdle?"
He shrugs, “I don't know?"
All the low-heads have come closer. Slow-moving. Prowling. Senses twist tight to the brink listening. Their whisper, “They know."
We begin backpedaling in the direction of the forest.
The flanks of the herd begin spreading wide to surround us, “They know.” In solemn ritual chant, “They know."
Bryce the Scribe's off. His shoes soft-crack the burnt grass. I quick-follow.
Footsteps now behind us drumming, “They know! They know!” Louder solemn chant, “They know! They know!"
"We don't know! We don't know!” Running. Hard breathing. Desperate towards the forest.
Voices uniting in great solemn crescendo, “They know! They know!"
Ground earthquaking, “They know! They know!"
Faster-running. Ground growing softer. Muddier.
"They know! They know!"
Bryce the Scribe just in front of me begins to kick up mud in his running.
Shoes begin to slip and suck-in.
Bryce the Scribe falls. I quick-step left. Keep balance. Keep running.
Bryce the Scribe soundless-screams as they bear down upon him, “They know! They know!"
I hear tortured screaming as they solemn-surround him, “He knows. He knows."
Forest. Closer. Thirty yards. Twenty yards. I still hear them chasing me, “He knows. He knows."
Hands begin grasping at muddy ankles.
I fall. Get up quick. Regain footing. Continue running.
I'm tackled. Fall to mud with strong pale arms around waist.
I still see the forest.
In ear heavy hot breathing, “You know. You know."
Fight my way out of grasp. Begin running before I have footing and fall back to mud.
Again grabbing at ankles. I kick and keep clawing towards dark forest.
Now one on my back. Still fighting with fingers deep in mud.
Feel weight of hundreds come down upon me. Begin to suffocate. Barely breathing. Try to keep head above muck-water-mud.
Solemn hot breath almost orgasmic, “You know. You know."
Barely breath left and last gasping whisper, “I don't know."
Drowsy. Slow-enchantment distant-stretching shout, “You know. You know."
When All Is Forgiven by Kelley A Swan
Her first childhood memory is of her father sliding out of bed, naked. She remembers little else except she knows she's scared of him, of the way he's angry and sad all at once, all the time. She knows she freezes, caught peeking into their bedroom, and stammers that she will clean her room. That she'll be a good little girl. She can taste her heart in her throat as she stands there.
Here the images become sharper, and she clearly recalls what happens next. He waves her off and slips on a battered blue-velour robe, disappearing behind a door. This is familiar to her; it feels right, his vanishing act. She shuffles closer and wrinkles her nose; their bedroom, as always, smells so old and dry. She peers in again and sees her mother's eyes are closed, her hair slithering across her pillow. The sight makes her shiver.
She pi
vots on her pajama footies, skidding across the floor, and dashes into her room. Her heart is racing. Her toys are scattered on the floor. Gathering them in her arms, she piles stuffed animal on top of stuffed animal, tucking an elephant under her chin.
The animals bulge, threaten to escape. There is no toy box. No drawer. Her eyes dart around the room and land on her bed. She kneels and stuffs each animal between the mattress and the fraying box spring, until each one is hidden and gone.
She stands and tugs at the bedspread. Holly Hobby smiles at her from the fabric. Eyebrows knitted, she pulls and smooths, but it resists. Finally, Holly gives in; the fabric relaxes and lies in place. Letting go, she steps back. She checks. It's okay, she thinks. Hopes. He might not be able to tell. She fears for the elephant, for her friends, that they won't have enough oxygen. The idea they might suffocate tiptoes into her head. But she ignores it. None of them have a choice.
She cocks her head and listens. No one has come. She can't hear him, and this is good. Her heart has slowed some. Things might be okay. She takes another look around and decides to adjust her books. They aren't straight, and crooked is wrong. Better to be safe, to be sure, she thinks as her fingers grip their spines.
He comes, finally. She is on the floor, sitting cross-legged and perfectly still. Her floor is clear, her room clean and serene. She looks up at him and smiles, but she worries it may look more like a frown. So she works harder at it.
It's clean, she tells him. See?
He grunts and leaves, and her smile collapses. She unknots her legs, scrambles off the floor. She dives for her bed and paws at the covers, ripping them back. Huffing, she wedges mattress and box spring apart. One-handed, tears beginning to cloud her eyes, she frantically scoops her animals out.
The elephant is tucked too far back, though. He is almost beyond her fingertips. She strains and lifts. The box spring cuts into her rib cage. Her fingers just reach his plush skin; she strains one last time and then she has him. The mattress thuds down as she clutches him to her chest, and now she cries without restraint.
Please breathe, she pleads. Please. The elephant's eyes are blank, unresponsive, and she whimpers. No, please, she whispers. Her breath hitches and she begins to keen softly. As she's seen done on TV, she places her lips on his and blows. She blows harder and harder, willing her breath into his squashed body.
GUD Magazine Issue 3 :: Autumn 2008 Page 6