by Neon Books
—I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with this thing. Hey, Gerry? Sorry, Gerry? Can you help me with this customer?
—Do you know what happens when a man catches fire? What happens to his insides? Or his dermis?
—I’ll be right back, sir. I just need to check something with the manager.
—I’ll tell you. Listen to me, little girl. I’ll tell you what it is to burn.
Jenny Blackford
Image by “korry_b”
Mirror
"Mirror" was previously published in Midnight Echo and
Ticonderoga's Best Australian Fantasy And Horror.
She screamed each time, she knows
she screamed, but no one came.
Perhaps it was a dream,
the mirror and those eyes, not hers,
so many times. Perhaps
it was a dream.
Years on, grown up, she's still
afraid. What if those eyes –
imaginary eyes, not real –
can find her here, look through
the mirror on the wall
in this new place?
When she must close her eyes,
must pull, let's say, a dress
or jumper overhead,
she checks the mirror once
again. What's in it now?
The room, herself.
So far, so good. But whose
eyes look from it at night
when hers are closed?
*
An Afterlife Of Stone
"An Afterlife Of Stone" was previously
published in A Slow Combusting Hymn.
The lumpy wrinkled flesh
of some great ancient beast
a woolly mammoth
or elasmothere
lies mummified beside the Hume
near Gundagai.
She must have strayed here
so far south
on long-lost sunken land
or melted ice
and never found her way
back home.
Her body dried to rock
by endless sun and wind
spreads wide
across the plain.
Distant sheep are maggots
crawling on her lichened skin
their new-shorn fleece
the painful
almost-white of larvae
on raw meat.
She doesn't seem
to mind.
Perhaps the warm
quiet company
of woolly beasts
however small
still comforts her
in the long
slow afterlife
of stone.
*
Something In The Corner
"Something In The Corner" was previously
published in The Duties Of A Cat.
The cat's convinced there's something in the corner,
something bad, behind the heavy coat-rack of
dark old wood and brass by the front door.
The subtle scratching's hard to hear by day.
Perhaps it's rats, or something even smaller – mice?
Perhaps a nest of furry little mice, scrabbling
like dead babies desperate to escape the walls;
ten tiny fingers, ten tiny toes scraping
translucent baby fingernails...
There's nothing in the corner, cat. What sort of people
would they be, who'd shut a baby up inside a wall?
We will not think about the skulls that builders
used to plant under foundation stones.
No one would do that here.
It's getting dark. The scratching's louder now.
The cat mews his discomfort. His ears are back,
his tail fluffed. He hides behind my legs.
It's getting darker all the time.
I'd leave, if I were you.
At night, the babies cry.
Kate Wisel
Image by Lisa Lippincott
God And Me
As you can guess I no longer care
about god. Whether he is watching
or not, logging on to some complicated
system to check on me, I don’t
care. It’s a free show. When I was a teenager,
I cared deeply about god. I thought
he could be proud of me. That if I buried my face
in his jacket he would take me
around the party and I wouldn’t
have to introduce myself
to strangers. God and I were like lovers
who became jealous too easily. I asked
people questions like Oh have you seen god?
We were supposed to meet
for coffee at two. And then, pressing
the issue Has he ever done this to you? I obsessed
over him and knew we could never
be together ever again. Sometimes I would create
tests, seeing if he might come back, by jumping
off buildings or becoming far too dark
for anybody to bear. It was a very bad
time for me but now I don’t care. We’ve become
like distant friends who still know
the same people. The other day
I casually asked my friend
how god was doing and she said Great!
God is great. If I see
a photo of god’s kids
on Facebook I will like it, to further
prove I have no lingering
feelings about god’s
love and god’s authority.
*
Bad Behaviour
It starts before
your company holiday
party, our first fancy
invitation on the fridge. You come in,
with a thirty and a few snowflakes
on your shoulder. I’m clapping
under my chin, in the kitchen
by the ironing board. You kick
the door shut then twirl
me to the counter where we crack
beers, the iron hissing through teeth
behind us then burning. I turn
Arvo Pärt up on the speakers
and say mood music when you ask
what the hell this is. You lay
ties out on the bed, then
me, your neck wet with cologne
where I bite it. We fight
for the shower,
and the mirror, our arms
scribbling on fast forward with blow
dryers, combs, and cans, holding up
hangers and chapstick, twisting
to zip. You’re mouthing we’re
late! on the phone
with the cab as you slur our address
and I shrug, make like I’m slitting
my throat, run over to
squeeze you. You watch the clock
on your wrist by the door
as I click around with a blank
look, searching for better heels, tearing
through closets, tilting
to stab earrings into closed
holes. Christmas is
coming, I want more
than you know.
*
The Dream
If I squint I can see
you at the end
of the aisle, with your skinny
tie and your chewing
gum and your tilted
fedora. It’s taken me
twenty hours
to get ready. Heel
by heel, lash
by lash I come
to you. The crowd
gasps. I bow my head
so we can whisper. Negotiate.
For dinner, Rice Crispies
and every guest must take the GREs
on a damp napkin. I forgot
the DJ we hired was from New
Jersey and the cake we bought
was a burlesque show
as the photographer
snaps you winking. A slow
song comes on and our grandparents
lean into each other
then die on the dance floor. The wind
from the helicopter blows
my dress up over my head. We make
my heels like ice picks and chip
and climb, noticing how things are
from far and farther away.
*
What Counts
1. Let’s get Everything
You like these? you ask
tossing chips in the cart.
Then we stride down the aisle
kissing, but with your ten million
arms whirling in more, like a fan
in motion so I barely notice.
2. Taxes
They take out a little each month
but because your job
is real, a little is a lot. But isn’t it
relative? I say If everyone has to pay? I can tell
you’re still thinking about it like a pie
chart and what’s missing
which reminds you to surprise me
with some kind of next-level dessert soon.
3. You Look Good
With your fresh cut and your aviators
and your Burt’s Bees lips. No argument
here. I’m waiting for you
to come out of the dressing room
in your tangerine pants. You look
so happy. Like there’s a monkey
on your shoulder. I can see you
in your swivel chair. How do you pronounce
BVLGARI? I ask, fingering
the glass over the glasses. You don’t.
4. I Don’t Get It
It’s like we’re a special effect.
I don’t know why
you took us here. I’m checking
my savings under the table
and it’s not saving anybody.
You say, we’re on vacation. I say No
we’re not. I’m confusing
the waiter, I’m great with water!
Which is horrifying you, just get
the drink. I don’t get it
but I do. On our walk home
I pick up lucky pennies
to embarrass you. Another one!
One more. Every
second counts.
Paul French
Image by Mariola Streim
The Lotus Eaters
The endocrines are absorbed by the altered receptors of the brain.
Therefore the rodents start to cuddle.
It is deeper than the sea, even if it’s a rodent’s brain.
Though all mystery can be measured.
There’s nothing in the body a surgeon’s knife can’t find.
The subjects I’ve observed don’t even notice the needle anymore.
We’ve put them in so much love.
Don’t worry. I’m just like you.
I too want that experience to be godly.
And maybe, like you, I’ve felt it already. And maybe, like you, I haven’t.
Want remains either way a problem.
And what about those who’ve lost or never held it?
Can anything be too sacred for medicine?
Take a look at this century’s Want.
He’s right here, wearing his lab coat.
So the dosage is increased, the receptors enhanced. Suddenly, you’re
finding forever-bliss in a friend, a wife, a stranger, a dream.
It’s not like Soma, either. What we use is completely natural, endogenous
peptides in the brain, the source of it all.
Worst case scenario: one day, we’ll wake unmedicated in our tightly
shared bed and realize that there’s irony in paradise.
So be it.
*
Stage I Testing
He imagines how she looks in her too-far house, also a cage, bars only a bit thicker than her bones, but stronger.
He hates the form that sometimes comes to stick its white arm into her home and steal her. The arm will play with her body. She squirms and he hates it. The form cooes, There, there, MINNIE. There, there, and he glimpses her for a second and hears her name.
One day, he himself is rising. He sees her from above, noticing his body held like an egg by the form – the same way it took her, and the thin spear slips into his gut a sensation. He’ll warm in the hand of the form who says his name.
I watch the pattern continue for three days. Soon the receptors are reopened and enhanced.
With an increased addition of the hormone complex, the voles develop an exaggerated form of their naturally intimate bonding.
I watch the interactions intensify. Even their fur is softer, I think.
These two are healthier than the control group, more active. Their bone density’s higher, and, notably, when wounded, they recover at an accelerated rate. Just as I thought, nothing suggests any negative side-effects.
They are gentle animals, but sometimes I find myself holding my fingers next to their mouths, hoping they’ll bite.
*
Love Drug In The Feed
Alex and Tom roll the beat teal F-250 up to the main gate by the medical barn. The light comes off in a skim from the horizon, like a grin from a half-gotten joke. It washes against the bodies of the cattle as Alex brings a cigarette up to his lips and looks to his brother.
So, it’s here, huh? Valentine’s Day.
Tom scoffs.
Yeah, regular love-fest out there.
They can hear the cows lowing. Tom listens to see if it’s any different.
Sparks in the air, Alex continues dryly, but Tom does feel that it’s something like that – a hum, maybe, the air is humming. The cows move in huddles like bees.
I can’t help but think we’re in the way somehow, Tom says. For hours, they sit on the hood of the truck and listen together.
That night, when they return home, their wives ask about the awful stink they’re wearing, deep-set in their shirts and pants.
Smells like money to me, they both say, right before leaning in to plant one on their wives’ cheeks, miles away from each other.
*
The Love Drug Enters The Meat Supply
What? she said.
Nothing, you’re just pretty.
What’s gotten into you?
She sensed he wanted to leave. His arms were stiff, bolts in his shoulders, his mouth stiff also like a gusted flag. He took her hand and kissed it, right there in the yellow and brown booth, like they were in high school –
his face shiny by the lips with grease from the three burgers he’d just wolfed down, as her fingers squirmed next to the wet crease of his smiling mouth. I am going to devour you, she thought he could have
said, as his grip tightened, pinching her long middle finger and holding it above the centre of the table, above the bunched rolls of waxy yellow paper and thumby swipes of red ketchup.
She hadn’t said anything about him eating too much. He’d seemed so sure about it. I’ll have a Number 1, a 2, and a 3, he said like he was cueing a band, in a way both dramatic and expected.
I am going to devour you, he said,
kissing up her fingers and hand as far as he could while the other customers watched from a litter of surrounding tables.
He seemed not to care about them.
He kept forcing his mouth up her knuckles, waiting for her to say something back or do nothing at all.
The air buzzed with noise: warm saxophones, the cash register, the fryer alarms, and the faint bubbling of wire baskets inside them.
I know I’ve been distant. And I’m really sorry about that. From now on things will be different,
he told her through the kissed fingers he’d fanned over his mouth like a mask. PAUL,
you’re acting really weird. She was about to leave. She felt assaulted, even though the look on his face was so dumbly open, like a cartoon cow. Suddenly there was an odd noise behind her, a half-stertor, a cardboard chuckle.
She turned to see a large man choking. His hand swept in a panic his table’s paper, cups, and crumbs, clacking the floor like the guts of a dropped purse.
In an attempt to unclog the pipe, he rapped his chest like a gorilla, his enormous coat swallowing his hand with each fist-pound against the wool. His body convulsed; his spine bent back and forth. Oh God!
she cried, but no one shuddered, all just gazing dumb and drunkenly from their tables. And PAUL still had her hand on his mouth.
She yanked it away, scratching him. She darted to the man and braced herself against his back, her arms barely reaching around his body. He looked desperately to her and breathed a sound like paper curling in fire.
A few people in the restaurant were finally speaking around her, trying to will something to happen. She thought she heard, You can do it, and a kind of soft cheer.
She squeezed at the man’s middle, hard as she could, the backs of her thumbs digging deep into the fabric of his coat. She squeezed again, violently, until a knuckle of brown popped out, a piece of meat that dropped dead centre on the table.
He collapsed with a heave, chest shelved on the table’s metal edge – breathing with relief. Goddamn it!
She yelled at the customers around her. No one had gotten up. She was surrounded in the a room by warm murmurs, a soft Thank You falling like downy paper thrown into a box.
Thank You,
the saved man said, as his baggy short body lifted from the table to hug her, his forehead flush at her neckline. She cringed at his chin, moist on her chest, and felt his heavy breath let out against her skin, pressing, like wind against a pane. She pulled away and there were his eyes.
Thank You!
Thank You!
I thought I was gone!