How could you be human and not?
Lloyd offered up a wry grin. “That's the question, ain't it?” He took away his hands. “I could bury you back again—or I could just let you grow here and see what happens."
You don't know?
"None of y'all's ever stayed whole long enough to grow."
Another crappy choice—but better than the alternative. Except—
Can you kill me?
He shrugged. “How do you kill a mind?"
She let that sink in. Fear after fear rose in her. Shot off fireworks in her chest. Into her throat.
What about the children? They coming back? (To eat her?)
"Don't think so, Fan. They're out, and they got a big ol’ world out there."
And....
What about you?
He studied her face. “I'm gonna have to disappear for a while, Fan."
What's a while?
"'Til Hub gets off my back."
That could be a long time.
* * * *
And it was.
The cave never darkened, even with autumn. Even with winter.
Slither of small animals. Rats. Snakes. Drip of icy water, rivulets running down her scalp, her back, her legs, to stone and earth.
No other women. No more children.
Her arms hurt, hanging at her sides. After a while, she lifted them up until they felt comfortable again. She must've grown, like Lloyd said she would, because she could feel the ceiling of the cave getting closer. Shadowing the tips of her fingers. And her sides ached. Like stretching way further than your muscles wanted to go.
Spring chill melted into summer. The ache became so delicate, it was exquisite—like lace. Like a single snowflake or the edges of a budding leaf.
She grew her ass off. Picked up speed.
Lloyd came back, true to his word. He brought her a bouquet of daisies and ferns—stolen from somebody's garden, no doubt. And he brought her some compost that he spread around her roots, getting the rich stuff stuck under his nails and between the grooves of his knuckles and in the roughness of her skin—her bark.
She asked him about what was going on with Denny and Chuck and Hub and all them, but he just sat down beside her with his legs folded under him and read to her a while. The rhythm of his voice fed her as much as the fertilizer.
The following spring, the tips of her branches rooted in the ceiling.
And the spring after that, they broke through.
[Back to Table of Contents]
The Illiterate Sky by David Lenson
"How come you know that?” McMahon goes.
"I've been up there a lot."
The candidate sits back and looks. The place is a cross between a barracks and a boardroom. Somebody here is impersonating a government agency. There's that smell of licenses, or food stamps. Something. A familiar smell.
"I mean,” the officer pulls on his earlobe, “some of us have been here for years and never gotten up that far."
The water cooler gives up a large, loud bubble.
"I mean, how come we've never run into you up there, if you know it like that?"
"I keep to myself."
"You mean you saw us and avoided us?"
"Sure."
McMahon figures the guy to be on the lam, but called him anyway because nothing turned up on the police wire. He needs a guy who knows the hill. Since the thing with the cougar, he's short a man. He comes to his feet, the brown uniform unfolding around him. He reaches his hand out to the candidate. They shake.
"When can you start?"
"Right now,” he says, thinking that he started years ago, maybe more than years.
* * * *
Up only a few hundred yards, feeling strangely undressed and already thinking about night, he's surprised at how deep the memories have drifted, about halfway up his calves. Not only his memories, of course. It's a text, like movie subtitles blowing along a foot off the ground. He can cock his head back and look up through the conifers. He can ignore the memories. But once he starts, he has trouble getting out.
He waved the map off, back at headquarters, saying he already had one. But he doesn't. He knows where their cabin is. He keeps climbing till the sun looks like weak tea. There is a sag after the frosts of last week, the grape and wild cucumber down to a fraction of their weight and menace, the blackberries looking greener and more hurtful than ever.
He pulls a key off his new chain, pops the padlock, and opens the door.
* * * *
The place is pretty clean. Someone's just been here in the last few days. The fire must have burned up some of the text. He shuts the door quickly behind him, opens a gas lamp, sits on the cot for a second. His eyes catch something in the corner. Lovers, sometime in the late nineties. Married to other people; hiked way up while a drunken search went on from bar to bar down below. A fight. They left within a day or two.
He stops reading. He takes the text and rolls it up for kindling, humps wood in from the lean-to, takes a match to it.
* * * *
Next day he keeps climbing. The trail is always the same if he keeps his eyes level. He knows that every cabin will be smaller, all the way to the top. Each night an older cot, a dirtier, smaller woodstove; each night more text bunched up in the room. The smell always worse, the evidence of animals always more obvious. Sometimes nausea overcomes him as he opens the door. But so far he has gone no higher than he has before, though every day he travels along.
Once he was free as a wolf, but now McMahon comes to him in dreams, calling him a disgrace to the uniform. One morning, when the fall sun at such an elevation shines the way a knife cuts, he passes the place where his predecessor was eaten by a catamount, leaving his lifeblood to soak into the ground and a thousand subtitles.
* * * *
With the peak in sight, he pauses and looks down and around. He is now so high up that there is hardly any text blowing around. Hardly anything has happened here worth recording, unless for the beast that kills or is killed. The last approach is almost clean—curses falling like confetti. At the summit, there is a book sitting on a lectern, open to the acknowledgments. He stares above it, into the illiterate sky.
[Back to Table of Contents]
The Banker Calls for Three Martinis and a Pipe by Cami Park
They swarm like orphans,
dancing and bespectacled;
fat cups of tea bleed
into our scorpion hands.
—
They prowl like semis,
whispering smoke and asphalt,
peeling our truest skins
with hard songs.
—
Put their ears to melt on the rocks
to stems of wasted thought;
let them fall standing among us,
collapsing like algebra into the dusk
of our hidebound hearts.
—
The whalebone is our testament
to sacrifices encumbered
by generations of lives lingering
like corn rows for detasseling.
—
Twenty strokes deflowered
by the sight of my eyes.
Twenty more to ritual
lest we stand down.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Sisyphus of the Staircase by Cami Park
I almost had it last time; I
was getting so close, rolling
that infernal rock up that infernal hill.
—
But now there's a twist, instead of a hill
it's a staircase, and instead of a boulder, it's
a SlinkyTM, but so what, for fun
it's a wonderful toy, right? Except
I have to make it go up, like the boulder,
and this way is not so much fun and
—
I think about God and how I want him to
sweep me up these stairs like Rhett swept up Scarlett
before committing unspeakable
acts in unspeakable orifices
and shit I almost had it and I slide down the banister
to start again, praying it gives way
—
but it never does.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Steps to Darkened Ends by Ali Al Saeed
* * * *
* * * *
[Back to Table of Contents]
In the Dark by Sean Melican
Dear Shane,
It is our bliss to enlighten you that we have decided to tolerate your desire to visit our orb. Not only is your facility with language unparalleled, but in evaluating a converted edition of your A Friendly Jaunt Through Obscure Mythologies, we ascertained a psychological fault and verified the probability you would eventually transgress our sacrosanct positions without our privilege is assured. We would reassure you that transgression would result in absolute fatality.
We impose one condition: you will sanction to castration of the ocular condition. On the day, we have assembled a physician conversant with human physiology atop an unnatural satellite. We assure you that the condition would be entirely impermanent and absolutely reversible. The reasoning: ourselves have never been exposed to transliteration of physical form through the human-visible electromagnetic spectrum. Our physical form would not be fatally harmed but yours would be. If you should so desire to not acquiesce to our minimalism, then due to the unacceptable probability of your transgression your life would be forfeiture.
We request one condition: impermanence does not resolve true belief. Your voyage through us would be more vital if you were to create permanence of devolving your physical deformity. We understand that a sterilized needle or knife would be sufficient.
Sincerely,
Shades
* * * *
Ben,
They've accepted! But with one ludicrous demand. Check out the letter stuck to this one.
Should I? I ask like my answer could be no. I never told anyone as it would've meant prison, but not long ago & I'll keep the details obscure to protect the guilty, I sacrificed my considerable savings to procure transport; but sadly, the captain of the ship I hired was—shockingly—arrested for smuggling illicit pharmaceuticals. I avoided a lengthy sentence myself, & I'll bet my ass & royalties my critics, especially that big cocksucker at the Times, would've had no end of fun with that when I explained that I, of course, was looking to do a perfectly innocent book of a pirate's life.
This message is for your eyes only. Remember those old games?
Shane
* * * *
Oh Great and Wondrous Editor Olivia,
They've accepted, with one curious request. I've appended their letter.
I've contacted the best eye surgeon available. Bill appended. He assures me that such an operation would be simple; a butcher could sever the optic nerve, but only a surgeon could repair the damage. But what do know we know of their surgeons? For all we know, they might cure disease by bleeding. Perhaps I will be permanently blinded.
How best to approach the Shades? What would my readers want? /Everything/, of course; but their letter implies an active religion. The mythology book was on the lists for how many months? And now actual religious practices? How novel! Pun intended.
Ashamed of his own lowbrow humor,
Shane
* * * *
Dear Shane,
You should absolutely follow through on the religious angle. But, like you said, we want everything: kinship, social structure, science, art, architecture, anything else you or I can think of. Sex, especially. Alien sex sells. After this, we'll both retire. Go out on top, right?
But with the everything, we're invoking the physiology clause in our contract: you'll wear an organic radio-microwave-infrared recorder, a sort of embedded third eye. (How Muslim! Or was it Catholic?) Our assumption is that they will have only a basic template of human physiology, so we'll have it appear to be a dormant vestigial mutation, like tonsils or toenails; it can be activated by an enzyme labeled as an essential medication. Of course, you won't be able to ‘see’ anything. I know, I know! We've sold the novelty of an actual author writing an actual book—paper, ink, and all (don't forget the cost, particularly the hefty shipping costs)—not a dime-a-dozen sense-around artist, but this is a once-in-a-lifetime shot.
To protect your integrity, and ours, you will receive none of the credit—but you will all of the royalties.
Olivia
* * * *
Dear Ben,
I can't tell you how terrified I was! The translation was accurate in at least one instance: the ‘assembled physician’ really was an assembled physician! So I've never seen the Shades. I'm blind. The robot seemed competent, but it was only an arm and a laser. Can it stitch? No going back.
Dancing in the dark,
Shane
P.S. You know how great a dancer I am, too.
* * * *
Olivia, sunshine of my life and how I need you!
Shadow is a tidally-locked moon. Having learned a little of their language, I've developed a hypothesis that a species without the dual experience of day and night wouldn't have the sort of language dichotomy we have. You know, war and peace, black and white, good and bad, girl and boy.
Before being blinded—I admit after my last letter to you I debated their advice, but I'm a coward—I found some fascinating research on blind albino lizards and fish in isolated ecological niches. But what is curious is that no one has ever seen a Shadow. Are they albino? Or reptilian, amphibian, humanoid, something we've never as a species seen? I'm afraid that referencing these niches will lead to incidental racism. But without it, there's no context.
Now that I'm here, I know even less. They are generous. They recognize, they said, my fumbling-bumbling-humbling steps. That's one word. I'm like a child to them—if they have children—but I've never sensed—and that's the right word, I think, something I should emphasize in the book—any amusement.
I should describe them to you. Their hands, or the analogue at least, are warm and dry. They've got thirteen digits divided between their two hands. There seems to be handedness too, some having the extra on the right and others on the left. I've noticed as I've been touched lightly on the back or arm for guidance that there are fine hairs and nodules or calluses on their fingers. Or finger-analogues. It's becoming easier to anthropomorphize. I've no doubt evolution has equipped them to finely discriminate tactility as we do color. As an example, at one point, one of my hosts put an oblong fruit-analogue in each of my hands. (Their food is edible, if somewhat bland.) He told me the one in my left was poisonous and the one in my right was ripe. Then he swapped the poisonous one with an unripe fruit-analogue. They felt the same to me. I asked him to put them on a table to allow me to feel each one as long as I desired. After what I think was an hour, I felt confident that I could distinguish a pebbly texture that I was sure was ripe, a smoothness I thought was unripe, and a prickliness that must surely be poison. I was wrong on all three counts. After an entire night of coffee—which I've brought with me, since I can't abandon every comfort—and frustration, the pebbled texture replaced the prickle replaced the smooth, and still I was wrong. It was, and this might be good for the book, like three-card monte.
To luck,
Shane
* * * *
Dear Ben,
This place is so damn frustrating! The language is the worst. Inflection means more than syntax. Sentences are constructed in any random order; it's which syllable the emphasis is on that matters. Remember how our teachers said it wrong in school? The emphasis on the syllable. Only now it's right.
I've been here for a week, I think. Things I'd kill for, in order:
* * * *
sun
a flashlight
beer
pussy
pizza
football
basketball
baseball
chips and dip
more beer
more pussy<
br />
* * * *
They take me all around the place. I have a stick so I don't fall down or into a manhole or off the edge of the world. The incessant tapping would drive anyone nuts. & my shoulder burns all night long. There's nothing here, either. Lots & lots & lots of fucking stone. Tap, tap, tap! Shades. That's about it. We eat, and they must shit like I do, but do they fuck? Do they work? Have any kind of art at all?
Go into the bathroom. Chuck out everything that isn't bolted down. Turn off the lights. Have fun.
Shane
* * * *
Liv,
What a fascinating language! If the emphasis on a noun is on the first syllable, for instance, the statement is declarative. On the second, interrogative; the third, imperative. I haven't figured the fourth out yet. I think it's a negation, so emphasis on the second and fourth syllables of a noun would be Is [noun] not...? Emphasis on verbs, of course, indicates tense. Verbs, I should add, are all at least eight syllables long. And irregular verbs? Don't ask.
I'm living with a tripartite family. I can't figure out relationships yet. Mother, father, child? Two mothers and a father or vice versa, or two daughters of a single, perhaps asexual, mother? There are times when their fingers remind me of jellies. And jellies have larval and medusa stages, so maybe I've never experienced—I was going to write ‘seen'—children.
Remember those damned emphases? With proper nouns, emphasis indicates relationship or seniority or social status or ... or something. Christ.
So. Rant over. For now.
My room is spacious, or at least I think so. I can walk about eight paces from any corner to the next—but there are thirteen corners. One for each ... something. It's not just their fingers. Elements or elementals, natural phenomena, compass points (oh, the mapmakers will find that hell for the book, huh?), emotions, gods, stations of the Cross, sexual positions in their version of the Kama Sutra? I don't know.
They heat their spaces with warm rocks. No furnaces. No stoves or ovens either. The food is chemically cooked, like sushi. Flavor: once you get past the wriggling, the tentacles, suckers, spines, tiny teeth, and tinier bones—or maybe cartilage—it's sweet and spicy. Sometimes I think we're eating seafood because of the high sodium content, and other times freshwater fish. Or whatever. But again, when I ask, the emphasis changes. And sometimes it seems like a regular noun, so are they asking me what it is or insisting that I eat it? And sometimes it has the indicators of a proper noun, so am I eating an ancestor or a descendant? It goes without saying that, in the privacy of my thirteen walls, I sometimes vomit up what I've had.
GUD Magazine Issue 1 :: Autumn 2007 Page 10