The Book of Apex: Volume 2 of Apex Magazine

by Jason Sizemore

  There’s so much you don’t see (won’t ever see/haven’t seen yet). How is it that we are the same, but so different? Sometimes we can’t even speak the same language.

  And yet, we talk for hours when we finally meet, filling up the space with words. You drive us to the lake (the caldera on top of the volcano/the dollar theatre double-feature/your house). Just off the edge of the lake is a small island, hardly more than a sandbar really. The water between the two shores comes halfway up my thighs. I hold my skirt up to keep it dry and you carry my shoes. Your pants are soaked through all the way to the crotch, but you don’t complain. There’s a wide plank-swing on the island, hanging between two trees. I thought we’d sit on it together to talk but, instead, I sit on it and you push me. We say only two words during the entire night.

  “Higher?”

  “No. “(Or “Yes.”)

  We don’t kiss that night because I am so intimidated by you. You take me home when it’s too dark to see the stars. And then I’m with you two years later (last week). We are making out in your basement. When we come up for air, you take me to look at your paintings, and I accidentally kick over a cup of dirty mineral spirits, ruining the rug. For many years, the stain will look like spilled blood.

  Our relationship dissolved after that (except sometimes it fermented, cemented, or otherwise improved). I apologized, but it was too late. By that point, I’d already broken your lamp (knocked it over with my head when I rose up from kissing you) or backed your car into the security-light post in the parking lot at Swif-T-Mart.

  “Don’t drive when you’re high (drunk/splitting photons/in a hypnotic trance). Just don’t.” I don’t drink. I don’t do drugs. I’m a straight-edge. It’s true.

  That was the year I discovered how to be everything and nothing. You were the one who showed me how to alter my consciousness. You got me drunk on a bucket of frozen margaritas, then helped me outside when I couldn’t stop coughing from all the pot smoke. You showed me transcendental meditation. You showed me the power of prayer.

  You showed me how to be in two places at once, two times, two minds. How to be here and there.

  You showed me Jesus (Krishna/Buddha/The Invisible Pink Unicorn). You tripped me and I hit my head. Or I tripped you and you hit your head. Or we were both dreaming. (I thought you said you never dreamed.) All our life (lives/past lives) passed in the flash that occurred during the moment right before our death.

  One of us looked into a scrying mirror. One of us learned time travel (quantum mechanics/psychomancy/telepathy). One of us learned that photons exist in two places at once, or two times at once, and we learned to split them and share them with you, with me, with each other. One of us fell into a black hole.

  Do you remember? So much happened between us in no time at all. Time did not exist for us. It’s overwhelming.

  I say, “I think I’m going to throw up.”

  “That’s okay. You’re in the bathtub. It’ll wash down the drain.”

  It didn’t.

  “You’ll see,” you said, “Chemicals don’t change people.” (Or maybe you said, “Time travel is impossible.” Or “I can control your mind with my psychic powers.”)

  But it wasn’t true.

  Chemicals changed you. We both had psychic powers. You invented a time machine, and I used it.

  In school I sat beside you, one row closer to the door. You smelled like watermelon lip gloss. We were fifteen and sixteen, and I still wanted to kiss you but wasn’t brave enough. Besides, you had a boyfriend who wore heavy metal T-shirts and smoked cigarettes.

  The second time I kissed you (the first time) we were at Caitlín’s pool party just after we’d graduated from high school (elementary school/rehab). My very first kiss with anyone, ever. You had a different boyfriend every week, back then. Someone discovered how easy it was to play Spin the Bottle in a swimming pool with a plastic two-liter bottle half-filled with water. We held our breath and kissed where no one could see us.

  When I am everywhere and nowhere, I revisit that moment. I hold you under the water. My eyes were open; yours are closed. Air bubbles cling to your lashes, and you put your hand on my breast. I taste your wintergreen breath-spray and the chlorine in the pool.

  I once tried to tell you about that kiss. A hundred million times I’ve tried to tell you about that kiss in the pool, but you never remember, and you never believe me. I don’t know why I keep trying to remind you.

  It’s okay. I remember. I remember you rescuing me. I remember calling you to come over to my apartment and sit with me when I couldn’t stand reality. How many times did you let me stay with you when I had no other place to go? (Where can you run to when you are everywhere and nowhere?)

  When you moved away, I thought my heart would break forever. I never wrote you letters, but you wrote back anyway. You wrote me replies to questions I never asked you. When the Internet was invented we had secret liaisons on GEnie. You sent me poetry.

  Once, you showed me my letters. I did not remember writing them. Once, I showed you a poem you sent me. You said you’d never seen it, hadn’t sent it. Both were only echoes, slipping across reality.

  Sometimes, we never met at all. Sometimes we meet while you are away at college. I fly out to see you. We make love in the airport, and the world ignites in apocalypse while we bring each other to orgasm in a bathroom stall. We are frantic, as if we know with certainty that we only have a few moments left together.

  “I love you,” I whisper. It echoes off the bathroom walls, and old women powdering their noses can hear us in the stall. I can smell their rosewater perfume even over the cleaning chemicals and urine.

  “I love you more,” you say. “I love you a hundred times more.”

  “That’s impossible. I love you to infinity.”

  We are silent, both pondering the possibilities inherent in that statement. (“I hate you.”/”Don’t know you.”)

  You ask the impossible question, the question that begins and ends everything.

  “What does that mean? What is love to the infinite power?”

  “I think it’s like a wave function. An uncollapsed wave function,” I say, but I don’t even know what that means, really. I was never any good at theoretical physics. (In another instance/timeline/universe, I don’t reply.)

  “You don’t love me at all.”

  “Don’t you believe in God? (Allah?/Zeus?/The Flying Spaghetti Monster?)” I say. I’m crouched with my feet up on the commode, in case airport security comes through. Men can be arrested for sharing a bathroom stall in an airport. “God is infinite. God is in everything, even a ceiling fan. God loves you.” (Or maybe, I talked about physics, instead—and the practical applications of the infinite.)

  “I don’t believe in God. I’m an existentialist. I am God.” (Or maybe, we discuss alchemy, or paradoxes.)

  “Then I am you,” I say, “and you are me, and I love you infinitely.”

  “And you do not love me at all.”

  I couldn’t argue.

  What is infinity? Surely it is more than nothing? Isn’t it? I rest my cheek on your cheek. You kiss me again for the first time, and there is paper (a pill/a microchip) on your tongue (or a love note in your hand), but now it is on my tongue (in my hand).

  I love you, like a puppy, and you don’t love me at all. But you are me, and I am you. We love each other just enough, and not too much. We are strangers, and we are the same person. We are crazy more than we are sane. Again and again, or only once, (or never) we make the wrong choice/the right choice. When every moment in our life is singular, there is no choice.

  We are Love, infinite.

  BIOGRAPHIES

  GLENN LEWIS GILLETTE has a storied publishing record reaching back to the early 1970s when two of his stories appeared in Analog. More recently, his worked has appeared in The Edge of Propinquity, The Jewish Spectator, and the anthology Mystic Signals 2. Mr. Gillette passed away in November, 2010, and this anthology is dedicated to his memory.
<
br />   JENNIFER PELLAND lives in the Boston area with an Andy, three cats, and an impractical number of books. Her short story collection Unwelcome Bodies was released by Apex in 2008, and contains her Nebula-nominated story “Captive Girl.” Most recently, she’s been published in the Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Volume Three, and she has a story coming out in the debut issue of Shock Totem later this summer. In her so-called copious spare time, she studies belly dance in a futile attempt to be graceful before she completely loses her knees. Her web site, which includes a link to her blog, is at jenniferpelland.com.

  Although BRAD BECRAFT currently resides near Carrollton in northern Kentucky, he is originally from Mudlick, a tiny spot on the map in the eastern part of the state. He taught high school Physics and Math before moving into the private sector, where he now works in the Science and Technology division of a Carrollton area manufacturer.

  Brad shares his home in the country with his wife, Gail, their three children; Jon, Jacob and Jordan along with their assorted horses, dogs, cats, chickens, gerbils, and fish.

  Brad’s been writing for a number of years, but this is his first sale.

  MAURICE BROADDUS is the author of the Knights of Breton Court series as well as the novellas Orgy of Souls (co-written with Wrath James White) and Devil’s Marionette. He has been published in numerous magazines and anthologies, from Weird Tales to the Dark Dreams series to Apex Magazine. Visit him on the web at www.mauricebroaddus.com.

  EKATERINA SEDIA resides in the Pinelands of New Jersey. Her critically acclaimed novels, The Secret History of Moscow and The Alchemy of Stone were published by Prime Books. Her next one, The House of Discard Dreams, is coming out in 2010. Her short stories have sold to Analog, Baen’s Universe, Dark Wisdom and Clarkesworld, as well as Haunted Legends and Magic in the Mirrorstone anthologies. Visit her online home at www.ekaterinasedia.com.

  KEFFY R.M. KEHRLI lives in western Washington and is therefore typically disoriented by non-rainy days. His work has previously appeared in Sybil’s Garage and will be appearing in Talebones. He attended Clarion in 2008 and can be found online at www.keffy.com.

  ALETHEA KONTIS is the New York Times bestselling author of Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark-Hunter Companion, as well as the AlphaOops series of picture books. She has done multiple collaborations with artist Janet Lee including A is for Alice, The Umbrella of Fun, and the illustrated Twitter serial Diary of a Mad Scientist Garden Gnome. Alethea’s most recent work can be found in the Apex Publications anthologies Harlan County Horrors and Dark Faith.

  For more information, visit aletheakontis.com.

  PETER M. BALL is a writer from Brisbane, Australia, whose work has previously appeared in Fantasy Magazine, Strange Horizons and Apex Magazine. His unicorn-noir novella, Horn, was published earlier this year by Twelfth Planet Press. He can be found online at peterball.com.

  ALIETTE DE BODARD lives in Paris and has been publishing stories steadily since 2006, several of which take place in the world of this story. She won the Writers of the Future competition in 2007, and is currently working on more stories and a novel. She was a 2008 nominee for the Campbell Award.

  NIR YANIV is an Israeli writer, editor and musician. His first short story collection, Ktov Ke’shed Mi’shachat (Write Like a Devil), came out in 2006, and he is the co-author (with Lavie Tidhar) of the short novel The Tel Aviv Dossier. He served as editor of the Israeli SF Society’s website and later edited the magazine Chalomot Be’aspamia. He lives in Tel Aviv.

  ROCHITA LOENEN-RUIZ is a Filipina writer living in The Netherlands. A graduate of the Clarion West Writing Workshop and recipient of the Octavia Butler Scholarship for 2009, her work has appeared in a variety of online and print publications including Weird Tales, Fantasy Magazine, The Philippine Speculative Fiction anthology and the upcoming Ruin and Resolve anthology.

  Visit her online at rcloenen-ruiz.livejournal.com

  JAMES LAFOND SUTTER is the Fiction Editor for Paizo Publishing, publisher of Pathfinder and Planet Stories. His short fiction has appeared in such venues as Catastrophia (PS Publishing), Machine of Death, and Aberrant Dreams, and his forthcoming anthology, Before They Were Giants, pairs the first published short stories of speculative fiction greats from Ben Bova and Larry Niven to China Miéville and William Gibson with anecdotes and instructional critiques by the authors themselves. In addition to fiction, he has published dozens of role-playing game products and over a hundred journalistic articles. He lives in a crooked house in Seattle with seven to twelve roommates, and more information on his fiction, game design and hardcore metal band can be found at www.jameslsutter.com.

  GENEVIEVE VALENTINE’S fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, Fantasy, Federations, and more. She is a columnist at Tor.com and Fantasy Magazine. Her first novel, Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti, is forthcoming in 2011.

  Her appetite for bad movies is insatiable, a tragedy she tracks on her blog glvalentine.livejournal.com.

  JAMES F. REILLY’S writings have appeared in several magazines, including Horror Garage, Apex Digest, City Slab, and Tales of World War Z, as well as the anthologies Gratia Placenti, Undead, Read by Dawn Vol.1, Vermin, and the upcoming Dark Futures from Dark Quest Books. James currently lives in Massachusetts, where he divides his time between feather-dusting his collection of Mandrill skulls and participating in Boer War reenactments. James has a wife and son. Pray for them.

  Reilly also runs the popular Horrorview.com website.

  TOBIAS AMADON BENGELSDORF’S first story collection, An Implausibility of Gnus, was published in 2009 by Another New Calligraphy. His fiction has appeared in elimae, Pure Francis, and as a FeatherProof Minibook. He is the editor of Fiction at Work, and the Quickies! Mascot. He lives in Chicago.

  J.M. MCDERMOTT’S Last Dragon, his first novel, was shortlisted for a Crawford Prize, and was #6 on Amazon.com’s Year’s Best SF/F of 2008. It’s currently available from Apex Book Publishing as an inexpensive eBook. By day, he is a game writer for an unannounced XBox 360 title from Xaviant Software, north of Atlanta. Visit J.M.’s blog: jmmcdermott.blogspot.com

  MARY ROBINETTE KOWAL is the 2008 recipient of the Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Her short fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons, Cosmos, and Asimov’s. Mary, a professional puppeteer and voice actor, lives in Portland, OR with her husband Rob and eight manual typewriters. In 2009, her story “Evil Robot Monkey” earned a Hugo Award nomination.

  She has performed for LazyTown (CBS), the Center for Puppetry Arts, Jim Henson Pictures and founded Other Hand Productions. Her design work has garnered two UNIMA-USA Citations of Excellence, the highest award an American puppeteer can achieve.

  SEANAN MCGUIRE was born and largely raised in Northern California, which explains her love of rattlesnakes and deep fear of weather. (California doesn’t have weather. California has climate.) Seanan is often described as a vortex of the surreal, and many of her personal anecdotes end with things like “and then we got the anti-venom” or “but it’s okay, because it turned out the water wasn’t all that deep.”

  Seanan’s first novel, Rosemary and Rue, was published by DAW Books in 2009. The sequel, A Local Habitation, followed in 2010, with three more already on the way. Because this wasn’t time-consuming enough, Seanan also decided to masquerade as her own evil twin, Mira Grant, author of the Newsflesh Trilogy (published by Orbit/Orbit UK). Mira’s first book, Feed, will be coming out in May 2010. Neither Seanan nor Mira sleeps much.

  MARK HENRY traded a career in the helping profession to scar minds with his short stories and novels. He blames his crazy ideas on premature exposure to horror movies, and/or witnessing adult cocktail parties in the ‘70s. But surviving earthquakes, typhoons, and two volcanic eruptions might have had something to do with his nihilist fantasies. Despite being disaster prone, he somehow continues to live and breathe, residing in the oft maligned, yet not nearly as soggy as you’d think, Pacific Northwest, with his wife and four furry monsters that think they’re ch
ildren and have a complete and utter disregard for carpet.

  When not twittering or wasting time on Facebook, Mark somehow conjures up irreverent urban fantasy comedy about zombies who swig cocktails and vampires in bullet bras who drag race. He also writes young adult fantasy about Purgatory’s angsty teen ghosts under the pseudonym Daniel Marks.

  PAUL JESSUP is a critically acclaimed writer of fantastical fiction. He’s been published in many magazines, both offline and on, with two books published in 2009 (short novel Open Your Eyes and the short story collection Glass Coffin Girls) and a third to come out in 2010 (the illustrated book Werewolves). You can contact Paul Jessup via email at paul.jessup@gmail.com

  JERRY GORDON is leading at least one life too many. As a full-time author, grad student, web programmer, and editor, he lacks the time to write a witty bio, but assures you that if you keep drinking, he’ll get funnier. In addition to co-editing Dark Faith and Last Rites, he’s published stories with Apex Magazine, Indie Review, and the Midnight Diner. He recently finished his first novel, Severed Dreams, and can be found blurring genre lines at www.jerrygordon.net.

  HOLLY HIGHT majored in Criminology and Political Science, working in government before deciding to quit her job and write full-time. She got her start writing nonfiction in 2008 and has since sold stories to Running Times, Competitor Northwest, Cosmos Magazine, and Analog. She lives in Oregon with her husband and son.