“Man, we were like brothers back in the day. We came up together in the same band. We had all these hopes and dreams, wanted to make music no one had heard before. And we were good, too. No one could get with us. Then everything got funked up, and not in a good way. We got caught up. We each had a song to sing, had to go solo, do our own thing. It tore up the group. All anybody seems to remember after that is the hurt.” The Star Child’s attention drifted far away, seeing it all again, feeling it once more. For as accomplished as he was at faking the funk, he couldn’t hide his pain. “Our reality was obliterated. We pushed through what we could, and whatever made it into this world resonates as things of music, of fiction.”
“There were stories. Rumors of a child, sent down…” Mallia started.
“Just hype.” The Star Child didn’t want to go into it any further, but Shakes could sense something. “All that’s left is in dance and rhythm and making love and partying past your momma’s curfew. That’s all we’ve got left, and we’re hoping it’s enough. There are some out there who are attuned to it. Agents of the Funk. Music, love, the groove, it awakens something way down deep and lets them see glimpses of what we were. It lets them dream of what we could be again.”
“We make the music to fill in the gaps, like holes in our DNA. To make ourselves whole again.”
“To believe us into reality,” the Star Child said. “I have a relic from our world that I need to show you. It will…”
Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop. Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop. Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop. Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop.
The chant seemed to come from all around them. The lights fluttered. Darkness took shape, spaced folded on itself. Silhouettes shuffled in the night. A thick wave like dry–ice fog swallowed the dance floor, riding up George’s legs and into his nostrils. A familiar smell, like citrus–scented disinfectant. Then a voice, like a wiggle in the ear, spoke.
“Citizens of the universe, we are here to reclaim the mothership.”
§
They lie to you, George. You don’t exist. You’re nothing but a pack of baseball cards without gum. You are little more than the liner note drivel, ripped from the ravings of a fringe cult transcribed while riding shotgun on a bad LSD trip. This isn’t the real world. But you know that, don’t you? You aren’t some savior figure struggling to come to terms with your messianic consciousness. Look at you, George, you are a boy, not a man, having a drug–induced dream. If your mother could see you now, you’d be the death of her, George. You know what’s best for you, right? Get a nine–to–five. Get married. Consume. Obsess. Covet. Never question. Never wake up. Never wake up. Never wake…
“…up, Shakes! Hump your ass!” Mallia had him by the wrist, dragging him behind an overturned table across the floor. Through the fog, all around him, he could see the trampled bodies, could hear the screams. His fingers scrabbled over the floor to gain some kind of hold for leverage, but his fingers only found discarded clothing, still warm, and the grains of sand that he knew had once been people. He felt sick, coming down off a bad trip.
“What’s going on?”
“Damn it.” Mallia leaned over, her breasts heavy on his chest, as she checked his eyes. “Their gas is still affecting you. I hoped you would be more immune to it.”
“You’re beautiful.”
“Apparently not.” Mallia palmed a rod in each hand. With a flick of her wrist, they extended into batons. She caught him staring at them. “For defense purposes only.”
“Defending who?” Shakes asked.
“Get up! We need to get you somewhere safe. The Star Child’s using the artifact to hold them off. I don’t know how they found us. They didn’t…”
…think of your brothers, George. Of your sisters. Think of what will become of them without you. Think of your home. Think of your hood. Think…
“…they’re sending everything they got at us.” A bad mama jamma, Mallia leapt into the fray, delivering a roundhouse kick that shook the roof off that mutha. Then she battered him with the batons, twirling them with the ease of drumsticks. “That’s Professor Bereft of Groove’s lieutenant leading them. He must know that we’ve found you. He must know that…”
…you can still have a future. There’s something more out there for you, but you must stop this nonsense. Get back on board with the real thing, George. Get your head out the stars and come back to Earth. You need to…
“…snap out of, Shakes. We’re doing this all for you. You’re the real thing.”
“The words are gone.” Shakes stared at his hands, making sure he had the appropriate number of digits.
“They’re coming out of your mouth.”
“Funk you. They’re not there. They’re not there, I’m telling you.” Shakes trembled. “No, wait, somebody’s in my head.”
“Then fight him.”
Unsteady at first, Shakes rose to his feet, letting Mallia’s voice pull him through the noise. Through the smoke, the screams of the people rushing past, as thick and clunky suits of brightly–colored armor chased them. The high squeal of a dozen Theremins laughed at them, cutting them down with glee. One of the Afronauts stood there, his fiery pink and purple Bop gun aimed toward Shakes’ heart. He could sense the smile behind the obsidian orb, hear the cackling of laughter, and the mocking tone of his words.
I am transmitting ideas directly into your reality, crooked and unoriginal. You fell into my grandest trap: prepare to become the greatest story ever untold.
The muzzle of the Bop gun flared, but then the Star Child was there. He leapt, waving an object that looked like a flashlight. He screamed. He fell.
But all Shakes knew after that was the light.
§
Who am I?
Another pointless dream lost in a crowd of pointless dreams. Hunched over in the dark, gyrating, bumping, grinding, in dance to relieve that pressure. The ship. Hurtling through space. The ship was mother. My true mother. That knowing noise, the constant thrum, giving myself over to the music. The dance itself is the most intense rush, taking me out of this world to that place of possibilities. Holy funk, the engine of life and creation, like collard greens, KYs, and cornbread for the soul. Where everything that could happen, has happened, a cosmic conflagration, sub atomic rhythms in collision. Where reality is the imaginary story.
I am…
“…waking up. I’m making it up. I’m… cosmically aware,” Shakes said. “Sweet Christmas, this is deep.”
Vibrations poured through his body, a deep soul spasm, and leapt from him into the surrounding walls then reverberated back to him. Panels along the walls lit up. The walls hummed to life. Neon everywhere, blinking to life like the eyes of long–dormant beasts. Somewhere deep within the building, something pulsed to life.
“This building… it’s the mothership,” the dark Afronaut said. Shakes felt his fear through the modulation.
“Look here, Mr. Wiggles.” Shakes turned to the black clad Afronaut, its onyx domed body seemed frozen in time, space locked. “Y’all think you so slick, so cool, but you nothing but a daggone fool. Everybody’s got a little light under the sun.”
Shakes felt his mind becoming a weapon of love, flexed it like fingers and reached into the Afronaut’s mind. He was struck by the image of maggot–laced meat. Shakes heard the music in his heart, the pounding drum. The bass line kicked though his soul. His feet took off with the groove, skating in a circle about the man. His skates never seemed to leave the ground, round and round he went. Shakes opened his mind, allowing more funk to wash into his soul. He watched it crash down in a great pink wave. A torrent of groove washed out the silt of Unfunkiness, whipping beneath the surface, brushing out the dead and breathless at the bottom.
“No. No more. I hate water. I never learned to swim!” The Afronaut clutched at the sides of his orbed head, trying desperately to claw it open, and collapsed to his knees, then fell forward.
Seeing Mallia cradling the Star Child’s head, Sh
akes rushed to their side.
“If I’m going to be down with you, I’m down to the bitter end.” The Star Child’s eyes grew distant. “I can hear my mother call. I can hear my mother call. I can hear —”
§
Shakes stood within the bubble, bridge of the mother ship. Earth filled the viewscreen, growing smaller and smaller.
“We’re prepared to leave orbit,” Mallia said.
“I know. I was just taking one more look.” He thought about his momma, about his brothers and sisters. Had they known all along? Would they be safe without him? He couldn’t say, couldn’t worry about it. He shifted and turned to Mallia. “What’s the plan?”
“We find more of the Funkateers, gather our forces. We will spread funk’s glorious message across the cosmos if we have to. Then we’ll bring it straight to Professor Bereft of Groove.”
“In other words, we take it to that sucker.” He nodded, turned back to the blue marble on the screen. “Where’d you learn to fight, anyway?”
“Shortest kid in the band and four older brothers.” Mallia slipped her hand into his and joined him in staring at Earth. “It all seems so big. I don’t know where or how to begin.”
Living and jiving and digging the skin he was in, Shakes stretched his mind out, touching so many, awakening them to the possibility of everything. He turned to her.
“Free your mind… and your ass will follow.”
All That Fairy Tale Crap
Rachel Swirsky
I WAS SUPPOSED TO GO TO the ball, but I spent the night licking out my stepsister instead.
Bethesda moaned and rustled mulberry silk high up her thighs. “There, there, no, faster, come on, faster, please…”
The friendly mice put out their eyes and ran out in trios to join a different fairy tale.
§
Never marry a prince when you can eat a pussy.
Never ride a pumpkin when you can steal cab fare.
Never wear a ball gown when you can slink in snakeskin pants.
Never listen to a fairy godmother.
§
Bethesda and I went clubbing. Everyone gave her the oddball eye for wearing ruffled silk with fucking puffy sleeves. I laughed back at all of them.
I seduced some refugee from the eighties who had a rainbow mohawk. Bethesda glared at us and bought herself two shots of tequila, one of which she threw in my face.
Well, what do you expect from an ugly girl?
I danced until the eighties mohawk guy got tired and went home, and then I danced until the bartender tried to close everyone out, and then I danced more until it was sunrise, and the bartender still hadn’t managed to get away because I was dancing with him, our eyes locked across the room, him swaying like a hypnotized snake to the flute of my body.
Outside, it was pink and gray over endless city. I chose a street at random.
§
“Eat my body,” said a house that belonged to a witch.
“Look at me,” said a mirror with a voice.
“Do you want some boots?” asked a man exchanging new shoes for old.
I pulled off my heels and traded them in for knee–high go–gos.
“You look very intelligent,” said the man. “I bet you could scam an ogre.”
I grinned and gave him a dollar I’d stolen off the bartender.
§
The heroes of fairy tales are straight. And skinny, too, so they’re straight and narrow.
People think this is because of heterosexism and beauty standards. It isn’t. Snow White takes a cock in her scrawny cunt because she can’t imagine how to be twisty.
§
You start out with three tools. You’re pretty. You have small feet. And you can do housework.
Now become a princess.
Go on. Laugh. Shatter glass class ceilings? Yeah, right. There’s a reason they call it the American dream. It ain’t gonna happen while you’re awake.
§
I find a hotel all lit up neon even though it’s half past five a.m. Slip inside because why not? A place still partying through dawn’s likely to have someone in it who’ll try to pick you up by buying breakfast and staring at your tits.
Inside, it’s all tattered chiffon streamers and tumbled confetti glitzing up the rug. Martini glasses are scattered on ottomans, couches, in the pots of fake rubber tree plants, half of them smashed to shiny bits.
And there: the prince. What the hell? Thought he was throwing a ball not a prom. But you can tell he’s the prince on account of the epaulettes. He’s tongue–spelunking down some girl’s throat. Grope, slip, grope, they change angle, and shit — that girl’s face! Sharp and blunt in all the wrong angles. Hell if it’s not my other stepsister, Griselda.
Suddenly, the prince’s hangover pall goes from jaundice to chartreuse. His abdomen clenches. Then comes the retching. Griselda can’t jump back fast enough. He spews puce chunks of half–digested pâté all down her mint green frills.
She shoves him off — “Fuck! You got some in my mouth!”
But he can’t hear because he’s slammed on the floor, passed out like a pine board.
Griselda gives me the stink–eye when I go over to help which I can’t blame since I’m the one who just last night threw her over for her sister. But when I turn over His Blotto Majesty so I can rifle through his pockets, one of his epaulettes falls off, and underneath there’s a label for a costume shop on 44th.
“Fuck!” Griselda shouts. “A fucking fake!”
Her rant zooms off and I’d kiss her to shut her up except for the vomit.
“You’re uglier when you’re angry,” I say.
“Bitch. Where’s my sister?”
“Jealous snit. Stormed off.”
“You’re an entitled little slut, Cinderella.”
“You want this guy’s wallet or not?”
Griselda sets her mouth in an ugly snarl. Hard to describe the kind of ugly she and Bethesda’ve got. Everything in the right place, technically, but goes together nine kinds of wrong.
She stays all frozen grimace — can’t say no, won’t admit yes — till I take mercy and throw his billfold at her. He brought enough to play prince for another couple hours. Won’t set her up for life, but it’s not nothing. She glares at me as she rifles bills with her thumb.
“You’re still a bitch, Cinderella,” she says, but her bark is out of bite.
§
There’s this thing happens when you’re growing up, narrative an anvil on your shoulders, when you know you’re supposed to pull yourself up by the bootstraps of your Lucite stripper heels. And that thing is: you cease to give a fuck.
Worse when everyone and her hairy–legged sister’s busy telling you what it is you mean. Smashing you with a hammer and turning the bits into symbols, grabbing a ballpoint and writing you into a hundred ink–stained girls in diamond ball gowns screaming bra–burning opposition to becoming passive, powerless, pampered princesses.
And what’s wrong with pampering? Sounds good to me. Better than wearing the daily jewels of five–fingered bruises bestowed by the cunt who calls herself mother. Better than inhaling bleach and ammonia every morning while you’re on your hands and knees scrubbing other people’s muck.
Better than the taste of coal, the real taste of it, when the char’s gone deep in your tongue, scorched every bud, turned all that supposed–to–be–pink into scalding black. After that, there’s nothing doesn’t taste of burning.
I tell you: when the whole world is charcoal, you take whatever bullshit they’re serving because even shit sandwiches are better than fire.
§
Deeper in the lobby, there’s a she–bear sitting on a loveseat. You can tell it’s a she–bear because she’s wearing a ruffled apron.
Beside her, there’s a passed out girl. Like last night’s champagne, she’s gone flat. Tongue lolls; limbs sprawl; hope she had a ball ’cuz today’s gonna be a long–ass haul.
She–bear opens her paw. Inside, there’s
a tiny tea cup — on second thought, not tiny; her paw’s just enormous. Silver tray on the ottoman in front of her, bone–delicate porcelain tea service painted with pastel roses. She raises the cup to her snout and, I swear, her fucking pinky claw is raised.
“What are you at the ball for?” I ask. “You someone’s dancing bear?”
I shove the flat–champagne girl onto the floor and take her place. Girl grunt–snores as she tumbles onto the rug, golden ringlets flipping over her face.
She–bear rumbles disapprovingly at my incivility but won’t be rude in return. Gestures with her free paw to the other cups on the tray.
There are three. Obviously.
I grab the hot one and pour it down my throat. Hiss of steam as it hits my lips. Saliva boils. Flame sears down my gullet.
Like anything’s so hot I can’t take it.
I open my mouth so she can see the skin bubbling on my tongue. “Juuuuuust right.”
Her nose twitches with amusement. She sets down her just–so cup and grabs the oh–so–cold one. One long swallow and when she opens her mouth again, icicles glisten on her fangs. Her frozen exhalation blasts my face like frostbite.
“All right,” I say. “I grant you. That was mucho macho.”
She runs her tongue across her fangs to lick off the ice, regards me with an impatient what–do–you–want stare.
“It’s paper–thin. That’s what gets me. It’s always paper–thin. Was to start with. Well, I guess it was voice–thin then. Oral–tradition–thin. There you are, you’re an archetype, and you get to marry a prince who doesn’t even have a name, and does either of you exist at all? Or are you just epaulettes and glass slippers? Not even good costumes. Oh, what the hell do you know anyway? You’re a bear who doesn’t even have to shit in the woods.”
Her teacup slams against the tray. Reverberation sends the dishes crashing into each other. I startle–leap back, but much as I want to, I can’t run; I’m transfixed by the smoldering black glare. Her maw gapes open. This time, I’m not fooled by the flowers and ruffles. Those fangs can bite down on cucumber sandwiches, sure, but they can also tear out a moose’s throat, seize a salmon straight out of the river.
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