“Not strong,” the Cowboy said. He nodded to his soldiers and they stepped forward. The picanas sent tens of thousands of volts through his body. The batons broke his bones. They came in waves, beating, and then retreating. The air was filled with the music of laughter and the percussion of weapons. Fernando swayed from the chains. When he passed out, they revived him with icy water, and then beat him again.
A ghost in his mind: Avô Vinícius, a dreadful, perished creature who could give him nothing except a promise of damnation. Fernando held that ruined face in his mind. I thought you could save us. He recalled how light the crippled body had been in his arms, like a bag of loose sticks. I travelled so far for you. I thought . . . I thought . . .
All for nothing.
They came at him, laughing maniacally. They shattered his legs. They smashed his ribs. The picanas were pressed to the most sensitive areas of his body: his armpits, his genitals, his bleeding, open wounds. The voltage roared through his body in blackening, crackling storms. Ribbons of smoke peeled from his scorched skin.
Fernando floated on the brink of an abyss. Endless and black. It was heaven. He floated in a thousand pieces: the debris of hurt, like a meteor shower. He trailed and blazed and prepared to offer himself to nothingness—that long sea of death. He experienced a moment of euphoria. He thought it was his soul departing.
No more pain.
I am nothing.
One moment. That was all.
And then he heard the roar of the chainsaw.
As bright as his mask.
“Our colour represents new life,” the Cowboy shouted over the chainsaw’s growl. “From our grey suits to this . . . like a new dawn, a new era. Soon the world will be painted with amazing light. A world that you will not be a part of.”
He depressed the chainsaw’s trigger and its hooked, oily teeth blazed around the bar. It drowned the sound of laughter. Dirty smoke puffed from the exhaust, hanging in the air, obscuring their fluorescent stripes and swirls. The Psycho Cowboy lifted the chainsaw and took a step toward Fernando. His grin was a deep red groove. His eyes dazzled, even behind the smoke.
He shouted something else, but Fernando did not hear him. Partly because of the chainsaw’s mean growl, but mostly because his attention was diverted to the windows, where he saw movement. Something large, swooping from one window to the next. He flexed and pulled at the chains. His mind screamed impossible images, as bright as his mask, and in as many pieces.
I am nothing.
The chainsaw purred inches from his shallow stomach.
Less than a shadow.
His instinct blazed. A divine rush that scattered all pain and pulled his mouth into a long, bleeding smile. He gazed beyond the chainsaw . . . beyond the Psycho Cowboys . . . beyond the smoke and colour . . . to where the wooden loading doors suddenly crashed open.
I am coming.
“Giovanna,” he said.
Fallen from time, like rain from a cloud.
She came like a tempest. An infernal, chaotic force, leaving the doors in ruins and killing two of the Cowboys before they knew what happened. Their bodies were shattered against the wall: bags of glass. They bled through their fluorescent skins.
The Psycho Cowboy with the chainsaw turned, dragged to one side by the machine’s power. He peered through rags of oily smoke and saw what could not be, but what Fernando knew to be true. She was pure: something part-human but altogether monstrous, a ranging, naked creature sweeping in and out of the shadows. Fernando could not have recognized her without the tattoo: 377822. It was her—his only love: Giovanna. Long black hair flanked her face and splashed across muscular shoulders. Her eyes were keen gold discs. Only their shape was familiar. She breathed—harsh, grunting expulsions. Her wide nostrils flared. Her teeth were haphazard, ivory spikes, projecting from her gums like splayed fingers.
Another Cowboy dropped his (happy-yellow) baton and screamed. Giovanna bore upon him with a furious shriek. One sweep of her arm ripped him in two. His upper body thudded off one of the posts that Fernando was chained to. His legs were sent kicking into the shadows. A fourth Cowboy—his black eyes suddenly very large in the glowing map of his face—tried to run. He didn’t get far; Giovanna pounced. Her thick legs propelled her through the air like a grasshopper. She came down on his shoulders and he crumpled beneath her weight, spine broken. His painted face was glow-in-the-dark terror. Fernando watched as she pulled him apart, scattering him in a hundred fluorescent pieces.
She looked at him. Their eyes came together and Fernando saw what used to be: her softness and beauty. He remembered the way the left side of her mouth would lift higher when she smiled. He remembered the way she had touched him, time and time again, throwing his world into easy clouds of calm. His beaten body trembled from the chains. His heart boomed with emotion.
I know how to love you, she had said. But could she love him still? This new creature . . . every bone reshaped, bent at the waist so that her shoulder blades pressed through her skin like wings. Giovanna Almeida, to whom he had sworn eternity. How much of her soul remained? How much love?
He closed his eyes as she killed the fifth Psycho Cowboy. One moment he was there, living and thinking and afraid. The next he was gone, fallen from time, like rain from a cloud.
Yes, she had always been able to read him. Her gift—her instinct—was incredibly bright. It was the reason she was here, as devastating as a volcano. And this ability, along with everything else about her, must have advanced, because she was able to press her thoughts into his mind. Not words, but images, arranged like a wheel, revolving, drawing long arcs of expression.
So much soul /// I still know how to love you /// I always will.
He opened his eyes. Her mouth was a terrible shape, but the left side was lifted higher.
He threw his own wheel at her: Save me.
Revolve: I already have.
The chainsaw snarled, the teeth whickering, flickering in the ultraviolet light. The Cowboy lifted it to waist-height and gunned the trigger. The machine vibrated in his arms, belching smoke.
“Come for me,” he screamed, pointing the bar toward Giovanna. She circled him, thudding her knuckles on the floor, the bloody swags of her breasts swinging as she moved. She roared: an insane tangle of sound—words and yawps on a stream of hot air. Vapour poured from her long mouth. Her shoulder blades were pressed together, as if she were about to take flight.
The Cowboy raised the chainsaw and took a step forward. Giovanna moved between the shadows. Her claws flashed. She howled. The chainsaw snarled and Fernando heard the change in modulation as it carved the air. She was too quick for him. He was thrown aside, still holding the chainsaw. It purred along the floor, kicking up sparks and spits of concrete. He got to one knee and the weight of the machine dragged him down. It kicked and wheeled back on him. He let go and rolled away, but Giovanna was there. He seemed too small in her huge claws. His fluorescent facepaint dripped as she breathed on him.
“Infecção,” she growled, and crushed him. His body twisted and fractured in her hands. Fernando watched it become loose as she snapped every bone and ground his spine to dust. He screamed louder than the chainsaw. Blood leaked from his eyes. His arms and legs dangled uselessly. She threw him away. He twitched and died.
Fernando faded again, to the edge of the abyss, where the hurt couldn’t reach him. The last thing he saw was Giovanna picking up the chainsaw and lifting it to the chains. He heard the squeal of metal on metal. He felt the hot/cold flicker of sparks. Then he was falling. Then he was held.
O Cristo Redentor.
She cradled him and crossed the city, through twisting alleyways and across rooftops, pressed to the shadows.
You can’t see me.
The lights of ruined lives shimmered below them.
“My mask . . .” Fernando said, lifting to consciousness.
“You don’t need it anymore.”
She ascended Corcovado Mountain with effortless, unfaltering leaps.
He trembled against her breast. She reached the magnificent statue and continued to climb. Her claws scratched into the smooth stone and she made her way to the shoulders, and then clambered deftly onto the right arm. The statue’s solemn face regarded the city. Giovanna held her lover, stroking his face, breathing hard. Sweat dripped from her coarse skin. She kissed him. Her hair pooled on his chest.
Fernando opened his mouth but couldn’t speak. He pulled an image into his mind, shaped it, and then cast it at her. It wasn’t perfect, but she understood.
Wh/t happ//ed to y/u?
She kissed him again and stroked his face. You have spent the last two years looking for a man /// whom we thought could save us /// but were wrong. Her angular face soothed him. It seemed to be made of stone, like the great, pale face behind her. I escaped and moved in the other direction /// into Amazonia. She closed her eyes. The shape that blossomed in his mind was smooth on one side, hooked on the other, like a bat’s wing. They knew I was coming /// They found me.
He wanted to touch her tattoo—trace the lines, make subtle changes. QUE LINDA. His broken arms throbbed. His mouth opened. He managed to speak one hurt syllable:
“They?”
She looked at him, and then gave him a glimpse. Not all of it. Not even close. But it was enough: a horde of thorny creatures hanging in the darkness. Fernando could almost taste their blood, and feel their brutal penetration—over and over—turning her soft body to stone.
“They made me pure,” she said.
Imagine a shadow, but vague, only slightly darker than the surface onto which it is cast. The light is obscured. The shadow suffers. It is a cataract.
You can’t see us. We are less than shadows.
We are nothing.
But we are coming.
Close.
Ho/d me, Gi/van/a.
And she did, pulling him close as a cool night wind moaned across the statue’s arm. Her lips whispered against his bruised skin. His heart moved against his ribcage. Tears glittered in his eyes and the city spangled like a butterfly’s wing.
He thought, for one moment, that he was still wearing his mask.
10 things to know about staplers
CAROLYN CLINK
1) The Greeks invented the stapler.
2) Buzz Aldrin took a stapler to the moon.
3) Staplers can refuse to staple for religious reasons.
4) Staplers regret nothing.
5) When a stapler jams, someone will die.
6) Staplers are government spies.
7) Staplers eat one sock a month.
8) Surgical staplers are alcoholics.
9) Staplers dream of electric staplers.
10) Staplers know all your secrets.
laikas i
KATHRYN KUITENBROUWER
“Trevor?” Hilary called through the mail slot, having pushed open its tarnished little door. When he opened up to let her in there were so many strays jostling that he didn’t see her crouched there among them at first. But he knew it was her by her voice and the crazy magnetic pull on his heartstrings. The dogs continued to lay claim until she whistled and growled, “Laikas, sit!” Then they all lowered, panting, some cocking their heads, some not.
Laika was the Russian dog that went up in a space rocket and Hilary had named the pack collectively in memoriam. To some of them she had given individual names but as a group they were always Laikas. Now, Monday, at 7:15 a.m., seventeen strays stared at Trevor. And there was Hilary in sweet profile.
“Smoke?” Trevor handed her the thin cigar he had already lit.
“I was in the neighbourhood,” she said, smiling, turning her face to him.
In fact, Trevor had texted, called and finally begged her to stop by. He was slumming at this present address on Fair view. He’d moved out of home to share an apartment with three delinquent acquaintances, something his wealthy parents lauded as potentially character-building. But because the roommates were usually out and/or stoned, Trevor was often lonely. Plus, he was experiencing lovesickness. Now that Hilary had finally arrived, he knew the jealous dog pack would give them an hour—maybe—and then she’d be laughing at his fabulous attempts to keep her there.
“I don’t know why you tolerate them,” he said. Hilary had scars where she’d been bitten and an oozing wound that she wouldn’t let Trevor tend. “Those dogs are feral, Hilary!” They were tucked to the hips under an old red velvet curtain on the sofa. An ashtray he’d liberated from his parents’ place was nestled into the concave of his belly.
“I don’t tolerate them,” she argued. The ashtray, Hilary saw, was one of those Greek black-figure-vase replicas. She leaned over and twisted her cigarette softly on Orpheus’s leg, watched his skin peel off. “I have no idea about them, at all,” she said. “They like me. They lick and nip. It’s just play that goes too far.”
Trevor could hear the dogs outside, whimpering, beckoning. He flexed his pectoral muscles tight and tried to look naturally hot. He pouted elegantly, desperately. He proffered more Cuban cigarillos. He exhaled earthen smoke into her ears, her mouth, whatever opening he could think of.
When he went too far, Hilary giggled and pushed his face away from down there. Then, getting serious, she said, “In the old stories there is always a door through which the hero must never pass.” she was thinking specifically about Orpheus leading Eurydice out of Hades, and how he had looked back, and lost her forever.
“Death’s door?”
“It’s a portal to this truly marvellous place.”
She drew on the cigarillo so deeply it almost disappeared, then jabbed the stub in a strange random way into the air. He tried to make sense of the action but couldn’t—she was sometimes so mysterious to him, he felt undone.
“Sometimes,” she continued, “It can be a real door, or a closet, or just an abstraction—you know, the threshold of maturity. It can be a willingness to acknowledge and live with your fears. Yeah?”
He mulled over what she might mean by threshold. He had thought they were talking about her body. Well, he had been talking about her body. God, it sounded as if the dogs were mauling the porch screen. A howling set up in response to a siren off in the Junction. Threshold of maturity, he thought, and grabbed Hilary’s ankle; he noticed a long scratch, like on torn nylons, only raw, fresh skin.
“Damn dogs,” he moaned. “They’ll eat you one of these days.”
“It’s something stupid I did,” she said, holding his ashtray in one hand now. She could see he wouldn’t dare ask what stupid thing she might have done.
The dogs began jumping onto the windowsill, drooling on and worrying the glass pane.
“I have to go,” she said. “I have a new job.”
“Job?”
“Well, I have to pay for school somehow.”
“But Hilary—”
He stood in the doorway—damned threshold—while she left. The dogs were whirling outside, anticipating her. They worried and nibbled one another’s ears, and showed their gums in undeniable grins. Trevor counted them as they followed her receding sway. There were now twenty-nine strays.
She walked away from Trevor’s place along Fairview Avenue, and into the Sunny Cafe for some sour keys. Sucking, then chewing the candy, she headed down to the subway at High Park. The dogs trailed politely behind.
No pets below in peak hours,” said the ticket guy. Hilary could hear “Bohemian Rhapsody” seeping out of his earbuds and felt herself moved by the arguably manipulative orchestration.
“They’re not mine.” she smiled at the guy and walked through the turnstile. “And they certainly aren’t pets.”
A few of the dogs sat, then lay down, possibly to await her return, but the rest went under the bars, or over (the dog she called Snot took pride in her immense leap), and Hilary pretended like she didn’t know, or see, or even sense them. “Bohemian Rhapsody” was looping in her mind now, the best part of the song.
The ticket guy whimpered, “Hey,” but what could he do, and d
id he get paid well enough for this shit? A queue of folks wanting tokens and passes and information was forming, so he finally gestured something between goodbye and whatever, and hoped for the sake of his job that no one was videotaping him.
Chick had awesome babe swagger, he thought. His eyes followed her until she turned the corner. He would like a chick so hot the dogs followed her ass down the subway and . . . where? Heading east. Heading downtown. “Hey, scram,” he said to the strays that had stayed behind. “Get outta here. Out!”
He looked up and saw the terrorist dude who ran the concession stand staring right the fuck at him, and barked, “Jesus!” as he realized he would have to leave his booth—which he did—in order to lunge at the dogs until they took the hint and skulked back up the escalator.
The car was pretty full but there were seats, so Hilary sat down, the dogs finding space among the legs and backpacks of commuters, one leaping up and nestling in between two men, both of whom appeared to be examining something invisible in the mid-distance. Perhaps they did not notice the basset hound sprawled out there.
During the difficult economic years, things had gone from merely bad to an almost clichéd worse. Thousands of dogs had lost their owners and many people were appalled by the feral packs. Still, sympathetic media had reported dogs with routes—clever dogs who maximized their panhandling, who had figured out where to find kind humans, places to crash on cold nights. These reports had resulted in a sort of rebranding of the animals, making the dogs seem intelligent in ways humans could relate to. There were now stray-dog activists.
Hilary was not one of them.
She was heading to her new job—a half-time position at a downtown recreational facility. Snot and Mangy were taking turns licking her wound. When she noticed, she leaned over, whispered,
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