FSF, October-November 2006
Page 27
Dara, quiet and solemn, knelt and picked up the papers. He looked at some of the faces. Sith pushed a softly crumpled green card at him. Her family ID card.
He read it. Carefully, with the greatest respect, he put the photographs on the countertop along with the ID card.
"Go home, Sith,” he said, but not unkindly.
"I said,” she had begun to speak with vehemence but could not continue. “I told you. My home is where you are."
"I believe you,” he said, looking at his feet.
"Then....” Sith had no words.
"It can never be, Sith,” he said. He gathered up the sheaf of photocopying paper. “What will you do with these?"
Something made her say, “What will you do with them?"
His face was crossed with puzzlement.
"It's your country too. What will you do with them? Oh, I know, you're such a poor boy from a poor family, who could expect anything from you? Well, you have your whole family and many people have no one. And you can buy new shirts and some people only have one."
Dara held out both hands and laughed. “Sith?” You, Sith are accusing me of being selfish?
"You own them too.” Sith pointed to the papers, to the faces. “You think the dead don't try to talk to you, too?"
Their eyes latched. She told him what he could do. “I think you should make an exhibition. I think Hello Phones should sponsor it. You tell them that. You tell them Pol Pot's daughter wishes to make amends and has chosen them. Tell them the dead speak to me on their mobile phones."
She spun on her heel and walked out. She left the photographs with him.
That night she and the motoboy had another feast and burned the last of the unmourned names. There were many thousands.
The next day she went back to Hello Phones.
"I lied about something else,” she told Dara. She took out all the reports from the fortunetellers. She told him what Hun Sen's fortuneteller had told her. “The marriage is particularly well favored."
"Is that true?” He looked wistful.
"You should not believe anything I say. Not until I have earned your trust. Go consult the fortunetellers for yourself. This time you pay."
His face went still and his eyes focused somewhere far beneath the floor. Then he looked up, directly into her eyes. “I will do that."
For the first time in her life Sith wanted to laugh for something other than fear. She wanted to laugh for joy.
"Can we go to lunch at Lucky7?” she asked.
"Sure,” he said.
All the telephones in the shop, all of them, hundreds all at once began to sing.
A waterfall of trills and warbles and buzzes, snatches of old songs or latest chart hits. Dara stood dumbfounded. Finally he picked one up and held it to his ear.
"It's for you,” he said and held out the phone for her.
There was no name or number on the screen.
Congratulations, dear daughter, said a warm kind voice.
"Who is this?” Sith asked. The options were severely limited.
Your new father, said Kol Vireakboth. The sound of wind. I adopt you.
A thousand thousand voices said at once, We adopt you.
* * * *
In Cambodia, you share your house with ghosts in the way you share it with dust. You hear the dead shuffling alongside your own footsteps. You can sweep, but the sound does not go away.
On the Tra Bek end of Monivong there is a house whose owner has given it over to ghosts. You can try to close the front door. But the next day you will find it hanging open. Indeed you can try, as the neighbors did, to nail the door shut. It opens again.
By day, there is always a queue of five or six people wanting to go in, or hanging back, out of fear. Outside are offerings of lotus or coconuts with embedded josh sticks.
The walls and floors and ceilings are covered with photographs. The salon, the kitchen, the stairs, the office, the empty bedrooms, are covered with photographs of Chinese-Khmers at weddings, Khmer civil servants on picnics, Chams outside their mosques, Vietnamese holding up prize catches of fish; little boys going to school in shorts; cyclopousse drivers in front of their odd, old-fashioned pedaled vehicles; wives in stalls stirring soup. All of them are happy and joyful, and the background is Phnom Penh when it was the most beautiful city in Southeast Asia.
All the photographs have names written on them in old-fashioned handwriting.
On the table is a printout of thousands of names on slips of paper. Next to the table are matches and basins of ash and water. The implication is plain. Burn the names and transfer merit to the unmourned dead.
Next to that is a small printed sign that says in English HELLO.
Every Pchum Ben, those names are delivered to temples throughout the city. Gold foil is pressed onto each slip of paper, and attached to it is a parcel of sticky rice. At 8 a.m. food is delivered for the monks, steaming rice and fish, along with bolts of new cloth. At 10 a.m. more food is delivered, for the disabled and the poor.
And most mornings a beautiful daughter of Cambodia is seen walking beside the confluence of the Tonl Sap and Mekong rivers. Like Cambodia, she plainly loves all things modern. She dresses in the latest fashion. Cambodian R&B whispers in her ear. She pauses in front of each new waterfront construction whether built by improvised scaffolding or erected with cranes. She buys noodles from the grumpy vendors with their tiny stoves. She carries a book or sits on the low marble wall to write letters and look at the boats, the monsoon clouds, and the dop-dops. She talks to the reflected sunlight on the river and calls it Father.
F&SF Competition #72: “Haunted by the Ghostwriter"
For competition #72, writers had to perform the task of “ghostwriter” of well-known authors. The entrants were most haunted by H. P. Lovecraft, his specter inspiring a healthy percentage of entries. Other frequent poltergeists included Dr. Seuss, A. A. Milne, and Philip K. Dick.
Some submitters did not specify the authors they were sending up. Unless they were screamingly obvious (see Lovecraft), I had to shoot them down.
Thanks to all the people who submitted. Many of these pieces were extremely funny, and it was a difficult competition to judge. Here are the ones I enjoyed the most.
* * * *
FIRST PLACE:
Stephen Hawking ghostwrites for Dr. Seuss:
I do not like this wobbly thing,
this wriggly ring, this wiggly string.
I do not like it, Albert E.,
for now you're obsolete, you see.
Our world is all Kaluza-Klein
and oozy, foamy, weird spacetime,
where quantum tunnels, funnels, sleds
let apples slide through Newton's head!
—Mariam Kirby
Mineola, TX
* * * *
SECOND PLACE:
Stephen Baxter ghostwrites for Louis L'Amour:
Sheriff Hawking stared down his nemesis, the Singularity Kid. His mind raced through the variables. What small permutation in space-time was required to make him victorious? As the hot lead entered his chest, he was consoled by mathematical Providence that somewhere, in some time, he was paying more attention.
—Coy Blair
Thomasville, NC
* * * *
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Alfred Bester ghostwrites for The Home Distillation Handbook, by Ola Norrman:
Drunker, said the Drunkard.
Drunker, said the Drunkard.
Fermentation, distillation, dissipation has begun.
—Matthew Herreshoff
Detroit, MI
* * * *
J. R. R. Tolkien ghostwrites for William R. Gibson:
Once, in his parents’ basement, there lived a nerd. This was not a neat and tidy basement, with the dishes clean and the books and clothes all neatly put away. This was a nerd basement, and that means squalor.
—Alan Kellogg
San Diego, CA
* * * *
Edgar
Allan Poe ghostwrites for Isaac Asimov:
Once again, a meeting dreary
stalls our catalogues of theory,
our great work here on Trantor.
Hari Seldon's constant yapping
wastes our time. I should be napping.
I'd doze now, except, of course, I snore.
Anacreon proclaims defiance.
What's that have to do with science?
Hari's meetings! Bah and Nevermore!
—Pat Scannell
Framingham, MA
* * * *
DISHONORABLE MENTIONS:
Steven Brust ghostwrites for Jane Austen:
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a lithe and skillful bodyguard to watch his back.
—Michael Cavallo
Brookline, MA
* * * *
J. G. Ballard ghostwrites for Arthur Conan Doyle:
Yes, Watson, it's clear: the dead astronaut in the empty swimming pool was killed by psycho-analysis. The cerise tunnel of the sunset and the tangled wreckage of the lunar perambulator are absolute proofs. It's murder, Watson, and what's more, I can name the sociologist who did it!
—Stephen McGarrity
N. Yorks, United Kingdom
* * * *
J. K. Rowling ghostwrites for Dan Brown (or visa-versa):
The Wizarding World—a European secret subculture founded in 4000 bce—is a real society. The Ministry of Magic has just completed construction of a 47 million Galleon school called Hogwarts somewhere in England.
All descriptions of magic, architecture, wizardry, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.
—Timothy Hulme, Jr.
Union, NJ
* * * *
F&SF COMPETITION #73
Merge and Converge:
Take at least one genre book (or short story) and merge it with another name. Then describe the plot of your new creation. (Thanks to Richard Bleiler via Gordon Van Gelder for the suggestion.) Limit your description to fifty words, and submit no more than six entries. Remember to include your name and address.
Example: Foundation and Empire Strikes Back (from Foundation and Empire and The Empire Strikes Back)
Hari Seldon goes to Dagobah to learn the ways of the Jedi and become powerful enough to defeat the Mule. Unfortunately for Hari, the Mule is his father.
* * * *
RULES: Send entries to Competition Editor, F&SF, 240 West 73rd St. #1201, New York, NY 10023-2794, or e-mail entries to carol@cybrid.net. Be sure to include your contact information. Entries must be received by November 15, 2006. Judges are the editors of F&SF, and their decision is final. All entries become the property of F&SF.
Prizes: First prize will receive a signed, limited edition of Majestrum by Matthew Hughes (published by Night Shade Books). Second prize will receive advance reading copies of three forthcoming novels. Any runners-up will receive one-year subscriptions to F&SF. Results of Competition #73 will appear in the April 2007 issue.
Fantasy&Science Fiction MARKET PLACE
BOOKS-MAGAZINES
S-F FANTASY MAGAZINES, BOOKS. 96 page Catalog. $5.00. Collections purchased (large or small). Robert Madle, 4406 Bestor Dr., Rockville, MD 20853.
17-time Hugo nominee. The New York Review of Science Fiction. www.nyrsf.com Reviews and essays. $4.00 or $36 for 12 issues, checks only. Dragon Press, PO Box 78, Pleasantville, NY 10570.
Spiffy, jammy, deluxy, bouncy—subscribe to Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet. $20/4 issues. Small Beer Press, 176 Prospect Ave., Northampton, MA 01060.
ENEMY MINE, All books in print. Check: www.barryblongyear.com
RAMBLE HOUSE brings back the supernatural novels of Norman Berrow in trade paperback. www.ramblehouse .com 318-868-8727
SYBIL'S GARAGE Speculative fiction, poetry, and art. Lee Thomas, Paul Tremblay, Yoon Ha Lee, Kelly Link, and more. www.sensesfive.com/
www.catoninetales.net Free science fiction E-book. Nine stories, two novellas. Enjoy.
THE TRAINING GROUND: Two women warriors travel through mysterious lands to fulfill the requirements of their society. $11.95 postpaid. Allegheny Press, Box 220, Elgin, PA 16413
SCARCE copies of the April 2001 F&SF issue printed without periods. Only a few left! “The unperiodical!” $10 ppd. F&SF, PO Box 3447, Hoboken, NJ 07030
ONE LAMP, collected alt. history stories from F&SF, signed by the editor. $17.95 postpaid from F&SF, PO Box 3447, Hoboken, NJ 07030.
BACK ISSUES OF F&SF: Including some collector's items, such as the special Stephen King issue. Limited quantities of many issues going back to 1990 are available. Send for free list: F&SF, PO Box 3447, Hoboken, NJ 07030.
SLAUGHTERHOUSE 5, CATTLE 0. The great F&SF contests are collected in Oi, Robot, edited by Edward L. Ferman. $11.95 postpaid from F&SF, PO Box 3447, Hoboken, NJ 07030.
MISCELLANEOUS
If stress can change the brain, all experience can change the brain. www.undoing stress.com
Support the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship Fund. Visit www.carlbrandon.org for more information on how to contribute.
It was a contest, a challenge, a competition, a match. The R. L. Fanthorpe Write-Alike Contest! Deadline is 10/10/06. www.osfci.org/petrey/index.html
Alluring Androids, Robot Women, and Electronic Eves, a new gallery exhibition at the New York Hall of Science, June 17—Sept. 10, 2006. For more information, please visit www.nyscience.org.
Sandoval Paving Co. No job too big, but no yellow brick roads, please. (555) 666-PAVE. Ask for Felipe or Ramon.
F&SF classifieds work because the cost is low: only $2.00 per word (minimum of 10 words). 10% discount for 6 consecutive insertions, 15% for 12. You'll reach 100,000 high-income, highly educated readers each of whom spends hundreds of dollars a year on books, magazines, games, collectibles, audio and video tapes. Send copy and remittance to: F&SF Market Place, PO Box 3447, Hoboken, NJ 07030.
Curiosities: Black Oxen by Gertrude Atherton (1923)
The title of this still-provocative, still-timely Roaring Twenties bestseller (filmed the year after publication) derives from a Yeats epigraph: “The years like great black oxen tread the world....” Indeed, a heavy sense of inexorable mortality suffuses this tale.
Lee Clavering is a thirty-four-year-old drama critic in New York when he sees a mysterious, uncannily beautiful young woman at the theater. He falls instantly in love. Seeking information on this European countess, Mary Zatianny, he is baffled by her resemblance to the youthful Mary Ogden, now an elderly, expatriate socialite. After jousting with the woman, he learns her secret: she is indeed Mary Ogden, aged fifty-eight, but restored to youth by Viennese radiation treatments on her ovaries. She avows her love for Clavering as well. But the eventual disclosure of her secret focuses the media and jealous rivals on her, making for a less-than-ideal romantic atmosphere. Moreover, Mary Zatianny's young body is in conflict with her jaded mind. Clavering is courting Haggard's Ayesha.
Ripe with mordant social observation, trenchantly written, this novel results from Atherton's own identical Steinach treatments at age sixty-four, which she swore woke her from a mental and physical torpor. In portraying Mary Zatianny as the first of a new science-derived clade that would marry the energies of youth with the icy cunning of age, Atherton (1857-1948) was an Extropian before the word was invented. Bruce Sterling obviously agrees, since his novel Holy Fire (1996) features a protagonist in an analogous situation. Her name? Mia Ziemann.
—Paul Di Filippo
* * *
Visit www.fsfmag.com for information on additional titles by this and other authors.
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