FSF, July-August 2010

by Spilogale Authors

  It's the dark and bloody and often rainy near-future, and humanity has managed to extend its lifespan by means of expensive mechanical organs provided by an evil corporation called the Union—a good portion of the Union's money comes via the repossession business. If a person falls behind in their payments, the corporation sends out repo men armed with wicked-looking retrieval instruments to take back the organ without the least regard for the purchaser's survival. Remy (Law) and Jake (Whitaker) are two of the best repo men going, performing their gruesome work with unwholesome relish. When Remy suffers an accident on the job and is outfitted with a new heart, roles are reversed and he becomes the hunted (by Jake, of course). After that things follow a predictable track. Remy meets a girl (Braga) who is pretty damn near all mechanical organs and who introduces him to the underground (there are thousands of people with replacement organs living on the downlow, which causes you to wonder how much money the Union could be making from this practice) and so it goes, pocketa, pocketa, pocketa, just like every other version of the story.

  There are a few good moments, as when Remy tells a singer how much his music means to him while preparing to take his heart, but for the most part the satire falls flat and we are left with the usual chase scenes and the far-too-many ultra-gory organ retrievals (Sapochnik seems fixated on the most gruesome aspects of his movie, and I actually averted my eyes from the screen at one point, the mulch of blood and macerated flesh grew so disgusting). I marveled at Sapochnik's aesthetic—what audience had he been hoping to attract with his nasty, ugly, brutish film? Impossible to say. As I left the theater I found myself thinking about other matters, inclusive of wondering how Jude Law felt about the whole enterprise. He could not have been happy, I decided, to discover that in certain scenes, thanks to Sapochnik's lighting and camera styles, he resembled a mash-up between Andre Agassi and Gollum.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Short Story: EPIDAPHELES AND THE INADEQUATELY ENRAGED DEMON by Ramsey Shehadeh

  Around here, we're not prone to quoting reviews, but the comments concerning Ramsey Shehadeh's first story about Epidapheles (in our Mar/Apr issue and currently reprinted on our Website) brought a variety of reactions, including “Silly and pointless,” “mercifully short,” “tried way too hard to be funny/silly,” and “didn't score much.” Other reviewers and bloggers said, “Lots of fun, a distinctive voice, and I very much hope we'll see more in the same vein by this author,” and “One could say this is supremely silly, but that's what I like about it.”

  In light of such enthusiasm, we welcome Epidapheles back for more silliness.

  Epidapheles stroked his beard and studied the wall. “You are quite correct, Lord Fuddlesworth,” he said. “The doorway you describe is not there. In fact, it is perhaps the most absent doorway I have ever encountered."

  Door sighed. He stood in the corner behind Epidapheles—his master—and watched.

  "But many years ago, this wall did contain a doorway,” said Lord Fuddlesworth. He was a stooped old man, with a small and frail voice. “And then, quite suddenly, and for a very long time, it did not. And now it sometimes does, and sometimes doesn't. It is perplexing."

  "Interesting,” said Epidapheles. “Very interesting.” He paused. “Very, very interesting,” he said.

  When Epidapheles did not know what to say, he tended to repeat himself until something occurred to him. Things very rarely occurred to him, however, so he was likely to go on in this vein for some time. Door decided to intervene. He tiptoed forward, as quietly as he could, trying to keep his wooden legs from clattering against the tiled floor, and nudged his master.

  Epidapheles spun around and glared down. “What?"

  Lord Fuddlesworth started, and glanced over. He could not see Door, as Door was invisible, but he could see Epidapheles addressing the empty space behind him.

  "Don't look at me,” whispered Door.

  "Why not?” said Epidapheles.

  "Don't talk to me either,” whispered Door.

  "I will speak to you as long as it pleases me to do so."

  Lord Fuddlesworth's expression shifted from confused to baffled. “Lord Mage, are you communing with demons?” he said.

  "We don't want him to know I'm here,” hissed Door, with all the patience he could muster. “Don't you remember? We just discussed this."

  Epidapheles squinted, searching through the dark and fuddled muck of his memory for the conversation they'd had an hour ago. In this conversation, Door had suggested that they should keep his presence secret, as there is very little point in telling people that your familiar is an invisible chair. No good can come of it.

  Eventually, comprehension dawned in Epidapheles's eyes—although Door suspected that it wasn't a dawning so much as a sputtering skyward lurch, like a sun heaving itself halfway over the horizon, peeking out at the world, finding nothing particularly worth illuminating, then slipping, with some relief, back into the earth.

  Epidapheles turned back to the wall. He seemed on the point of saying interesting again, but quelled the impulse.

  "Fascinating,” he said, and stroked his beard. The beard was made out of twine and goat hair and pasted to his real beard with epoxy. The goat from which it had been cut was—based on the available evidence—very old, very mangy, and possibly leprous. But Epidapheles insisted on wearing it. He had recently conceived the notion that his renown placed him in great and constant danger, which required him to wear a disguise at all times. This was, Door thought, a somewhat perplexing notion. They were in constant danger, yes, but this was due much more to Epidapheles's terrifying incompetence than it was to his renown. Also, there was no renown. Attributing something to Epidapheles's renown was akin to attributing it to his exoskeleton, or his intelligence, or his breasts.

  In any case, the disguise was not especially effective. Epidapheles seemed to believe that the best way to disguise himself was to dress up as himself, except more. Thus the tattered false beard stuck to his identical real beard, the dingy charcoal robes slipped over his dingy gray robes, and the twisted oaken staff standing in for his crooked oaken staff. Also, the pseudonym: Epidafeles.

  "There are two solutions to your dilemma, Lord Fuddlesworth,” he said. “We can either make the door completely not there, or we can render it entirely there."

  Lord Fuddlesworth brightened at this. “You can make it visible?"

  Epidapheles nodded. “Of course. I am Epidafeles, mage of mages."

  Door groaned. The chances of Epidapheles producing a door out of nothing were remote. He knew this from experience, as he was the product of one such failed invocation. The old mage had attempted to conjure a door into the back wall of a tavern, and had instead animated a nearby chair. He had then rendered the chair invisible in his efforts to de-animate it. Thus was Door born.

  Door had fond memories of his years as a simple chair. Everything had made sense, then. He'd existed to be sat upon, or not sat upon—a pleasantly binary, and immensely fulfilling, state of being. But there was no such clarity now. Door existed, as far as he could tell, to exist, which seemed a paltry sort of purpose.

  "And you can keep it visible?” said Lord Fuddlesworth.

  "Of course,” said Epidapheles.

  "And it will lead to my wife's rooms?"

  Epidapheles hesitated. “Is that where it led before?"

  "Yes,” said Lord Fuddlesworth. “When it wasn't leading to the demonic realm of Disembowelebub the Eternally Enraged.” He smiled, in a distant, melancholy way. “My lovely Habakkuka disappeared with her door many, many years ago. It would be very pleasant to see her again."

  "Yes, of course,” said Epidapheles, and nodded, sagely. He looked in Door's general direction. He looked at the old man. He looked at the doorless spot on the wall. “Perhaps you should tell me more about this demonic realm,” he said.

  Door sighed.

  * * * *

  Disembowelebub the Eternally Enraged was in a brooding sort of a mood. He strode through his
realm, hands clasped behind his back, staring down at the ground.

  Habakkuka walked beside him. He was in gargantuan form today, so she had to take five steps for every one of his, and crane her neck to speak to him. “How are you feeling, milord?” she said.

  "Bemused and melancholy, I'm afraid,” he said. “Which is an improvement over yesterday, I suppose. Yesterday I was approaching cheerful."

  "I am very sorry to hear that, milord."

  "As am I, Habakkuka. Does Disembowelebub the Bemused and Melancholy strike fear into your heart? No? How about Disembowelebub the Approaching Cheerful? Does this send frissons of terror crawling up and down your spine?"

  "It does not, milord."

  "Of course it does not.” He sighed, and stared off into the middle distance. “When I was a stripling incarnation of evil, even the smallest slight would send me into sputtering paroxysms of rage. I remember when one of my subjects sneezed during a sacrificial ritual in my honor. I set the city ablaze, flayed and disemboweled all of its inhabitants, and then shot the entire realm surrounding it into the fiery maw of hell. For a sneeze.” He shook his head. “These days, I doubt I'd mind much if an army of paladins decided to relieve themselves on one of my altars."

  "I'm sure it's just a phase, milord. Contentment cannot last forever."

  "Do you know what I did yesterday?"

  "No, milord."

  "I was sorting through my sufferers, looking for a few thousand to excruciate before dinner, when I found myself thinking that perhaps these poor people didn't deserve the infinite pain I was about to inflict upon them. That they were, after all, innocents.” He pinched his lower lip between his fangs, and seemed on the point of tears. “And then I let them go."

  Habakkuka nodded sympathetically. “Perhaps this was a stratagem, milord. An attempt to render yourself enraged at yourself."

  "Perhaps.” He shook his head. “If so, it failed spectacularly. I felt friendly, and benign. Disembowelebub the Friendly and Benign.” He buried his face in his hands. “Is there nothing in all the universes worth becoming enraged with?"

  * * * *

  Epidapheles steepled his eyebrows, glared at the wall, and cried: “Egressiniari!"

  Nothing happened.

  Door, folded into a corner in the back of the room, glanced over at Lord Fuddlesworth, who occupied the opposite corner, and was curled into the fetal position with his hands over his head. Fuddlesworth had long since come to the obvious conclusion—that nothing was the best possible outcome when Epidapheles was performing magic—and had subsequently begun to mutter earnest entreaties to a series of gods, demigods, microgods, picogods, and any entities that had so much as grazed a pantheon since the beginning of time.

  None of them appeared to be listening, however. In the course of three hours, Epidapheles had managed to turn Lord Fuddlesworth into a sprig of parsnip, a flagon of goat urine, an ermine battleaxe, a very bad love poem, and the color blue. Door knew from long experience how to avoid Epidapheles's magipropisms, and had therefore escaped with nothing more than a sudden outbreak of hives and a fleeting nostril infestation.

  "Thank you, Lord Mage,” said Lord Fuddlesworth in a tiny voice. “I believe I am satisfied. I no longer see the door. It is quite invisible."

  Epidapheles turned around and studied the old man. “Did you not wish to make the door visible?"

  "No,” said the old man, shaking his head. “Yes. Perhaps. But I have been persuaded that it would be far better if it were simply banished."

  Epidapheles shrugged. “As you wish. I'll just clear away this mess.” He waved his hand at a bewildered group of marmosets he'd conjured near the beginning of the ordeal. There was a flash, and a small, localized grammarstorm bloomed out of the air and crawled along the ceiling, shedding torrents of adjectives that splashed down into the room, modifying everything they touched. Door suddenly found himself both crenelated and deciduous, and just slightly canonical. Lord Fuddlesworth had become spangled and punctilious. The walls dripped with jocund. Rivulets of trapezoidal ran between the tiles.

  The marmosets did not disappear—though they did become a bit smoggy.

  Also, there was a window.

  Door shook off his adjectives and studied the window. It occupied the same space as Lord Fuddlesworth's imaginary door. It was a simple unadorned rectangle, with yellow curtains gathered off to the side. A shaft of red light spilled through it into the room and painted an ochre square on the floor.

  Epidapheles—entirely dry—peered at the window, the boiling mass of marmosets, the dissipating grammarstorm. He looked sidelong at Lord Fuddlesworth. “Just as I'd planned,” he said.

  Door sighed, stepped fuzzily through a puddle of adverbs, and peered annually into the window. He saw a berm of red rock bristling with a dense forest of iron pikes that reached up into the sky. Men and women were impaled on the top of each of the pikes, thousands and thousands of them. They moaned and struggled feebly in the heat.

  "It looks like you've opened the version of the portal that leads to the infernal realms of Disembowelebub.” He turned to Epidapheles. “Why does this not surprise me?"

  Lord Fuddlesworth crept up behind them, stepping gingerly around a grasping mound of gerunds. He peered through the window, and a smile broke out across his face. “Oh, well done, Lord Mage!” he cried. He clambered through the window, then set off across the landscape, wending his way between the pikes, calling: “Habakkuka! Habakkuka!"

  Door watched him recede. “The old fool will die in there,” he said. “We should do something."

  Epidapheles nodded. He drew himself up to his full height, steepled his brows, stared defiantly into the infernal light, and said: “I'm feeling a bit peckish."

  There was a small silence. Door said: “What?"

  Epidapheles rubbed his belly. “Which is odd. I seem to remember eating breakfast."

  "The something I was suggesting,” said Door, “involved saving Lord Fuddlesworth from certain death."

  Epidapheles frowned. “I fail to see how this will assuage my hunger."

  * * * *

  Habakkuka strode through the Garden of Eternal Agony at Disembowelebub's side. The demon lord stared moodily off into the middle distance and said nothing. Each step he took shook the world and sent fissures ramifying across the dry earth and between the plots of the damned, who reached out from their holes with what limbs they still possessed. Those with tongues cried out for mercy. Those without simply moaned.

  Habakkuka smiled, gently. She had learned over the years to soak up the screams of this realm, absorb them, and—when she was alone, in the middle of the night—crawl into her bed and weep, and weep, and weep for the fate of the damned. She could just as easily have ignored the suffering entirely, of course. This certainly would have spared her a great deal of sorrow. But it would have also made her into the monster she was attempting to destroy.

  "Last night,” said Disembowelebub, “I read the collected works of Placidon the Loving, as you suggested. All of them. Love the Little Creatures, Gentle Footsteps on the Loving Path of Pure Lovingness, Hug the Cockles of the Heart of the Inner Everyone. It was nauseating."

  "I am pleased to hear it, milord. I expect your wrath was great."

  "It was not,” said Disembowelebub. “Today I stormed into the mortal realm, fully intending to disembowel every tenth male in the Kingdom of Ur—as is my yearly custom—but found myself thinking: What would Placidon do?” He frowned. “Apparently, what he would do is rescue a drowning puppy."

  Habakkuka nodded. “Perhaps you wished to prolong its death agonies?"

  "No. I wished to give it to a sick little girl. To make her feel better.” He bit his lip, and looked away. “Which is what I did."

  "Feral puppies can be quite dangerous. It could be that you expected it to simply eat her."

  "No.” He shook his head. “I just wanted to make her happy. And I believe I did. She kissed me.” He suppressed a sob. “On my horns."

  "How h
orrible."

  "You cannot possibly imagine."

  "It's not too late to flay and then burn her entire family."

  "True,” said Disembowelebub, and shrugged. He picked one of the planted sufferers and twirled him between his thumb and forefinger, notched a talon under his chin and was on the point of popping his head off when he paused, sighed, and lowered him gently to ground.

  The sufferer looked warily to one side, then the other. He took one backward step, then another. And then he turned and ran.

  Disembowelebub watched him recede. “You're probably thinking I'm going to let that man almost escape, and then, at the last possible moment, hang him with his own intestines.” The sufferer disappeared over the horizon. “Well, I'm not."

  Habakukka shook her head. “Your illness progresses rapidly, milord."

  "Yes.” Disembowelebub rounded on her. “And you have done nothing about it, woman. I have been under your care for many, many years, yet every day is worse than the last."

  She looked down. “You doubt me, milord."

  "Yes, I think that's a fair statement."

  "You seemed satisfied with my credentials when you first accepted me into your service."

  "Ah, yes, your credentials. What were those again? Your miraculous healing of Baal the Intermittently Piqued? Or was it Gorgon the Passive Aggressive's triumphant return to artfully concealed emotional sabotage?"

  "Sarcasm does not become you, milord,” said Habakukkah.

  "You're right. I'm sorry,” said Disembowelebub, sagging a little. He started, and drew himself up to his full height, and roared: “No I'm not! Silence, woman!” And then, after a moment, he withered again. “No, I am, actually."

  "I believe the time has come for us to take more extreme measures."

  Disembowelebub looked at her. “Yes?"