Authors put their blood, sweat and tears into their work (I know, I’m one of them), and it can be horribly frightening and demeaning to see someone take that hard work and pass it off as their own, without permission, without credit.  The act is despicable, especially since it seems this offender — I dare not call him an “author” for he is nothing of the kind — has done this multiple times.

So I propose we celebrate original fiction.  I kindly ask that you please support Livia by reading her story “Jetsam” here and writing a comment in support of her and in support of original fiction. Please help spread the word that originality matters.

by Anil Menon

to the sound of Yaarodu Yaaro by Yuvan Shankar Raja & Ustad Sultan Khan…

This story appears in Sybil’s Garage No. 7.

I, ZULAIKHA, MUTANT, inconvenient and sixteen-point-two miraculous years old, declare myself Eve of a bold and brilliant species. I am Singular. Protoplast. Odd. In short, fucked. I am besieged by fallen apes, hairy and quarrelsome. I am besmirched on the neighborhood’s limestone walls. I am virginal, insolvent and oppressed. Says Zulaikha: bring it!

Note On Rejecting Modesty: Should a comet apologize for its blaze? I will bellow my existence, even though I’m motherless, solitary and desolate beyond human imagining. Unnatural Zulaikha, doomed to be a thinking angel amongst quarreling beasts. Unnatural Zulaikha, doomed with ocular excess in the Country of the Blind. Unnatural Zulaikha, doomed to love YUSUF!

I am the only child of a Coptic Christian man in Heliopolis, Egypt. Technically, that makes me Christian and an Egyptian. But that’s merely an accident of geography and biology. To what country does the Opposable Thumb belong? Under what species’ haunches does an America crouch? I imagine myself free. I must imagine myself free.

Imagination is the name of a river in Egypt. All things exist, absolute and immutable, in its incarnadine waters. Did I not fish my world from its sunless depths? Through imagination have I achieved freedom, escape velocity, solace. I imagine I am not Copt. I imagine I am not Egyptian. I imagine, therefore I deny.

Father says imagination is a form of denial. If so, there are many who would imagine a world without Copts. The Pharaoh denies them political representation. The Pharaoh denies the Copts permits to build their churches. The Pharaoh denies them licenses to start businesses. My father’s God kept a close tab on the Pharaoh’s denials.

There are all kinds of Gods. Gods who begat. Gods with thunder-throats. Gods lost in desert lands. Gods who court frightened swans. Gods who turn grief into pearls. Gods who giggle at funerals. Gods who pooh-pooh and Gods who march ahead. Gods with winter-faces and Gods not quite dead. There are all kinds of fathers.

I once asked Yusuf whom his God preferred more: the chaste or the virtuous. He thought about it, a smile playing about his shy lips.

“The virtuous seek to slay themselves, Zulaikha, but the chaste seek to slay the lover. Yahweh certainly prefers the virtuous.”

Hai Allah, how do I get Yusuf to plough me!

Additional Note on Rejecting Modesty, Sexual: I was born without webbed thighs, and so I infer I’m intended to spread, with a modicum of the infinite benevolence and generosity, that which Allah, praised be his name, hath left so delightfully hinged. Why won’t my Suleyaman grant this Hurrem a shoulder to rest her henna’d foot!

I have battled Life these sixteen-point-two miraculous years, and though the exterior of my corpus is without blemish, the interior — alas! My interior is Guernica. My interior is Soft Construction With Boiled Beans. My interior is engaged in two ruinous wars:

Enemy

Enemy

There are all kinds of fathers. Fathers who wilt in the sun. Fathers who cry in the rain. Fathers with desolate beds. Fathers with forbidden wings. Fathers lost in Egypt. Fathers who plot dreadful things. Fathers who are Moody Djinns. Fathers who will soon be dead. Fathers beloved beyond measure. My father is many fathers.

Yusuf, being of Adam-kind, has both a father and a navel. He’s a tall, loose, rumpled fellow. Such long fingers! I like the way he eats tomatoes. I like his gray eyes that once saw me naked; gray eyes that looked once and then twice. I like his smile when I make our eyes meet.

Yusuf, being of the tribe of Manasseh, has no foreskin. No, I have not verified the absence of the fact directly. The sense of an absence, I have read, can often substitute for the absent. Phantom limbs, phantom roots. I wonder if Yusuf has a phantom foreskin. I can’t get it out of my mind.

Dear Yusuf,

How’s it hanging, bro? Check this out:

“In conclusion, circumcision removes the most sensitive parts of the penis and decreases the fine-touch pressure sensitivity of glans penis. The most sensitive regions in the uncircumcised penis are those parts ablated by circumcision.” (Sorrells et. al., British J. Urology, 99, pp. 864-869, 2007)

Hugs,

Foreskin

The removal of the foreskin is an optional maneuver for Coptic Christians. I asked the Moody Djinn if he had exercised that option.

“No,” he replied, with unnecessary irritation.

Good, good. But my relief was temporary. The Moody Djinn turned melancholy, even remorseful.

“Not everyone is as righteous as Yusuf. He’s a true tzaddik, Zulaikha.”

Yusuf, a tzaddik! A teacher to those black-hatted, forelocked, Talmud-toting, Yiddish-speaking, Zulaikha-ignoring Hasidic Jews? Impossible! I hurried to query the Righteous One.

“No, I’m not a tzaddik,” says Yusuf. “I’m a Bnei Menashe. And I’m far from righteous.”

Exactly! Besides, what would a righteous soul be doing with the Moody Djinn? Some fathers are liars.

Tidbit: In the land of Hindustan, where the plausible is a malnourished sibling of the actual, Jews have long been welcome. There’s the Cochin Jews of Kerala, the Telugu-speaking Bene Ephraim, the Bene Israel of Maharashtra, the Kolkata Baghdadi and the Bnei Menashe of Mizoram. Bnei Menashe imagine they’re descendents of Manasseh, son of Joseph.

About Joseph: Abraham begat Isaac begat Jacob begat Joseph begat Manasseh, whose name tombstones all that Joseph has had to forget, namely: sold to Midianite traders by his own brothers, the decade of salt and slavery, the brush of Potiphar’s nipples on his back, the screams in Pharaoh’s prison, the rat-nibbles of other people’s dreams.

Manasseh’s mother is Asenath, mute daughter of Potiphar and Zulaikha. Asenath is clever, slender, and full of orgasms. When Asenath smiles, Potiphar imagines strange things: that she’s not his daughter, but a foundling, a secret given flesh. Othertimes, he imagines parenthood: his daughter, an hour-old, nestled in Zulaikha’s arms. Fatherhood is compatible with both explanations.

Old Potiphar has a wife. Zulaikha is her name. She perches on his shoulder, nibbles his ear. When she is bored, he opens windows and lets her out. She returns in minutes, days, sometimes weeks. She returns; bruised lips, folded wings. Then he buys her gifts: pearls, perfumes, salves and slaves. Let’s imagine him happy.

When Joseph’s lips meet Asenath’s mute lips, he forgets things. He forgets a desert God perched on his shoulder, whispering in his ear. He forgets a boy in a well, a boy in a splendiferous coat, a boy in a slaver’s grasp. These Josephs, Joseph is certain, differ from the Joseph kissing Asenath’s soft lips.

When Joseph’s lips meet Asenath’s lips, he imagines strange things. He imagine a little house with yellow slats on a cypress-scented hill. He imagines not being righteous, not being chosen, not being an exemplar, not knowing the meaning of dreams. He imagines being Egyptian. These Josephs, Joseph thinks, are also the immigrant kissing Asenath’s lips.

Joseph is an immigrant. An immigrant is ninety-percent imagination and ten-percent trace minerals. They are one solution to Kafka’s psychograms: the waiting-list, the penal colony, the courtroom, the burrow, the absurd metamorphosis. These moral instruments are categories of containment and cannot hold immigrants, for imagination devours all categories. Thus did Joseph ben Jacob become Zaphnath-paaneah.

What Asenath said: When my lips meet his, mother, and when my dust mingles with his, mother, and when I make him forget, mother, and when I seize what father seized, mother, and when I demand what you demanded, mother, why does Zaphnath-paaneah say: “It’s not you I love, beloved, it’s what you are not.”

On some cold and braziered nights, as the slave Amen plays the flute, opium entranced, and Asenath dances naked in front of Zaphnath, her upraised arms fluttering like the flame’s forked tongue, Zaphnath unlocks his burdened chest, shrugs on his imagination, luxuriates in the coat’s whorls, colors, and pockets, and then joins Asenath, dancing, dancing.

When Zaphnath, rich and powerful, brought Joseph’s family to Egypt, they dare not comment on his splendiferous coat. The guards wait, hands on swords.

“I use it to imagine,” says Zaphnath, smiling. “I imagine justice. I imagine forgiveness. I imagine happiness, family. I can imagine anything.”

Smiling, he insists they try his coat; smiling, smiling.

Their wedding is a noisy affair. Such laughter!

“Quiet, quiet,” mutters Zaphnath. “If I could but quiet the lord’s mouth as the lord silenced yours, Asenath.”

“Then let’s rename our first-born,” signs Asenath. “We’ll call him Manasseh: made for forgetting.”

It’s cold in the desert. Zaphnath dons his splendiferous coat, but the infernal cold endures.

Of Manasseh, son of Egypt and Israel, son of Zaphnath and Asenath: loyal, strong, married to a Syrian concubine, serene, responsible, and by tradition, a role-model for future Jewish kids. His tribal banner has a prancing unicorn against a black background. Over time his tribe spreads out of Canaan, perhaps into Asia or even: Mizoram.

Tidbit: Mizoram is a mountainous North-Eastern state of Hindustan. It has bamboo forests and bandicoot rats. The bamboo flowers every forty-eight years, the rats gorge on the seeds and multiply, the bamboo seeds run out, the rats turn to the food grains, people starve, the rats retreat, the bamboo flowers over and over and over.

In this land of bamboo forests, bandicoot rats and famines, nineteenth century British explorers came across a small Mizo tribe who had a harvest song about a divided red sea, a terrible desert exodus, pillars of cloud and fire, and about water that sprang from a rock. It’s true. Yusuf has sung me this song.

The people of Mizoram are short, stocky, nut-brown and have almond-shaped eyes. Yusuf is tall, slender, fair and has no epicanthic folds. He believes nonetheless that his ancestors were chased out of Canaan, two-thousand and seven-hundred years ago, by short, stocky, nut-brown Assyrians. The Moody Djinn agrees. He says Yusuf is as Jewish as Manasseh.

When the Moody Djinn and I had gone to pick up a tall, slender, fair, boy with no epicanthic folds in Neveh Dekalim, I caught my first glimpse of Yusuf’s people, the Bnei Menashe. They beat their palms against the tinted windows of our Mercedes. Chanting. Cursing. Spitting. Weeping. Wrinkled faces like old leather slippers.

Neveh Dekalim is one of the nineteen Jewish settlements in Gush Katif, a pretty-postcard place wedged between the blue Mediterranean in the northeast and the Negev. The settlement was being demolished, and the Jews forced out. This time, there were no plagues or pillars of cloud and fire. Just brother against brother. Just politics.

Moody Djinn greeted Yusuf with the warmth he reserved for the trusted. Yusuf was not much older than me, a few miraculous years at most, but Moody Djinn talked to him as an adult. Plotics. Giraffography. Horrorstory. Atrocity Theory. The car’s interior was very cold, but as the Moody Djinn talked, the desert crept in.

How to make Copts feel Somewhat Unwanted: Why do they take public safety for granted? Abduct their women while they’re shopping (Ingy Helmy Labibe, 01/04/2004), while enroute to work (Marianna Attallah, 05/2005), or just like that (Ingy Nagy Edwar, 09/27/03). Launch futile investigations. Insist they must have been asking for it. Deny the events happened.

How to make Copts feel Strongly Unwanted: Torture converts (Yousef and Mariam Suliman, 10/20/2003, Alexandria). Set them on fire (06/17/81, El-Zawia El-Hamra, Cairo). Murder Coptic monks (04/11/94, St. Mary’s Monastery, Asyut). A tender act of randomness (the slaughter of a dozen Sunday School students, 02/12/97, Abu Quorcas). The possibilities, as the advertisements say, are endless.

How I miss my mother. There are two types of mothers: Takiti and Maluma. Takiti is jagged, ragged, raven-beaked, the splint in Oedipus’ eye. Maluma is milk-heavy, curvy, cuddly, the feel of a soft thigh. Takiti mothers make good altars. Maluma mothers excel at making altar boys. These two X chromosomes are found in all women.

Yusuf: What’s the matter? You look sad.

Zulaikha: I’m trying to imagine my mothers.

Yusuf: Mothers? How strange. You have a child’s imagination.

Zulaikha: Yes, I’m a child. Leave me to my childishness.

Yusuf: No, no, dear Zulaikha. I envy your imagination.

Zulaikha: It’s contagious. Beware. Don’t sit so close.

(Space & Time)

Close. Kissing-close.

Isaac Newton on Space & Time: “Absolute, true, and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature flows equably without regard to anything external, and by another name is called duration. Absolute space, in its own nature, without regard to anything external, remains always similar and immovable.”

Zulaikha on Space & Time: What bunk.

I’ve discovered why Yusuf wouldn’t kiss me this afternoon. I’m HIDEOUS!! A pimple the size of the Bedou crater adorns the tip of my proboscis. Any further out, and it could issue Visas, print currency, compose national anthems. How can he ever sleep again! Burnt into his synapses is this… pimple. I’ve slapped myself twice.

“We have come to think of the actual as one among many possible worlds. We need to repaint that picture. All possible worlds lie within the actual one.” Nelson Goodman, ‘Fact, Fiction & Forecast,’ 1983.

This is Djinn’s favorite quote. I’ve never understood it, until now. Pimples and princesses are not mutually exclusive. Fucking universe.

The Moody Djinn has not stepped out of his office for days. Yusuf rarely leaves his side now. Strange men come and go. So it is going to happen again. Linear time, encircled. This time I must stop it. This time I must act. This time I must teach Yusuf to imagine a different ending.

I begin with an easy question. Time: Lunch; Venue: dish-washing; Situation: elbows touching, hips touching.

“Can robots kiss, Yusuf?”

“Let’s talk about something else. What colleges do you intend to apply—”

“If you were a robot tzaddik, is that what you’d counsel?”

“A robot tzaddik…” Yusuf smiles. “Theologically, I suppose robots could kiss.”

Wrong.

Question: Can robots kiss?

Answer: No. Though robots have identity, they lack individuality. Without individuality, robots might as well kiss the mirror. It is why robots can’t do jokes, hold conversations, or imagine a world where choice, not necessity, brings lips and hips, thighs and sighs together.

Conclusion: Student has misunderstood the question, perhaps willfully.

Time: Lunch; Task: dish-washing. It is very soothing: water, suds, the simple sounds of making things clean. Yusuf hums quietly, looking cow-happy. We could do this forever.

“Yusuf! Yusuf!”

“Pretend you don’t hear him,” I say. “Just pretend.”

He hesitates. Only for a second, true, but against a God, a whole second! O frabjous day!

Yusuf has offered to read the Bible with me, but there are such difficulties. Such parallels. Such brutalities. Time’s loom has folded and re-folded us, but here we are again, revenant, immutable: Joseph and Asenath.

“I remember a cold night,” I say, “when the fires fell low, and you showed me a coat. Remember, Joseph?”

Then spake Yusuf, the Righteous One: You blasphemy, dear Zulaikha. The gift our Lord God offers is linear time. We are crooked, true, and the past doubles back upon us, mottled and serpentine. But accept my God, your God, your father’s God, and we partake of his gift, for our Father’s world is our world.

“So this world is just a fantasy,” I say. “Incest, child sacrifice, genocide, murder… all shadows on our Father’s eternal face? Eternity allows everything to be imagined away?”

He considered my question as if it mattered. As if I mattered.

“Not everything,” says Yusuf, slowly. “There are unimaginable things. Some things even the imagination resists.”

Imaginative resistance. I looked it up. Professor Gendler defines it as the unwillingness of people to imagine morally deviant fictional worlds. I was in the bathroom, post-shower, so lost in wondering if readers could be so perverse, somehow I accidentally flashed Yusuf, who happened to be passing by. Damn unknotted bathrobe!

I hope he saw me.

Dinner consisted of roasted red-pepper strips, golden focaccia, lemon wedges, and filleted slices of white haddock seasoned with Moroccan spice. I told them about Dr. Gendler’s paper.

“Gendler merely named one of Hume’s puzzles,” growled the Moody Djinn. “Hume claimed that moral imagination had its limits. Rubbish. People can be made to imagine anything.”

It’s his tone. It’s the tone that bothers me. It makes me nothing. It flicks me away like lint. Yusuf smiles and compliments me about the food; he’s playing umpire, as always.

“I don’t know, father. Dr. Gendler’s stories are convincing.”

“Naturally.”

“How about an example, Zulaikha?” asks Yusuf.

Such a knight, my dear Jew.

“Okay, here’s one: In killing her baby, Giselle did the right thing. After all, it was a girl.”

The Moody Djinn frowns. “And?”

“Make that story morally acceptable!”

“Please. Let’s say Giselle has some terrible disease, peculiar to women. Alas, it’s transmissible and incurable. Why shouldn’t she kill her baby? After all, it’s a girl.”

“Imagination is not a choice,” says the Moody Djinn. He has the air of a man nursing a personal sorrow. “Necessity is God’s confessor. What must be done may always be forgiven, Zulaikha. Must be forgiven. Who will not forgive a robot?”

“Truly,” said Yusuf, in a quiet voice. “Truly, truly.”

False. False. False.

I found Yusuf in the garden, between dusk and a cypress tree. “So you’re leaving.”

“Aren’t we all? Sit, Zulaikha. Let’s sit here forever. Just you and I in this little house with yellow slats on a cypress-scented hill. So small a dream should be imaginable. Even for me. Show me how, Zulaikha. Come closer.”

The first kiss: With Yusuf, in the cypress-scented garden. I remember our teeth clickety-clicking as we kissed. We were so eager we kissed air a couple of times. I remember the flickering thrust of his tongue. Such wet urgency. His gray eyes ate me. God bless Yusuf, bless his dirty, pure soul. I am so Maluma.

We broke off, breathless (as I’d often read happened). Stupid, grinning, happy mammals. I was ready to sprout placenta then and there. I began to open my blouse, but he stopped me.

“Why not?”

Because.

I placed his trembling hands on my breasts. He suggested instead that we try kisses from the Kamasutra. Some Jew.

Moody Djinn had been teaching me statistical physics, and I’d never seen the point, but now an experiment occurs to me.

“What experiment?” Yusuf sounded cautious.

An equilibrium experiment, my dear mammal. If X = number of times I kiss you, then for what X would kissing you become as uninteresting as kissing myself? (Five points)

Tidbit: Vatsyayana’s Kamasutra, like all Hindu grammars, conquers by dividing. Kisses are classified into two main groups. The first set is recommended for virgins, the second for experienced sluts. For virgins, there are three recommended types: the Casual, the Throbbing, and the Insinuation. All require a complete lower-lip. Upper-lip kisses are not recommended for beginners.

Tidbit: For the experienced, the lower-lip types include the Equal kiss, the Sideways kiss, the Turned-around kiss, and the Impressing. The cynical may attempt the Hard Pressing. The perverted upper-lip kisses are treated separately. There are sleepy kisses, armpit kisses, navel kisses, kissing games. In each, the tongue plays the role of a verb modifier.

Conclusion: X is undefined. I could kiss Yusuf till the end of time, and it would always beat self-osculation.

“We’ll leave the Creeping Vine for later,” says my Vatsyayana, smiling. He finger-tests his lower lip, where I had bitten him.

“I wonder if kissing is ergodic,” said I, sighing. “So many boys. So little time.”

Ergodicity: it’s one of Moody Djinn’s dark passions. He’d been trained as a physicist, and the damage showed. He saw timepieces everywhere. He’d say “random” but he meant “covered timepiece.” When he says “statistical,” it’s short hand for “lots of timepieces.” When he says “ergodic,” perhaps he means “melting clock.” Absolute time for absolute fathers.

Ergodicity equates sequences and ensembles. One coin tossed a thousand times. A thousand coins tossed all at once. Statistically, there’s no difference! Coin tossing is ergodic. Moody Djinn claims no one really knows why. A single boy kissed a thousand times. A thousand boys kissed all at once. Kissing isn’t ergodic. That’s for sure.

Poincaré’s Theorem: Take a dough ball and add a blot of ink. Start kneading. Soon, the blot will stretch and spread throughout the dough. But keep kneading, and Poincaré proved that for such ergodic transformations, the original inkblot will recur. Maybe in a different spot, maybe after a long, long time, but reappear it will.

My lips are still sweetly sore from kissing. I’m sprawled out in the living room, lying my way through a college application. Yusuf is lost in deep thought. Or perhaps its guilt and remorse.

“It’s asking here for my strongest quality,” I say, looking up. “Virtue? Or is it Chastity? Whom does your God prefer?”

Poincaré’s Theorem (the formal version): Let T be a measure preserving transformation on a probability space (?,F,P). If B ? F, then for almost every point x ? B (with respect to P), ?k: T^k(x) ? B. Roughly, almost every point x in B is recurrent.

Yusuf: That was wrong.

Zulaikha: Yes, so perverted. I thought I’d faint.

Yusuf: It’s wrong. I can’t — mustn’t — fall in love.

Zulaikha: Hai Allah.

Yusuf: I betrayed your father’s trust.

Zulaikha: Well, he’s got an even greater shock coming.

(Silence)

Zulaikha: You’ll tell him, won’t you? That you can’t go through with it. Not anymore.

I think I am going mad. The kiss transformed me. Even now, I feel the weaving magic, sparking along my exhausted nerves, caressing me with the camel-brush of memory. The thighs’ wetness, the bristle’s brute scrape, lips wounded red — How could it not have made him anew? Cave animal. How can he still contemplate murder?

It has begun to happen. I overhear the Moody Djinn test-reading Yusuf’s note: “Do not mourn my death. Out of the eater, something to eat; out of the strong, something sweet. It is my time to be strong, to yield something sweet. I, Yusuf, am not afraid. I tread the road walked by my ancestors…”

The Moody Djinn is cleaning out the powder residue from the barrel, slide and magazine of his Kahr MK40. He’ll test-fire a round and then holster it in the De Santis, now cracked with age. Soon he’ll come to say goodbye. He will be very parental, even tender: “Nothing will happen to me, Zulaikha.”

Correct.

My father thinks: We Copts are a brutalized people. God, I love this weapon. We’ve been beaten, robbed, humiliated, raped, murdered and desecrated. Wonder if Yusuf checked his vest straps? We’ve kept our peace, our Word. Our patience has been misinterpreted. The situation cannot continue. Zulaikha loves tilapia; I’ll get some on the way home.

Yusuf thinks: I remember the jib of her thigh. A whorl of lime and haddock. O God, I’m so frightened. I need Galilee’s sands between my toes. We didn’t try the Creeping Vine. I must change my underwear. Did Gideon worry about underwear? I wish Zulaikha were here. Why do I panic? All things pass.

Moody Djinn: Let’s get you ready.

Yusuf: I’d like to say goodbye first.

Moody Djinn: Better not. It’ll only upset you.

Yusuf: Does it matter now what I feel? I’m a robot.

Moody Djinn: Rubbish. This is necessary. You’ve to avenge our innocents. The Lord will strengthen your arm.

Yusuf: She’s here! Kiss me, Zulaikha.

I wanted to dissolve in Yusuf, and he in me. I wound my right leg around my lover’s waist, threw my right hand around his neck, lowered his head to my upturned face — two statues around a temple pillar — and kissed Yusuf as if I would suck out his life. Ours was the world and time.

The Moody Djinn was so angry, his eyes mottled a urine red. Some fathers are demons. Some fathers are bone gardens. Some fathers must be sprung in bear traps and some fathers must be put to bed.

“Go to your fucking room,” he says. “Now.”

“Kiss me, father.” I throw my arms around his neck.

The filet knife is sharp. Sharper than a razor, sharper than my hate, sharper than the circumcision of Zipporah. Someone is trying to kill father. He stands so still, my bridegroom of blood. I slice everything in the quarter-traversal around the jib of father’s neck. It’s nothing like filleting fish. I’ll never be clean again.

The blot won’t stop spreading. My hands, the fallen knife, the fallen souls. It bleeds out of the little house with the yellow slats on a cypress-scented hill, over the green glad Earth, blotting out the sun.

Yusuf: It was necessary, beloved.

I shiver. What a chilly day.

Yusuf: I love you.

I shiver again.

What is necessary may be forgiven. Must be forgiven. The choice of love and the necessity of death. I have chosen love, so death shall have no forgiveness. All those stories in the Good Book. Why isn’t patricide one of them? Imagine a God of Choice. Imagine a God who dares imagine His own death.

I, Zulaikha, a few seconds old, sixteen-point-two miraculous years old, ten-thousand years old, deathless and ageless, unborn and perennial, a smudge in Time’s dough. I gaze at my father, squinting to blind the light crowning his head. He is smiling. He cradles me. We are going to be friends, I can tell.

In some world, there’s a Yusuf; burnt offering, spattered flesh. In some world, there’s a Moody Djinn, tribal and vengeful. In some world, there’s a Zulaikha, forever complicit and mute. Many worlds, many strange things. But all these worlds are guilty, and so cannot be this world, womb of all possible worlds, this blessed, bloodstained world.

Old Yusuf has a wife. Zulaikha is her name. She perches on his shoulder, nibbles his ear. When she’s bored, he opens windows and lets her out. She returns in minutes, days, sometimes weeks. But return she does; bruised lips, folded wings. Then he buys her gifts: pearls, perfumes, salves and stories. Imagine them happy.

— The End —

Anil Menon worked for about nine years in software before shifting to writing fiction. His short stories can be found in a variety of magazines such as Albedo One, Chiaroscuro, Interzone, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet and Strange Horizons. He was nominated for the 2006 Carl Brandon Society Parallax Prize, the 2007 Million Writers Award, and  the 2010 Last Drink Bird Head Award (non-fiction). In 2009, he helped organize  India’s first in-residence spec-fic writing workshop at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur. His novel The Beast With Nine Billion Feet (Zubaan, 2009) was short-listed for the 2010 Vodafone-Crossword award. He can be reached at iam@anilmenon.com.

“Beyond the wastes of the Jeen, where the white sands breathe in irregular tides, a cleft splits the desert in two. The chasm descends to the center of the earth, perhaps deeper, and many demons make their despicable homes in nooks in the cliff face. Down its vastness, daylight vanishes behind mountains of stone, replaced by torchlight from parapets or ghastly radiances spilling from caverns.

In one such cavern lived the demon Atleiu. Her home blazed with corrupted light, as if splendor itself had died.  Living metalwork squirmed from angled walls, columns dripped orange syrup into stone pools, and gold, everywhere there was gold.

Atleiu, a serpentine beast with a hairy insectoid head, sat on her radiant throne, her long black tail trailing away like a river of oil. Beside her writhed Mielbok, the Billion-Toothed Maggot, his two pink eyes rheumy with pus.

“You’re an artist, my Lady,” Mielbok said.

“Is there any other kind of demon?” Atleiu said.”  …keep reading »

Also, last night I was on Jim Freund’s Hour of the Wolf (its new time is Wednesday nights) with playwright and director Edward Einhorn.  We talk about Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Blade Runner, human empathy, and even got to hear Philip K. Dick himself knock an early movie script based on the work.  (He ultimately approved of a later version and a special-effects screening.) It was lots of fun and all too short!  Listen to the show here.

Amal El-Mohtar is currently pursuing a PhD in English literature at the Cornwall campus of the University of Exeter. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in a range of publications both online and in print, including Strange Horizons, Shimmer, Cabinet des Fées, Sybil’s Garage, Mythic Delirium, and Ideomancer; her work has been broadcast on Podcastle, and The Honey Month, a collection of poetry and prose written to the taste of twenty-eight different honeys, is available from Papaveria Press. She won the 2009 Rhysling Award with her poem “Song for an Ancient City,” and co-edits Goblin Fruit, an online quarterly dedicated to fantastical poetry, with Jessica P. Wick. Find her online at http://tithenai.livejournal.com.

Her poem “Schehirrazade” appears in Sybil’s Garage No. 7.  I had the pleasure of speaking to Amal by email recently and got to ask her a few questions about her inspiration, her craft, and the supernatural.

Hi Amal!  Thanks for taking the time to speak with me.  I’ve read your various bios online.  But tell me in your own words, who is Amal?

Hi Matt! It’s a pleasure to be spoken with. Amal is someone who, upon being asked such a profoundly existential question, will wander up and down the sloping streets of her adopted Cornish village pondering it for at least a day, wondering if a reply questioning the question will be enough to spare her the dire consequences of having replied in the first place. For to reply is to commit! To reply is to put one’s own fluid self into a box, to phase-shift from liquid to solid! O noes, as they say on the internet!

To switch from third person to first, though — I’m a girl who defines herself by what she loves, and loves too many things to have sharp edges. I was never any good at colouring inside the lines. I’m a writer, an editor, a poet, a harpist, a grad student, an English major, a storyteller, a member of so many overlapping fandoms they make a sort of cake, an extrovert, an activist, a wanderer, a bisexual pagan Lebanese-Canadian who loves cats and tea and hummingbirds and singing in public places, a Sagittarius, the eldest of four children, the daughter of dear parents, possessed of a loud laugh and the tendency to run off at the mouth.

How many cities have you lived in?  Where is one place that you haven’t lived, but want to?

I’ve lived in four cities — Ottawa, Aylmer, Beirut, Al Ain — and two villages — Luskville, Penryn — throughout four different countries. I’ve visited many more, but would particularly love to live in Damascus, having fallen in love with only the taste of her twice over.

You’re currently pursuing a PhD in English from University of Exeter.  What is your dissertation about?

I’m looking at representations of fairies and other supernatural creatures in Romantic-era writing, arguing that those representations intersect with and inform constructions of national British identity at the turn of the nineteenth century.

Do you find it easier to write poems or prose, and what difference do you see between the two forms?

I’ve certainly written more poems than prose, but I’m not sure that means they’re easier to write — perhaps easier to complete, if that makes sense? I rarely start a poem without finishing it, while I may have the opening paragraph or central idea for a story for months before it’s finished. Ultimately I think it comes down to a time commitment: I might be able to write a poem in an hour (or ten minutes, depending), but it’ll take me at least a few hours to write a story, and if I don’t have those two hours stretching out ahead of me as free time, I find it difficult to sit and chip away at one.

That said, I think I’d find it equally hard to write long poems as I do to write short stories. Usually, in a poem, the logic and structure and rhythms suggest themselves to me as I’m writing, whereas there’s usually a bit more forethought needed for me to write a story. Not very much more, but enough to make a difference. Still, there’s been a long poem in my head that requires a great deal more research and forethought and hindthought before I can begin writing it in earnest, so it’s not quite so cut-and-dried, and I find that I need to plot out its structure as I plot out a story in order to do it justice.

I could try to fit a metaphor around this: poetry is like diving into a lake and surfacing, while prose is like trying to swim across. I find it difficult to even begin the dive without the prospect of surfacing, but when swimming, well, I can pause, turn onto my back, float there for a while without reaching the other shore.

In another interview you said you believe in the supernatural.  Do you see the world as inherently magical?  What do you say to those who adhere to the scientific materialist worldview that the supernatural doesn’t exist?

I do see the world as inherently magical. My definition of “magical” is rather diffuse, though.  There are many things perfectly mundane to a scientific materialist worldview that are miraculous to me, that I don’t see as less magical for all that they’re explicable: bread is as much a miracle to me as the stars. As to what I say to those who adhere to a different worldview — nothing, really, unless I feel like being soundly mocked. I’m not out to convince anyone of anything, except possibly the benefits of keeping an open mind — which isn’t at all incompatible with being a thorough skeptic.

I once saw a three-foot-tall pillar form out of whitish, swirly, ripply air in the corner of an Ottawa hostel, where it held its shape for about three minutes before dissipating into nothing again. I was, and remain, convinced that I saw a ghost. But what is a ghost? A psychic imprint left on an area that produces mass hallucinations in a consistently verifiable way? An atmospheric anomaly measured in drops or spikes in barometric pressure? The disembodied soul of a departed individual? I don’t know. It doesn’t change the fact that I saw a weird swirly pillar appear and disappear, and that I can’t account for it without reaching into the realm of the ooky. If someone were to come up to me tomorrow and explain it to my satisfaction, I’d be happy to say “ah, yes, in fact what I thought was a ghost was a combination of heat waves behaving peculiarly given variables x and y.” But in the absence of that, my cosmology’s plenty big enough to account for ghosts, and that’s the way I like it.

How did “Schehirrazade” come into being?  Tell me about the pun in the title.

When I was first getting to know Cat Valente, I was living in the United Arab Emirates while she was living in Ohio. We would chat online just about every day. I knew that I’d be back in Canada soon, and was making plans to drive down to Cleveland for her birthday. Knowing that I’d be doing a lot of travelling in the interim — going to Syria and England before heading back to Ottawa — I asked her to send me on a quest to obtain a gift for her from each place I would be. She asked for a glass bottle of ocean water from the UAE, a ring from Damascus, and a comb from the UK. I went in search of these; whenever I found one, I wrote her a small fantasized story to explain how I’d obtained it.

I filled a bottle for her in Fujeirah, one of the Emirates. While there, I started reading Cat’s Apocrypha, which dazzled me, especially her “Virgil and the Bees.” The first few lines of “Schehirrazade” came out then, but little more; I was too overcome, I think, didn’t know what I was trying to say yet.

I went to Syria, I went to England, I found her other gifts. Once back in Canada, I matched story to object, threw in a couple of extra things, made a pile of them, but I still wanted to offer something more, something to tie them all together. I pulled out the few lines I’d written in Fujeirah, and hesitated over the audacity of writing my favourite poet a poem. I did it anyway, and figured that what it lacked in skill it made up for in sincerity.

As for the title? I love to be told stories, and in Apocrypha and The Orphan’s Tales and Labyrinth and The Grass-Cutting Sword she’d told me so many new ones, so originally it was titled “To Scheherezade, on the Occasion of Her Birthday.” But the most precious to me were the things she told me when it was just us speaking together, when we gave each other little names and shared secrets. The non-standard spelling of “Schehirrazade” is one such secret, an Easter Egg just for her.

Do you write on a schedule, or when inspired?

I find it easier to write to assignment — though whether that’s the same thing as “on a schedule” I leave in the air. If someone requests a piece, gives me a prompt, offers me a framework within which to work, I find it easier to complete things quickly than otherwise — although it’s entirely possible that I’ll think “hmm, mythpunk anthology? This thing I started writing on the train might fit that…” and continue to work on it with a venue in mind.

I feel incredibly blessed that right now I have enough requests for material that I need to write on a schedule, to perspire whether or not I’m inspired. It’s what I’ve always wanted.

Is it true you play the harp?  And sing?  Where can we hear you online?

It is true that I play the harp, and sing! The one I am trained to do, the other I am not — although ironically I do a lot more singing than harping lately. I’m afraid you can’t hear me online unless you are a good friend who asks me for a half-baked home recording at a moment where I’m not quite shy enough to refuse. I hope to change that in this coming year, with the help of a production-savvy housemate, as well as perhaps talented magazine editors who possess hidden skills of their own…

Do you feel you have any recurring themes in your poems?  Your fiction?

I think they come in waves, the recurring themes, along with the language that lends itself to their treatment. I keep expecting someone to smack me upside the head and forbid me the naming of spices.

Since that hasn’t yet happened, I can’t help but write longing in terms of the senses, to write language and the ability to communicate as things that aren’t taken for granted, to mythologise the every-day and infuse myth with experience. Lately it’s become very important to me to write my culture and heritage, to shore up the gap between media representation of the Middle-East and my experience of it.

What are your plans after the PhD?

The PhD is something of a singularity for me right now; I don’t feel I can plan for what’s beyond it, as if making a plan will be a crutch, will mean being less prepared rather than more. But I can speak of wants: I want to be able to travel more freely again, to more easily visit friends and family wherever they may be. I want to write a novel or three, though I may not be able to wait until the PhD’s handed in before making a real start of it. I want to do everything I can to strengthen my ties with and give back to the community that’s sustained me throughout this degree.

Seven adjectives to describe Sybil’s Garage to someone who’s never heard of it:

Heartbreaking, luminous, scalding, teasing, sentient, rich, strange.

Anything else you’d like to add?

Yes! I’ve got this collection of poetry and prose out right now, called The Honey Month, and Jeff Vandermeer’s just said some exceptionally nice things about it, so I hope you’ll check it out! Other than that, I’d love for more people to peruse a new poetry venue called Stone Telling, which has just put out its first issue. I’ve got a piece in it that I feel is, in some ways, a companion to “Schehirrazade,” in that it’s a loving praise-poem for another beautiful, powerful woman I’m privileged to have in my life. But forget about me — there’s a shiny new poem by Ursula K. Le Guin in there, as well as gorgeous work by Shweta Narayan and Sonya Taaffe and Sam Henderson and Emily Jiang and so many others, and deserves to be trumpeted from the rooftops.

Thank you, Amal!  Always a pleasure!

Get your copy of Sybil’s Garage No. 7 at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Powell’s Books or at Senses Five Press

Sybil’s Garage No. 4

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By Amal El-Mohtar

to the sound of Taqasim on Violin by Simon Shaheen…

This poem appears in Sybil’s Garage No. 7.

For Cat Valente

YOU BRING THE East to me
in a palmful of rice,
a scattering of doves,
a burning temple,
the green smell of tea. You smile,
hold the sun plucked from a Grecian sky
between your teeth, laugh
shake gods and poets from your belly
into my waiting hands, pile them there
like coins and jewels and jasmine petals,
seashells with the sea still in them,
the desert’s weight in sand.

You knew Virgil when he was young, you tell me,
and sitting beneath a willow, whisper
that his bee-loving hands were soft in bed,
that you saw yourself when he spoke of Dido,
her clever fingers on the ox’s hide,
her smoky hair, her tragic eyes,
her fabled skin backlit by fire,
smelling of cardamom and myrrh. I see you, too,
and long, and long
to unfold a treasure from my tongue,
to take your hand in mine and hide there
a stone, a seed, a key,
any small thing
suggestive of mystery.

But my mouth is dry and full of echoes, hoards
your syllables like savory
I dare not chew, much less dare swallow
for fear of scraping my throat red-raw
with tiger claws, iron hooks,
the teeth of wide-jawed women
screaming laments into my chest,
stealing my shallow breath.

So I go, instead. I flee
to ocean, forest, ancient streets,
mountains and the tops of towers
to gather stories like wool from rocks,
dew-wet in the morning, to wring
from them a cup’s worth of augury,
season them with dry air and dust,
bottle them, wrap them ‘round rings and combs,
polish glass, silver, hematite,
and lay them at your feet. I would
sheathe you to the knees in gifts, saying,
“I am not subtle, I am not
a siren with the world for wings,
not Alissar by any name, but look, look,
in these hands,
on these feet,
with the wind in my eyes and the moon on my back,
I’ve brought the East to you,”
hoping you will find in them
even the smallest piece
of something you did not already have.

Amal El-Mohtar is a first-generation Lebanese-Canadian, currently pursuing a PhD in English literature at the Cornwall campus of the University of Exeter. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in a range of publications both online and in print, including Strange Horizons, Shimmer, Cabinet des Fées, Sybil’s Garage, Mythic Delirium, and Ideomancer; her work has been broadcast on Podcastle, and The Honey Month, a collection of poetry and prose written to the taste of twenty-eight different honeys, is available from Papaveria Press. She won the 2009 Rhysling Award with her poem “Song for an Ancient City,” and co-edits Goblin Fruit, an online quarterly dedicated to fantastical poetry, with Jessica P. Wick. Find her online at http://tithenai.livejournal.com.

By Swapna Kishore

to the sound of Bridge of Sighs by Shakti with John McLaughlin…

This story appears in Sybil’s Garage No. 7.

IN PERSISTENCE-SPACE, once-Leela cannot see anything. Or feel, or taste, or smell. But she is still Leela Manchanda who worked at Naveen Traders, Bangalore, and who looked after her mother. Her memories still exist — all, except for haziness about her transition. Sharp in her mind (or whatever she still has — she cannot see herself) are beeps of modem connects, and endless ramblings of cricket commentary. Sharp are the cold and metal smells of her glass and steel office cube, and the chill air she exhaled as she walked out of her office that last time, and then, as she entered home, the smell of Mother, sour, stale, and full of reproof. From some things there is no escape.

The onces are communicating again, using a mechanism they don’t understand. Once-Leela aligns to them to escape memories of before.

“—a census.”  That is once-Sarah.

To once-Leela, once-Sarah’s vibration has a depth that connotes a stolid masculinity. Surely Sarah had been a tall buxom woman with manly biceps, had an evangelistic zeal about Christianity, and an incongruously delicate cross dangling from her neck. Leela, nominally a Hindu, is secular (if not downright atheist) and is surprised at how Sarah’s name generates such a strong stereotype.

“Census?”  says once-Leela. “Why?”

“We should know how many of us are here,” once-Sarah says. “How else will we fulfill God’s purpose of saving us?”

“We can make our own gods and own purpose,” says once-Maya, a nervous trill to her vibration. Must be typical New-Age, with rounded specs and an anorexic frame, her nervousness causing a tremor of fingers as they brush back limp hair.

Once-Leela wonders suddenly what stereotype the others tag to her vibration. No one stays abstract too long.

“I assume we are worth saving,” booms the ever-energetic once-Milind, probably handsome, determined, like Shah Rukh Khan in Chak De India. “I’m game for a census.”

“Census of what?”  once-Leela asks. “We don’t even know what we are or how we came here. We could be a mutant species, all mind or soul or bare consciousness. Or excised brains squatting in formaldehyde vats, thanks to a scientist.”  That’s from M.A.D. comics: a bespectacled man in a flapping white coat.

“The point is, what next?” says once-Milind. “And why.”

“Does it matter?”  Once-Leela can’t stop the sarcastic edge in her ‘voice’ even though other onces will pick up the nuance.

Once-Milind persists. “If we are a new species, we must ensure we — you know — propagate.”

“Maybe we are immortal,” says once-Leela, annoyed. “But most likely we are dead.”

“Or virtual constructs in a program, or brain dumps of people who are still living,” says someone once-Leela does not recognize.

This space could be seething with gazillions of onces, all eavesdropping and grinning at our stupidity, thinks once-Leela. She will shut up; why make a fool of herself when she can remain unnoticed?

“Let’s start the census,” says once-Sarah. “Let’s begin by listing ourselves and our families.”

Families. Mother. Dead and gone, lucky her.

“Looking after a demented person is difficult,” the super-specialist told Leela when he diagnosed Mother. Leela gaped at the doctor, hurt at the insulting word, but his matter-of-fact tone and direct gaze made her register that he was using ‘demented’ as a medical term, technical and exact. Thus began her unlearning and learning.

Mother had Alzheimer’s. Her brain abounded with dead and dying neurons full of tangled tau (It took Leela a while to realize this was tau, a protein, not the metaphysical Tao). Beta-amyloid plaque crowded spaces between Mother’s brain cells (or so the doctors expected to find in an autopsy). That meant messed up and absent memories, inability to think, learn, or do ‘activities of daily living.’  That meant difficulty.

Difficult was an understatement.

“Your mother lies,” declared the latest home-help, twenty-first — or was it twenty-second? — a few months before Mother choked to death. “How can she remember her childhood and then claim I didn’t give her breakfast?”

“She has dementia,” Leela tried explaining.

“I’ve looked after old ladies.”  The home-help strapped tight her bag and slung it over her shoulder. “I know meanness when I see it.”

“Dementia is different from normal aging,” Leela explained yet again. “It is…”  But even as she talked, she recognized the futility. Trained nurses were unavailable and unwilling to work as home help; others saw dementia as a rapid version of aging, and considered Mother stubborn and inconsiderate.

Mother, on her part, was suspicious to the extent of paranoia.

“Why should I believe you?” she asked Leela only too often, her face wrinkled with mistrust. “Who are you?”

“I’m your daughter.”  Leela fought a familiar twinge of helplessness in her chest. She knew the theory, she had read innumerable books and created login IDs in too many online support groups, she could chant the jargon like an alphabet game: A is for antecedent, B is for Behavior, C is for Consequence, right up to V is for validation. Pity for her, the sequence ended with ‘Z is for a Zero life.’

Mother, demented.

“Use counselors,” suggested online support groups (she had no time for the present-in-flesh variety).

So she tried.

“Never ask why,” a dementia care counselor advised Leela. “Ask any other question. Ask when, what, how, who, where. Never why. It will drain you.”

“No?”  But Leela asked herself ‘why’ when she cleaned Mother or mashed food for her; she asked it when Mother tore off her diaper at night; she asked it when she saw a face vacant of a person behind the eyes. She asked it of herself when she surrendered her own career, one missed meeting, one slipped deadline at a time, till it stretched too thin to sustain itself. She asked it of the mirror where a crone stared back at her, eyes ringed dark, shoulder bones jutting out at the throat, anxiety etched deep into her once-smiling face.

“Learn from your mother to live in the moment,” the counselor droned on. “Cherish the gift of care-giving. Admire the way your mother is fresh every moment.”

Crayon drawings decorated the soft-board behind the counselor. You cling to sketches your children make, Leela thought. My mother doesn’t remember me. Why my mother, dammit, and why me? And who am I if the person I live for does not recognize me?

Once-Sarah and once-Milind are facing problems with their census.

“We suspect not everyone stands up to be counted,” once-Milind explains.

Once-Leela does a nothing-body giggle. “Stand up? Like you’ve got eyes, and everyone here is flesh and bones.”

“It was figurative,” once-Milind says stiffly.

“I’m sure more people will come forward soon,” once-Leela says quickly. Funny how, even in a world without form or face, free of obligation, she wants to reconcile. A pleaser.

A once vibrates its presence nearby. “Leela? Leela Manchanda from Naveen Traders? Recognize me? I’m Sujoy Bose, your boss.”  He sounds pompous even here.

“I don’t understand why you let your mother affect your career,” Sujoy told Leela when she handed in her resignation a year before Mother died. “People continue normal lives despite parents with problems.”

Not from what support group members said — those living normal lives were those who had siblings to do the actual care-giving.

“A negative attitude doesn’t help,” Sujoy continued. “You must—”

Leela’s mobile rang: home. “Excuse me,” she muttered.

“You never cooked food for me,” Mother’s voice was shrill. “There’s not even a katori of daal or one thin chapatti—”

“Everything’s in casseroles on the table, Mother,” Leela whispered fiercely. “Daal, vegetable, curd, roti. Hasn’t Lakshmi fed you?”  The maid dropped by every afternoon to warm the food and serve Mother.

“A Koli woman tried to enter the house,” Mother said. “I hit her and she ran away.”

Lakshmi, oh. Another worker lost. Leela looked at Sujoy. “I have to go home. Mother’s totally disoriented; she could even walk out.”

He shook his head. “Really, where’s your creativity? Lock her in.”

So that she breaks the window and calls the neighbors, claiming torture? Leela patted her resignation letter in front of Sujoy. “I don’t have a choice.”

She has a choice here, now, in persistence space. She ignores Sujoy.

She thinks, instead, of Mother. It is lucky Mother died before this transition, whatever it was. Even in before-world, Mother had forgotten her name. She could not communicate in any way, or learn anything new. How would she have managed here? Once-Leela imagines Mother, bewildered, a curled-up fetal ball of unbeing.

“Once we get a complete picture of all present, we must make an action plan,” says once-Sarah.

Once-Leela stays in the background, refraining from comment.

“But surely we are dead….” says once-Maya.

“This is not about religion, and I’m not discussing post-death scenarios,” says once-Sarah. “I feel alive, so I act as one who lives. We think, therefore we are.”

“I think we are Atman,” says once-Maya. “Atman just exists; I’m not sure it acts.”

Rebirth. Karma. The belief that we carry on through births accumulating and working off karma like dieters work off calories, and it’s always a losing proposition — whatever you do, you pile on bad karma like adipose.

“And is this a waiting station between deaths and births?” once-Leela asks, intrigued.

If so, what will her next life be like? Images fill her: golden sands, sapphire waters, emerald palms. No, silly, that’s like a holiday brochure — in fact, it’s the Goa tourist brochure she saw on Sujoy’s table ages ago.

“Once-Sarah is right; we must act,” says once-Milind. “Remember the Bhagawad Geeta, when Lord Krishna exhorts Arjun on the battle-field?”

Restlessness seizes once-Leela — suddenly she wants out. Out of this limbo or heaven or hell, or a set of jars in a lab or a computer simulation. She’s damned if she’ll let herself be used for a purpose she doesn’t know.

“Faith in God,” Mother told thirteen-year-old Leela, “is a confidence in a being outside. Instead, have confidence in yourself.”

Leela had asked Mother about religion, faith, God. She was shaken up after reading No Orchids for Miss Blandish (hidden inside her bio workbook, because Mother hated ‘cheap’ thrillers by ‘that Chase’). Rich, spoilt Miss Blandish, brutalized by Slim Grissom, committed suicide after being rescued. “I’m a person without any background, any character or any faith,” Miss Blandish told her rescuer. “Some people could cope with this because they believe in God.”

Can religion help handling whatever this is? Stuff like faith, hope, love?

In before-world, Leela called herself Hindu because her parents did so. She watched the Ramlila drama in Parade Grounds every Dusshera and ate spicy potato chaat after the effigies were burned. She burst crackers on Diwali, and slurped over syrupy gulab jamuns. She read Mahabharatha comics and acted out scenes with toy bows and arrows. She did not bother about intricate underpinnings of religion like advaitism or sankhya. Come to think of it, Leela knew Adam and Eve just as well, and mugged up Bible favorites for inter-college quizzes. Like Mathew 7/7: Ask and ye shall receive.

Ask whom? For what?

“Why me?”  Mother asked Leela on her more coherent days. “What is the reason?”

On such days, Mother’s face registered the horror of her one-way ride into oblivion. Leela dreaded these more than times when Mother cursed, abused, or hit. Tools existed for difficult behavior — deep breathing, eye contact, validation, distraction. She could parry questions with fiblets, unrelated answers, oblique answers. Difficult patient days required creativity, fatigued Leela, and made care-giving a heavy and awesome occupation.

A mission.

But on days when Mother showed flashes of cognizance, Leela was torn by the full measure of Mother’s loss. And of her own. Death, neuron by neuron, memory by memory.

Enough, screams once-Leela to herself. Stop brooding like once-Maya. Snap out of this. You wasted enough time out in the ‘before’, after Mother’s death.

Leela had not resumed a normal life after Mother died. A care-giver without her patient, everything seemed meaningless. She had no wish to contact friends who had dismissed her as a stay-at-home bore when she was house-bound and overwhelmed with care-giving, because she could not share vacation anecdotes of China (or Greece, or New Zealand). What Leela needed instead was a brand new set of friends, but that would take energy. A job — okay, after a break — but where was the energy to relax? Three months crawled with inertia and indecision.

Enough, repeats once-Leela. When she first registered her transition to wherever she is, she assumed this was intended by an overarching God entity to be a neat way of resolving her claustrophobic past, an expansion, a way forward. Some benevolence would grasp her hand and move her on gently, effortlessly. At a minimum, it would gift her with new friends, a new community. But now she knows that the only way out of the hell inside her is the way she makes herself, because even here, where Mother is obviously not, she is trapped inside that corroding overwhelm.

So what if she does not know what persistence space is, or how she transitioned here? She has tackled that with labels: the ‘once’ prefix for names, the phrase ‘persistence space,’ and these give structure and comfort to her new reality. So what if she has no senses? She can think, and isn’t that how one navigates the world? Isn’t that how the world started — with a word, a thought? A primordial Aum?

Thus will she act now, through her mind.

Once-Milind was right — we must act.

“When I was a child, I was raped,” whispers once-Maya. “Fear haunted me throughout my college, my job. I hated men. Then I started meditation.”

Once-Leela absorbs this information. “Did that help?”

“Sometimes. Mostly, though, I feel a crawling on my skin when there are men around. That once-Milind, for example, is always talking about propagation—”

“We are formless here.”  Surely once-Maya can see how irrelevant such fear is now? “If you have to remember the past, pick up something pleasant to remember — maybe from your job or a good friend or your family…”

“Guess you are right,” says once-Maya, not sounding happy at all. “But it’s not easy…”

No, it’s not.

Once-Leela herself is a cluster of personas — the affectionate daughter, the overwhelmed one, the indifferent neighbor, the efficient professional, the self-actualized woman — and she cannot determine her ‘me’ in a flavor-of-the-moment style. Her mind flits between them at random, her mood fluctuating accordingly. Luckily, something unites them into an overall sense of ‘I’ — but suppose the integrating thread breaks? When beads fall off a broken necklace, where’s the necklace?

Disintegrated like Mother? The glancing thought of Mother throws once-Leela off on a tangent. Is this persistence space merely her imagination? Is she a mind sealed from the outside, in coma, or…demented? Unwinding thought, circling…was this what Mother went through?

Forget it. Mother is her past, to be folded away.

If once-Leela really wants to understand this funny…adventure?… she must move beyond thinking. Not bewildered by disease, but choosing to let thoughts drift in and out, cumulus clouds obscuring a softness of being, and allowing glimpses of cloudless skies. Reaching beyond thought — not before thought, not without thought, but beyond.

Once-Leela releases the thought that thinking must stop, and its texture lightens and softens as it drifts away, insubstantial, inconsequential.

Hey, this is fun.

Too many of once-Leela’s memories are heavy with emotional substance; she cannot ignore them. The more she pushes away a memory, the more it bulldozes its way back in a ‘don’t think about the pink elephant’ way.  She must accept and resolve these memories to be free of them.

Thrilled by the challenge, once-Leela parses her memory threads. Her innumerable sub-personalities would fascinate a shrink. Timid ones, skulking ones, angry ones, suppressed all her life, but expressed in that perpetual shoulder-ache she had in the before-world, that stubborn sinus.

Sometimes, though, she wants to give up. Like when she glimpses an evening a few months before she quit her job. The memory, twisted and tucked away, is the black of a charred paper ball.

She unfurls it reluctantly. Late evening. A business meeting ends. Her car battery is dead. A colleague from a different branch offers her a lift home. Traffic is heavy, and waiting times at red lights extended. They talk. They find common interests, hobbies. They argue politics, discuss terrorism. They chuckle over the humor of Bheja Fry. Finally he stops at her apartment complex. They both bend down to pick up her laptop bag.

Leela feels his hand brushing hers, smells his Old Spice. Her chest is all aflutter. She almost calls him in. Then she remembers. Mother is late enough into her dementia to be paranoid, to accuse, to blame, but early enough to sound coherent to an outsider in a limited social interaction. Coherent enough to embarrass. So she thanks her colleague and walks away, aware of his hurt — not even invited for a cup of chai?

She enters the apartment, busies herself immediately with chores, with Mother, stays busy till late at night when she stares at the ceiling where the fan whirrs round and round and round, creaking with every revolution. The Old Spice still tingles her nose. She will have to wait till Mother…dies. Wanting someone dead…

Once-Leela remembers the sick taste that filled Leela’s mouth, though her eyes remained dry.

If tears were possible here, once-Leela would shed them. But even without tears, the memory fades off under the brightness of her attention.

Has the memory gone, or has she merely surrendered access to it? Well, she is free if the connection is severed. A tree falls in a jungle — so what?

“The census results puzzle me,” says once-Milind. “Our detailed survey is showing far fewer people.”

Once-Leela has removed the emotional footprints of most of her memory threads; this discussion doesn’t interest her. “Really?”  she drawls in a bored tone.

“Why don’t people participate?” he says. “Look at me, I’m eighty years old, I have had three heart-attacks, and I’m still active.”

Eighty? Ouch. Out goes her Shah Rukh Khan stereotype. And this chap is obsessed about ‘propagation?’ She thrashes around for a new face to tack him on — Morarji Desai? Sitaram Kesari? Atal Bihari Vajpayee? Oh, and who knows, once-Sarah may be slim and delicate, and Maya a muscular sort. Anyway, tacking images to onces is like clinging to thought. Pointless.

Without an image tacked to him, once-Milind is easy to ignore. She resumes her letting go. She wonders sometimes (fleetingly) why Mother had a problem. With every released stream of thought, her surroundings get buoyant.

A memory after a long time.

Leela is in class, sociology. Or psychology? A professor lectures from a diffused podium. Leela is drowsy, inattentive. But what he is saying is important now, in persistence space.

Why? What?

Once-Leela gropes for it. She wavers at its edge, flounders, despairs. Damn.

Later, once-Leela pays for the lapse.

This weakness of wanting a memory makes her feel horribly loaded, far more than ever. Like a life-long frutarian after eating a roasted pig.

Everyone makes mistakes, she tells herself. Cut yourself slack. Don’t be hung up on the goal. You aren’t on a deadline.

She resumes her disengaging, and the spurts of lightness occur more frequently now.

The onces crowd her, alarmed.

“Stop harming us,” says once-Sarah.

Once-Leela is mildly puzzled. “I’m not doing anything to you.”

“Sometimes I cannot remember who I am,” once-Sarah says. “You have taken away my memory.”

“I didn’t even know you before this happened,” says once-Leela.

“Oh, yes?” says once-Sarah. “Don’t you remember me?”

Only as a stereotype, a muddle of people I knew, once-Leela thinks. She allows her reaction to flow out, unsaid; she is translucent, barely retaining an image or idea. She is atremble with what lies beyond, hoping, waiting, and trying not to.

“What about me,” once-Maya says. “Was I not a friend?”  Something in her tone gives once-Leela pause.

She senses some memories edge slowly up, find no purchase, and surrender to nullity. A slender thought lingers. Find the last strand, and then there will be none.

A once ripples faintly, “If you surrender, you destroy not just yourself but—”

Projections. A stick-figure professor. Oh!

The onces around her are projections. Jumbles of people. And projections of projections. No wonder the numbers declined as she released memories. Stop thinking and they will disintegrate, every one of them.

So simple.

Should she? Is it nihilism? No, it is the lightness of unbeing, indescribable. Beyond pain and suffering.

Once-Leela pauses to mark the finality of what she is about to do, and then releases her last thought into the embracing vastness. She is so small, so insignificant, but then she is everywhere and everything. No one and everyone. And there is a potentiality of a beginning, and the freshness of it.

<END>

Swapna Kishore lives in Bangalore, India, and writes both fiction and non-fiction. Her speculative fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Nature (Futures), Ideomancer, Fantasy Magazine, Strange Horizons, and other publications. For more about her, please visit her website: http://swapnawrites.com.

By Eric Schaller

to the sound of Once in a Lifetime by The Talking Heads…

This story appears in Sybil’s Garage No. 7.

THE FOTAX PROCESS. “Your taxes fo’ nothing,” is how Uncle Walt defined it. He stole that joke from a late-night talk show. But even though he didn’t bother to read the brochure, he had caught at least one TV special and knew that Fo stood for photon and Tax for tachyon. “Now pass me another roll,” he said, “a warm one from the bottom of the bucket.”

Mom always insisted that everyone sit down as a family for dinner, but had consented to eating a half-hour earlier than usual so we could watch when FoTax went live. Five-thirty in the pee-em, would you believe it? “Might as well be eating lunch twice,” is how Uncle Walt phrased it, but he said it soft so that Mom couldn’t hear, and out of the corner of his mouth just in case she could lip read. “Hey! What about that roll? A man could die from hunger at his own table.” Little sister Susie — Suz to the family — passed him the bucket and let him dig for his own roll. He fingered every one, muttering the whole time, “Cold and hard as a goddamn rock. Probably break a tooth and wouldn’t that be just my luck. There’s a sucker born every minute and, by God, this time that sucker is me.” Took him so long to find his roll and butter it that by the time he got around to taking a bite we were already talking about ice cream.

“Hold your cotton-picking horses,” Uncle Walt said. “What’s the future got that we ain’t got now?” But he powered through his chicken, coleslaw, and dessert and long-legged it to the living room before anyone grabbed his favorite lounger.

Mom played with the settings on the new Sony receiver by the TV set, squinting at a pamphlet in her hand labeled ‘READ THIS FIRST.’ “Set it five minutes ahead,” big sister Elizabeth called from her seat on the couch between Dad and Gramps. Elizabeth insisted upon being called by all four syllables of her given name but, to her credit, had memorized the instruction manual as soon as it was out of its plastic wrapper. Probably memorized the Spanish edition too, just in case. “Setting the time closer to now reduces the chance of gray spaces and ghosting,” she said. “Don’t forget to tune to channel one-hundred-and-thirty-one.”

She might have said more but was interrupted by a frantic knocking at our apartment door. It was the Willard family, Pa Willard in the lead, Ma at his elbow, and all the little Willards, indistinguishable from each other with their chocolate-smeared mouths and cherubic curls, peering through the bars of their parents’ legs. “Can we join you?” Pa Willard asked. “Our receiver didn’t arrive.”

Ma Willard shot him a dirty look. “You forgot to sign up,” she said. Before the argument could escalate, and the Willards were always arguing, Mom said, “Come on in. Everyone’s in the living room. Suz, would you grab some more chairs for the Willards?”

Which is why, when FoTax went live, there were fourteen of us crammed together in one small room. Our TV was seven feet on the diagonal, and the Willards might have come over even if Pa Willard had remembered to order their receiver. Last anyone knew they still had their old forty-two-inch model. As you might guess with both families together, and even granting that Grammy started to nod off as soon as she settled into her chair, it was kind of noisy. But everyone went quiet and stared at the TV screen when the little green numbers on the receiver flickered to six o’clock.

But nothing happened.

Nothing changed.

All you could see was the blue of an empty channel.

“What a gyp,” said Uncle Walt. “You made me rush dessert for this?”

“Maybe it’s not set to the right channel,” said Elizabeth. “One-hundred-and-thirty-one is what the manual said.”

Mom reacted like she had just been called stupid, but got up and checked the setting again anyway. “One-three-one,” she said, “See, it says one-three-one.”

Then, without preamble or warning, while Mom tapped her finger on the illuminated part of the screen that, to her credit, did display the proper channel, an image abruptly replaced the blue background.

An image of us.

Or most of us anyway. The vantage point looked to be above and a little behind from where we were sitting. But you could see Uncle Walt’s balding head protruding above his lounger, the shoulders and hair of Dad and Elizabeth and Gramps on the couch, and, beside them, Mom sitting rigidly in one of the wooden chairs brought in from the dining table. Two of the golden-haired Willard kids shared another wooden chair beside her. In the image, they, or rather we were all watching the TV. You could see just about one-third of the TV screen, and on that image of the TV there were tinier versions of us clustered around a still tinier version of the TV. And on that miniature TV…well, you get the picture.

Suz, surprisingly, was the first to notice the difference between the image on TV and the positioning of those of us clustered around it. “Hey Mom,” she said, “you’re sitting down in the TV picture. On a chair.” Which of course was true. But just as true was the fact that here, in the real world, Mom was still standing beside the TV where she had been checking the channel.

“That’s because it’s the future. And in the future Mom’s already sat down again.” Elizabeth said this using her most infuriating know-it-all voice, as if she had also seen the same thing but hadn’t bothered to say a word because it was all so self-evident.

“What if I chose not to sit down?” said Mom, suddenly inspired as she looked at the seated image of herself on the screen. “What if I continued to stand here by the TV?” Even as she said this, before she had finished speaking, her image on the TV started to turn gray and fade away like smoke.

“Hey, you’re ghosting,” said Elizabeth, genuinely excited. “I read about that. Maybe you’ll disappear altogether.”

“Oh, I don’t like that,” said Mom. She sat down in the nearest empty chair, and the image of her on TV came back clear and sharp.

“I want to ghost too,” said one of the Willard kids, already making a move like he was going to jump out of his chair and dance around the room.

“No you don’t,” said Ma Willard, and shot him a look that could freeze, and did.

Uncle Walt was the next one to make a discovery. “You know what?”

“What?” Mom said. She didn’t look at him but kept her eyes fixed on her seated TV image.

“I was wrong.”

“You, wrong? Now that I find hard to believe.” Uncle Walt was Mom’s younger brother and, according to her, had been so spoiled while growing up it was a wonder he didn’t stink all the way to China. “Not that I find it hard to believe you were wrong, mind you,” Mom said. “But that you would admit it. That I find hard to believe. Please tell, and I hope to God someone is recording this.”

“I was wrong about the future. It does look better.”

“Better than what?”

“Better than now.”

“How’s that?”

“In the future, I got a beer.” Uncle Walt gave a little nod like he had just scored a major debating point, but was too polite to rub it in. He was right. The TV version of Uncle Walt was reclined in his lounger, an extra pillow behind his head, just like the real version here in the living room. But on the TV, in the cup holder of his lounger, was a silver can of Coors Light.

Uncle Walt got up, went to the kitchen, and returned brandishing his Coors Light like it was the Holy Grail. He triumphantly popped its top and settled back into his lounger. Now there was absolutely no difference between the version of Uncle Walt on TV and the one in our living room.

We watched then in silence, waiting to see if we could pick out anything else, waiting to see what we would do next, even trying to make out what was being shown on those screens within screens within screens that should, by rights, show us the future in five-minute increments. In some ways it was like a ‘What’s Wrong With This Picture’ game where you study two seemingly identical pictures and try to discover the differences. Only here they didn’t tell you how many differences there were.

And that wasn’t really fair.

Pretty soon Mom started talking about the obits with Ma Willard. Dad told Pa Willard about the funny noise our refrigerator made, sometimes squealing like there was a mouse trapped inside it, and Pa Willard responded with the obvious, “Well maybe there is a mouse trapped inside it.” Elizabeth told the Willard kids a ghost story, with Suz adding atmospheric wailings at the appropriate moments. Gramps asked Gramma if she wanted a bedtime martini, then laughed when all he got in response was a colossal snore.

Uncle Walt wasn’t the sort to say he was getting bored with a program, at least when he was one of the stars. But after about fifteen minutes, he leaned over to me and asked, “Isn’t there a new episode of ‘Nut Jobs’ on?”

I tried to remember what day of the week ‘Nut Jobs’ ran, and if they were already into repeats. I was just about to check the listings when I saw it. I spotted a difference. Me. Not Suz. Not Uncle Walt. And certainly not all four syllables of Elizabeth.

“No,” I told him. “‘Nut Jobs’ isn’t on. But there’s something just as good.”

“How do you know?”

I pointed at the TV.

Five minutes into the future we were already watching it.

<END>

Eric Schaller’s fiction has recently appeared in The Pedestal Magazine, Postscripts, and A cappella Zoo . His stories have been reprinted in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, Best of the Rest, and Fantasy: Best of the Year.

Sybil’s Garage No. 7
"Stylishly put together" — Rich Horton “There are some excellent stories contained in this volume.” — Tangent Online
	$12	More info »

By Avi Kotzer

to the sound of the enhanced and extended release of the movie soundtrack of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly…

An abridged version of this piece appears in Sybil’s Garage No. 7.

EVER SINCE HIS directorial debut with Reservoir Dogs, Quentin Tarantino has been both praised and condemned for his referential filmmaking. With Inglourious Basterds, however, Tarantino has crafted his ultimate tribute, paying respect not just to iconic movies, historic pictures, and cult classics, but also honoring cinema itself.

The movie’s premise of personal and collective Jewish revenge against the Nazis during World War II, unfolds in a parallel universe — and Tarantino typically operates in degrees of surrogate worlds — as an episodic tale in which two sets of characters alternate appearances and ultimately converge in a final, bloody scene. However, the relatively straightforward plot is a thin veil that barely cloaks Basterds’ real meaning: film is so powerful that it can out-muscle history itself, amending the most horrifying event of the 20th century.

Inglourious Basterds takes its name from The Inglorious Bastards, a 1978 film directed by Enzo G. Castellari and originally titled Quel maledetto treno blindato (literally: That Damned Armored Train). This 70s macaroni-combat offshoot of World War II movies (tag-line: “Whatever the Dirty Dozen did, they do it dirtier”), which starred Bo Svenson and Fred Williamson, was released under several names and versions, including a blaxploitation rendering, G.I. Bro (tag-line: “If you’re a kraut, he’ll take you out!”), re-cut to make it seem as though Williamson was the lead character. The plot points and storylines of Basterds and Bastards have few similarities, although one of the main themes, “men on a mission,” runs as a common thread through both. Tarantino has stated that after he saw Castellari’s picture on network TV in the 1980s and subsequently introduced it to his friends, the term “Inglorious Bastards” became an inside reference to any such “guys on a mission” film.

Tarantino has resisted giving any logical explanations for the typos in the title of his movie, except to say they were a “Basquiat-esque” touch. The misspellings also allow the director to take ownership of the phrase and, in effect, create his own film brand.

Tarantino’s original idea for the movie was to meld spaghetti westerns and World War II films, but eventually the concept morphed into something else, a mixture of revenge fantasy and Holocaust neo-revisionism combined with pure cinematic tension, the result of prolonged dialogue sequences interspersed with graphic carnage. In many ways, Inglourious Basterds is the typical Tarantino film, containing all of his usual touches: lengthy, meandering conversations permeated with explicit violence and gore, and references to both obscure cult movies and famous films. But while his previous pictures have featured genre characters that run the gamut from the everyday Joe to the badass girl, Basterds’ protagonists are reflections of cinema itself, from the locations (France, a movie theater) to the people (actors, producers, critics, screeners) and even to the inanimate objects (cameras, projectors, nitrate film).

With the exception of three brief scenes, the entire story takes place in France, an uncommon exclusive setting for World War II films, which usually occur in Germany, Poland, or other Eastern European countries. But France is a cinematic mainstay: it’s considered by many to be the birthplace of movies. After all, it was on December 28, 1895, in the basement of the Salon Indien du Gran Café of Paris, that the Lumière brothers held the first-ever paid public screening of a movie using their patented cinematograph, a clever device that both recorded and projected film. And it is France that hosts one of the world’s oldest and most famous film festivals, that of Cannes, which Tarantino chose as the location for Basterds’ first screening.

Two sides face off in Basterds: one symbolizes the origins of film, its first creators and promulgators, those who see movies as art as well as entertainment; the other represents the usurpation of motion pictures by fascists, those who see movies as a tool to promote hatred and control people. The first faction is personified by two distinct types of filmmakers. Shosanna Dreyfus represents autonomous civil resistance and as such stands for independent creators, those cinema auteurs (she is French, after all), while Aldo Raine’s unit represents Hollywood and the big film industry (his soldiers are Jewish). The second faction is embodied primarily by the Nazis and, to a lesser extent, by the Soviets (Nation’s Pride, the film screened in the final scene of Basterds, has several references to Sergei Eisenstein’s Bolshevik propaganda film Battleship Potemkin.) And it is here that Tarantino establishes his overarching subtext: this is a battle for the soul of cinema. Within the ever-expanding, scattered war that is taking over the world there is a more centered, more focused conflict: movies must be rescued from the clutches of totalitarianism. Fittingly enough, the resolution of this smaller clash will bring about the end of the greater war.

The story is told in linear form and, aside from a brief flashback here or there, in chronological order, an unusual trait for this director. The movie is divided into five chapters and follows the typical structure of a “men on a mission” film: two sets of characters and their motivations are introduced (Chapters 1and 2), they recruit team members and move forward (Chapters 3 and 4), and ultimately face off with the enemy in a final showdown (Chapter 5).

Duel out of the sun

Chapter One in Basterds is titled “Once Upon a Time… In Nazi-Occupied France,” an obvious reference to Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West, not only in name but also in deed. The opening scenes of both movies end in a massacre of an entire family, although the villains in each of the films couldn’t be more different. Once Upon’s enforcer, Frank (Henry Fonda) is a man who shoots first and speaks later, barely uttering an entire sentence. Meanwhile, Colonel Hans Landa (a brilliant Christoph Waltz) of Basterds is the kind of person who has others do his dirty work for him, but not before he has talked your ears off.

“Once Upon a Time…” also serves to cue the viewers that they are about to see a fairy tale, not a true story. And this has been a sore point among audiences worldwide. Many viewers complained about the unrealistic path the plot eventually takes, failing to understand that Tarantino never intended to create an authentic World War II film.

The opening shot displays a rolling, green hill with a small farmhouse, and a man who is repetitively striking an axe against a tree stump. Next to him a young woman hangs the laundry out to dry. A subtitle makes it clear that it is 1941. An early version of the script stated that the man “…brings an axe up and down on a tree stump, blemishing his property. However, simply by sight, you’d never know if he’s been beating at this stump for the last year, or just started today.” One may gather from the subsequent events that, in fact, the man has been hacking for a year — the amount of time France has been occupied — at a stump that is blemishing his property in the same way that the Nazi presence is blemishing his country.

The young woman hears the distant rumbling of vehicles and sounds the call of alarm with a simple “Papa!” That one word is enough to draw the attention of two more girls, who come out of the house but are immediately ordered back in by the man. He also orders his other daughter back in with her sisters, but not before requesting that she first draw some water for him from the pump. As the girl fills a basin, the man sits by the tree stump and observes the incoming vehicles meandering up the road towards him. In fact, he seems to be watching a movie, as the car and pair of motorcycles are neatly framed within the poles of the clothesline. With heavy resignation he rises and washes his face and neck. As we will later find out, he is preemptively washing away the sin he is about to commit.

The vehicles arrive and an SS-uniformed man exits from the back of the car. He approaches the Frenchman and, in fluent French, asks if he is on the property of Pierre LaPadite. When the Frenchman says that he is, in fact, LaPadite, the German introduces himself as Colonel Hans Landa, and asks if he may enter LaPadite’s home so that “we may have a discussion.” Landa is all smiles and politeness, but from the moment he shakes LaPadite’s hand, he barely lets go of the man, grabbing his arm as he directs him towards the house. When they enter, viewers are treated to yet another “movie screen”: LaPadite’s family is watching Landa’s entourage outside through the small frame of an open window. This tiny screen will reappear more than once, as though the family were being treated to their own, cruel reality show. LaPadite (Denis Menochet) introduces his daughters and offers Landa some wine. The German refuses, asking instead for a glass of milk, which he finishes in one prolonged swallow. After complimenting the farmer and his cows for the beverage, he asks the father to send his daughters out of the house. Again, a sly grin never leaves Landa’s expressive face, and he is well mannered to a fault, but tension is created by his excessive mannerisms and the fact that he is constantly touching and staring at the young women in the room.

When the men are finally alone, Landa requests permission from the owner of the house to switch to English. The colonel is an analytical and clinical man, and his motives are sinister. LaPadite must be guessing as to why the colonel wants to continue in English, but if he does, he also manages to keep a stoic demeanor.

LANDA
Monsieur LaPadite, while I’m very familiar with you and your family, I have no way of knowing if you are familiar with who I am. Are you aware of my existence?

LAPADITE
Yes.

LANDA
Now, are you aware of the job I’ve been ordered to carry out in France?

LAPADITE
Yes.

LANDA
Please, tell me what you’ve heard.

LAPADITE
I’ve heard that the Führer has put you in charge of rounding up the Jews left in France who are either hiding or passing for Gentile.

Instead of explaining to LaPadite why he’s there, Landa compels the farmer to do so himself, and thus forces the audience to wonder whether LaPadite and his family are Jewish, or if they’re hiding someone who is. There is no third choice, no other reason for this visit, and LaPadite knew this from the moment he saw the vehicles coming up the road; now the viewers do, too. In this way Tarantino brings them into the room for the showdown. In effect, Landa and LaPadite are engaged in a duel, but unlike the gunfights in westerns, the two men are not standing under the blazing sun in a desert wasteland; they are sitting inside a small cottage on the hills of cow country. And instead of opposing each other with revolvers, they are using words and emotions. There is no six-shooter waiting to be drawn out by a gunman, but rather a piece of information that Pierre LaPadite needs to keep inside his head. LaPadite finds himself in a situation that is the polar opposite of a gunfight in the Old West; here he can win only if he manages to keep his weapon holstered.

Each man carefully measures every word and movement. When the farmer protests that his house was already searched for hidden Jews, Landa counters by reassuring him that his presence is a mere “reduplication of efforts… a complete waste of time.” Yet he proceeds to extract as many details as he can about the one Jewish family that remains unaccounted for in the area, the Dreyfuses. (The name Dreyfus brings to mind the Dreyfus Affair, a political scandal at the turn of the 20^th century that featured the betrayal of a Jewish military officer by his own friends and colleagues.) Meanwhile, and perhaps to calm his nerves, LaPadite has taken to filling and smoking his pipe. Landa asks what he has heard about the Dreyfuses, and when Perrier says “Only rumors,” Landa responds: “I love rumors! Facts can be so misleading, where rumors, true or false are often revealing.” A very apt statement for a member of the Nazi Party, as a big part of its political success in the 1930s was based upon the creation of endless rumors and lies against the Jews.

When Landa asks LaPadite to recite the names and ages of the members of the Jewish family, the farmer takes his time, struggling to remember. However, because the Dreyfuses consist of a father, mother, uncle, one son, and one daughter, it becomes clear that the LaPadites and the Dreyfuses are not one and the same, which leads to the conclusion that, if the farmer’s family is not passing itself as Jews, it must be hiding them. At precisely this instant Tarantino confirms the viewers’ thoughts by showing them the view beneath the floorboards, where a terrified family as they await their fate. Colonel Landa requests another glass of milk before he leaves, an apparent victory for LaPadite. But in reality he is merely setting up the farmer for round two.

The second round begins exactly as the first, with a glass of milk. It will, in fact, be almost a mirror of round one, only with a different victor. Landa talks about the “Jew Hunter” nickname bestowed upon him by the French and then proceeds to pontificate about the Jews and Germans, comparing the former to rats and the latter to hawks (who naturally prey on rats). He does not offer an animal comparison for the French, forcing LaPadite to choose sides.

LANDA
If a rat were to walk in here right now, as I’m talking, would you greet it with a saucer of your delicious milk?

LAPADITE
Probably not.

LANDA
I didn’t think so. You don’t like them. You don’t really know why you don’t like them. All you know is you find them repulsive.

While the colonel continues talking, the farmer keeps smoking his corncob pipe. And then Landa makes his crushing move: he pulls out a pipe of his own. But the German’s pipe is a stage prop, a huge calabash like the ones smoked by Sherlock Holmes in the early Hollywood movies. Not only is Landa saying “my gun is bigger than yours,” he is stating “I am a true detective, sir, and you cannot fool me.” Tarantino had originally thought of the pipe as part of Landa’s character, something he would pull out at different times in the movie, when he was thinking or elaborating on a point. But Christoph Waltz, who won a Best Supporting Actor Award for the role of Landa, convinced the director that this should be the only instance in the film in which the colonel used his pipe. Pure theater. LaPadite’s reaction is clear: he stares incredulously at the monstrosity dangling from Landa’s lip as he lowers his own pipe beneath the table in defeat. Landa realizes this, and he offers the Frenchman a way out. Although regulations state he must conduct a search, he will not do so if LaPadite reveals anything that would make such a search unnecessary.

So far, Landa’s visit has lasted about fourteen minutes (both in real time and movie time), fourteen minutes throughout which Tarantino has continuously stretched a rubber band of pure tension through brilliant, uninterrupted dialogue. And now he brings in absolute silence for an interminable ten seconds, during which viewers see LaPadite break down in front of their eyes. The audience itself is crying the Frenchman’s tear as it rolls down his cheek while he confesses that he is indeed hiding Jews under the floorboards of his house, and then uses his pipe to point out their location to the SS Colonel. And now it’s revealed why Landa has been speaking English: the Dreyfuses do not speak or understand the language. Up until now the entire conversation has taken place in absence of any musical score whatsoever. But as Landa switches back to French and orders LaPadite to play along with his charade of leaving, the scene fills up with dramatic background notes that rise and rise, and finally swirl into a maelstrom as Landa’s soldiers walk in and shoot through the floorboards. Uncharacteristically, Tarantino does not show us one of the gory massacres we have come to expect from him. Instead, all we see are the bursts of wood chips and LaPadite recoiling in horror, covering his face and ears.

Miraculously, one of the members of the family, Shosanna, not only survives the massacre but also manages to escape from the house and run away. As she does, she is framed by yet another miniature movie screen, the doorway of the house viewed from the inside (perhaps a visual reference to John Ford’s The Searchers). Landa calmly walks out the entrance and points his pistol at her. But he does not fire, perhaps because by then she is too far away, or perhaps because he senses they will meet again. Instead, he yells, “Au revoir, Shosanna!” as she disappears into the woods.

Kosher Porn^[1]

If Chapter One is Tarantino’s homage to spaghetti westerns, then Chapter Two, eponymously titled “Inglourious Basterds,” is his tribute to “men on a mission” movies. It opens with Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), a lieutenant in the U.S. Army, reviewing a group of Jewish-American soldiers who will be dropped deep into French territory. As he paces back and forth, he describes their assignment.

RAINE
And once we’re in enemy territory, as a bushwackin’ guerrilla army, we’re gonna be doin’ one thing, and one thing only: killin’ Nazis. … Nazi ain’t got no humanity. They’re the foot soldiers of a Jew hatin’, mass murderin’ maniac and they need to be destroyed. That’s why any and every sum-bitch we find wearin’ a Nazi uniform, they’re gonna die.

Raine stops pacing for a moment, and we can clearly see a scar around his neck, peeking out of his uniform. It seems to be a rope burn, and the script notes “As if once upon a time, he survived a lynching. The scar will never once be mentioned.” The name Aldo Raine is both a reference to Aldo Ray, the World War II veteran turned actor (The Green Berets, The Incredible Shrinking Man) and to Lt. Charles Rane, the protagonist of Rolling Thunder, a “men on a mission” movie. And the scar brings to memory Clint Eastwood’s character Jed Cooper in the movie Hang ‘Em High; Cooper survives a lynching, becomes a U.S. Marshall, and tracks down the men who tried to hang him.

RAINE
Now, I’m the direct descendant of the mountain man Jim Bridger. That means I got a little Injun in me. And our battle plan will be that of an Apache resistance.

Towards the end of the movie it is also revealed that the lieutenant hails from Tennessee, the birth state of Tarantino himself. It’s obvious that Aldo is the alter ego of Quentin, who has Cherokee blood running through his veins. The director has decided to insert himself in the movie and join the fight. Tarantino is quoted in an interview as saying “If you’re dealing with people like the Nazis … well, you either eat the wolf or the wolf eats you. You know? That’s where I would be coming from in a situation like that….” And that’s precisely where Raine is coming from. The lieutenant’s thinking, according to the director, is: “I want Jewish soldiers in here, because I want it to be a holy war. I want them to bring what a gentile wouldn’t … the gentiles have the luxury of being soldiers. The Jewish-American soldiers have the duty of being warriors.”

At this point the audience gets a glimpse of the men he will be leading. Seven of them stand at attention in a single row, looking like anything but soldiers. In fact, one could almost say they are flesh and blood incarnations of some of the classic anti-Semitic drawings and cartoons that have appeared for hundreds of years in books and newspapers. It’s as though Tarantino is throwing them back into the face of Nazism, which is about to find out exactly what these caricatures can do. The eighth man stands apart from his tribal brothers. He has a completely different appearance. Taller, stronger, with a glint of unbridled cruelty in his eyes, he offers a sly smile when Raine speaks of their murderous mission. The lieutenant had begun his motivational speech with references to Nazis, but he has moved on to talk about Germans in general.

RAINE
We will be cruel to the Germans, and through our cruelty, they will know who we are … And the German will be sickened by us. And the German will talk about us. And the German will fear us. And when the Germans close their eyes at night, and their subconscious tortures them for the evil they’ve done, it will be with thoughts of us, that it tortures them with.

Although the Basterds will be killing only those who are soldiers of the Party, he wants all German to tremble when they hear the stories about the band of Jews who are exacting revenge for all of their murdered brethren across Europe. As Raine explains, they will literally be collecting a pound of flesh.

RAINE
When you join my command, you take on debit. A debit you owe me, personally. Every man under my command owes me one hundred Nazi scalps. And I want my scalps. And all y’all will git me one hundred Nazi scalps, taken from the heads of one hundred dead Nazis, or you will die trying.

The film cuts forward in time to a conference room where Adolph Hitler (Martin Wuttke) is complaining about Raine’s unit.

HITLER
How much more of these Jew swine must I endure? They butcher my men like they were flies! Do you know the latest rumor they’ve conjured up in their fear-induced delirium? The one that beats my boys with a bat. The one they call “The Bear Jew…” is a golem.

Tarantino has tapped into one of the oldest Jewish urban legends, that of the mythical being brought to life from inanimate matter. The most famous of the golem stories revolves around a rabbi in Prague, who in the late 16th century created a golem to protect the Jews from the pogroms The golem myth was known throughout Europe, and the Nazis had a particular fascination with the creature.

Hitler’s subordinates assure him the Bear Jew is not a golem, and he challenges them to prove this by capturing him and the entire Jewish squad. He also gives an order forbidding soldiers to call this man “The Bear Jew.” He then asks to see Private Butz (Sönke Möhring), the only surviving soldier of a recent ambush by The Basterds.

Butz narrates the story in a flashback. This time Tarantino spares the audience no gore, showing a close-up shot of a knife slicing through the hairline of a dead German soldier. The Basterds are working hard to fulfill their quota of scalps. Lt. Raine makes his appearance and asks to speak with Sergeant Rachtmann, the leader of the group (it is here that we see a shot of the words “Inglourious Basterds” etched on the butt of Raine’s rifle, the exact same etching that appears in the opening titles). The lieutenant introduces some of men, including a new member of the unit, Hugo Stiglitz (Til Schweiger). Here we get a flashback within a flashback, almost in comic-book form, as a narrator (Samuel Jackson in a cameo voice-over) explains how The Basterds recruited Stiglitz, a semi-psychopathic German soldier who had been arrested for killing thirteen Gestapo officers.

Raine asks Sgt. Rachtmann to reveal details about a second German squad and, when he refuses, the lieutenant brings out Donny Donowitz (Eli Roth), the enigmatic eighth soldier in his unit, the one known as the “Bear Jew.” Donowitz comes out in a tank top and slacks held up by suspenders, all broad shoulders and bulging biceps. His hairy forearms ripple as he tightens the grip on his bat. Multiple dog tags dangle from his neck, trophies of the Germans he has killed. He is the only one in the group who could physically match up with Hugo Stiglitz himself, or any German soldier, for that matter. The origins of his nickname are clear. The Bear Jew clubs Sgt. Rachtmann to death with his bat, prompting one of the other soldiers to try to escape. The soldier is shot, leaving only Butz, who gives The Basterds the information they need.

Raine explains to Butz that he cannot tell his superiors about his treason.

RAINE
But they’re gonna wanna know, why you so special, we let you live? So tell ‘em, we let ya live, so you could spread the word through the ranks, what’s gonna happen to every Nazi we find.

Flashing to the present, Hitler panics. He orders Butz “not to tell anybody anything.” His story will simply be that his unit was ambushed and he managed to escape. Then he asks Butz if he was marked like the others.

Switching again to the flashback, the secret of The Basterds’ notoriety is revealed.

RAINE
When you get home, whatcha gonna do? … Are you going to take off your uniform?

BUTZ
Not only shall I remove it, but I intend to burn it!

RAINE
Yeah, that’s what we thought. We don’t like that. See, we like our Nazis in uniforms. That way, you can spot ‘em, just like that. But you take off that uniform, ain’t nobody gonna know you’s a Nazi. And that don’t sit well with us. So I’m gonna give ya a little somethin’ you can’t take off.

As Raine pulls out his own knife and points it at Butz, the movie cuts again to Hitler’s conference room, where the soldier removes his cap to reveal on his forehead a scar in the shape of a swastika. And so it becomes clear how the rumors about The Basterds have spread far and wide. Butz is one of many living, walking soldiers who carry the message with them everywhere they go.

Here Tarantino is touching on two themes simultaneously. First, he creates a modern-day version of the Cain and Abel story. In the Biblical account, after Cain kills Abel, God punishes him and also gives him a mark as a warning for other people not to harm Cain (so the punishment can be carried out to its fullest extent). In Basterds, Raine carves a swastika on Butz as a warning to other Nazis about what awaits them. In essence, Raine is doing the work of God, underscoring His “absence” during the period in which the Holocaust occurred, a controversial theological thesis that is still being debated today. Tarantino also provides poetic retribution for the prisoners of Auschwitz, the most notorious concentration camp of the war. Those who managed to survive it had to live out their existence with numerical tattoos on their arms, a constant reminder of the horrors they had endured. With the swastika scar, the Nazi soldiers will spend their years being reminded of their own evil every time they look in the mirror. By intellectualizing this part of the revenge fantasy, Tarantino goes beyond the simple “blood and guts” payback that many film critics have bemoaned in Basterds.

In the original script there was an extensive back-story about the Bear Jew, but this never made it to the movie, and the absence of a past helps define Donowitz as a golem. He is the all-American golem, too, one who uses a Louisville Slugger (from the quintessential American game, baseball) to deal with his opponents. Tarantino has been criticized for casting Eli Roth as Donnie Donowitz, and the actor’s portrayal does seem one-dimensional most of the time, but that only furthers the idea of a brainless superhero created with one purpose in mind.

Hollywood vs. Hitler

Chapter Three begins with a camera panning down the outside of a movie theater named Le Gamaar. We are informed by subtitles that it is June of 1944. A young lady climbs up a ladder and changes the letters on the marquee. The movie that has just ended its run is The White Hell of Piz Palü, and a German billboard for this film is perched above her. As the young lady throws down a huge N, we are informed through another title that she is, in fact, Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent), and that four years have passed since her family’s massacre (an error, since in reality is has been three years).

Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Brühl), a young German soldier approaches the theater and asks what movie will be shown the next day. He chats with Shosanna, attempting flattery by expressing his preference of the French silent film pioneer Max Linder over Charlie Chaplin. Although she appears reticent in engaging the man, Shosanna does inform him that she is the owner of the theater, an inheritance from her aunt.

ZOLLER
I love the Riefenstahl mountain films, especially Piz Palü. It’s nice to see a French girl who’s an admirer of Riefenstahl.

SHOSANNA
“Admire” would not really be the word I would use to describe my feelings towards Fräulein Riefenstahl.

ZOLLER
But you do admire the director, Pabst, don’t you? That’s why you included his name on the marquee, when you didn’t have to.

SHOSANNA
I’m French. We respect directors in our country.

There are a few subtexts and references here. Leni Riefenstahl, who played the female lead in Piz Palü, is one of the most well-known female directors of the 20th century. Her most famous movie, Triumph of the Will, was a propaganda film about the 1934 Nuremberg Rally. The film, commissioned by Hitler himself, served to promote the Nazi party, the idea of Hitler as a deity, and the return of Germany to its rightful role as a dominant power in Europe. G.W. Pabst, despite having directed two movies for the Nazi party, was a beloved figure who made movies that generally dealt with the plight of women.

Also, Shosanna’s line about respecting directors is possibly a barb aimed at Hollywood. Tarantino seems to be implying that the French hold in much higher esteem the auteurs (Tarantino himself, or Woody Allen, both iconic figures in France), while Americans prefer their blockbuster-directing counterparts. Or maybe he is referring to the film critics who never quite seem to “get” his graphic depictions of violence. Furthermore, although by 1944 Riefenstahl was more than celebrated as a director, when Shosanna says: “‘Admire’ would not be the adjective I would use to describe my feelings towards Fraulein Riefenstahl,” it is clear that she considers her more an instrument of the Nazi propaganda machine than a real movie director. As for the film itself, Piz Palü will prove to be a key plot point later on.

When Zoller asks Shosanna for her name, it’s revealed that she has changed it to Emmanuelle Mimieux; her new first name is Hebrew for “God is with us,” very appropriate for someone about to wage cinematic jihad against the Nazis.

Zoller reencounters Shosanna at a café and tries to engage her again. Their conversation is interrupted by a couple of military officers who fawn over Zoller, even asking for his autograph. We find out Zoller is a war hero turned movie star. Joseph Goebbels decided to turn his exploits into a movie called Nation’s Pride, and Zoller has played himself in it. Although the movie has not yet premiered, Shosanna is aware of it (a comment by Tarantino that movie buzz is never a victim of war), and she leaves the café disgusted, much to Zoller’s surprise.

Later, Shosanna is setting up the marquee for the movie Le Corbeau, by Henri-Georges Clouzot. Although anti-fascist in nature, the film was banned after France’s liberation, and its director was blacklisted for several years. Here Tarantino restores him to his proper stature among the French, turning him once again into a respected director, one who is fighting the Nazis with his movies, just as Tarantino is.

Shosanna is taken by a Gestapo officer to a restaurant where Zoller is eating with Josef Goebbels himself. Goebbels (Sylvester Groth) is introduced as the Minister of Propaganda, “leader of the entire German film industry.” Tarantino tags Goebbels not as the number-two man in Hitler’s Third Reich, but rather as a film producer. And so the cinematic battle lines are drawn: it’s the Nazis against the world yet again, and each side is beginning to recruit soldiers. Hitler has a producer and an actor; French cinema has the movie theater owner and the theater itself.

Through his translator/lover, Goebbels explains that Zoller has been trying to convince him to change venues for the premiere of Nation’s Pride and hold it at Shosanna’s movie theater. After some discussion, Goebbels agrees to see a movie that night in order to judge if Le Gamaar is up to par for a “German night” at the movies. At that very moment, Hans Landa reappears, almost out of nowhere. As head of security for the premiere event, he insists on vetting “Mademoiselle Mimieux.” While Landa, Zoller and Goebbels have a brief discussion, the camera slowly closes in on Shosanna. For an excruciating full minute we are forced to watch her squirm in her seat; she tries to decipher the German conversation while simultaneously coming up with a strategy for dealing with Landa.

The sit-down between Landa and Shosanna mimics the duel the colonel had with LaPadite in Chapter One. And very much like that match, the objective here is not to reveal information. Except this time Shosanna is not sure if Landa is seeking the information she has. Tension is created immediately as Landa orders two strudels, a coffee for himself… and a glass of milk for Shosanna, who limits her reaction to raising her eyebrows, as if out of curiosity. The glass of milk seems to have been introduced in the script for the benefit of the audience, and the ploy is rewarded with a collective gasp. Viewers find themselves holding their breath for the next few minutes. Landa’s strategy is the same as before: he speaks softly and politely, he asks for food, he explains that everything is just a formality.

The conversation seems to be nearing its end, and Landa offers Shosanna a cigarette, drawing a parallel to the pipes that he and LaPadite smoked.

LANDA
I did have some thing else I wanted to ask you…

The colonel pauses for an agonizing twelve seconds during which he gauges Shosanna’s reaction. Once again, complete silence (no background music is playing) underscores the drama.

LANDA
…but right now, for the life of me, I can’t remember what it is. Oh well, it must not have been important.

As Landa gets up and leaves, both Shosanna and the viewers exhale in unison.

The final scene of the chapter shows Goebbels and his entourage exiting Le Gamaar at the conclusion of the movie. Shosanna walks them to the exit under the watchful eyes of Marcel, the only other employee at the cinema. When Shosanna returns, she and Marcel hatch their battle plan. After the theater has filled with Nazis for the premiere of Nation’s Pride, they will burn it down by setting fire to the stock of nitrate film reels that they have. Here Tarantino again uses voice of the narrator to quickly give the viewers the information they need: film used to be made of nitrate, which rendered it three times as flammable as paper. While Marcel wants to resist Shosanna’s plans, he is helpless to do so; his love for her compels him to go along.

SHOSANNA
But that’s not all we’re going to do. Does the filmmaking equipment in the attic still work? I know the film camera does. How about the sound recorder?

MARCEL
Quite well, actually. I recorded a new guitarist I met in a café last week. It works superb. Why do we need filmmaking equipment?

SHOSANNA
Because Marcel, my sweet, we’re going to make a film. Just for the Nazis.

Shosanna has finished recruiting her army in her personal war against Hitler. Joining the theater and its owner in their fight are the projectionist, a camera, a sound recorder, explosive nitrate film, and a movie itself. Interestingly, all of these elements, which are the tactile, physical components of filmmaking, will be taking on the intangible, ideological side represented by Goebbels.

A Big, Ugly Mess

Chapter Four, titled “Operation Kino,” begins with Lt. Archie Hicox (a character inspired by Graham Greene, who was also a film critic and a spy) being briefed by General Fenech (a miscast Mike Myers) and Winston Churchill (Rod Taylor). It’s revealed that Hicox (Michael Fassbender) speaks fluent German and that, before joining the army, he was a film critic who published two books, one about German cinema in the 1920s, the other a subtextual study of the works of G.W. Pabst

FENECH
This little escapade of ours requires a knowledge of the German film industry under the Third Reich. Explain to me UFA under Goebbels.

HICOX
Goebbels considers the films he’s making to be the beginning of a new era in German cinema. An alternative to what he considers the Jewish-German intellectual cinema of the twenties, and the Jewish-controlled dogma of Hollywood.

CHURCHILL
You say he wants to take on the Jews at their own game. Well, compared to, say, Louis B. Mayer, how’s he doing?

HICOX
Quite well, actually. Since Goebbels has taken over, film attendance has steadily risen in Germany over the last eight years. But Louis B. Mayer wouldn’t be Goebbels’s proper opposite number. I believe Goebbels sees himself closer to David O. Selznick.

Tarantino reinforces the notion of Goebbels as a producer, and a successful one at that. The distinction that Hicox makes between Mayer and Selznick may refer the fact that Mayer, founder of MGM and one of the creators of the Hollywood “star-system,” was a major studio head who believed in bringing crowd-pleasing, wholesome entertainment to the masses, while Selznick was an independent film producer — his most famous movie is Gone With the Wind — who preferred to adapt more serious literary works. (Ironically, Selznick not only married Mayer’s daughter, but twice worked for MGM.)

Hicox learns of Operation Kino, a mission conceived out of the British government’s knowledge about who will be at the premiere of Nation’s Pride. As Fenech says, “Basically, we have all our rotten eggs in one basket. The objective of Operation Kino: blow up the basket.” Here we find out that, in order to carry out his operation, Hicox will be joining The Basterds and a female double agent, Bridget Von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger), a German movie star who is working for England.

The rendezvous occurs in a tavern called La Louisiane in the French town of Nadine. A hint of trouble is immediately introduced, as Von Hammersmark had supposedly picked the location because it would be empty. But as soon as Hicox explains that “She wasn’t picking a place to fight. She was picking a place, isolated, and without Germans,” we cut to the inside of the tavern and find the actress engaged in a parlor game with five Nazi soldiers. On their foreheads they have stuck cards with the names of famous people, and they must guess the name they have by asking only yes-or-no questions. (Drawing parallels with Von Hammersmark, one of the cards is labeled “Mata Hari,” who was a famous exotic dancer and World War I double agent.)

While Aldo Raine and most of his men stay hidden at a nearby house, Hicox enters the tavern accompanied by Stiglitz and another Basterd, all three dressed in Gestapo uniforms. They are surprised to see the German soldiers, but after Bridget joins them, she explains that the four men and one woman happen to be there to celebrate the fact that one of them, Wilhem, has just become a father. She also informs Hicox that the premiere of Nation’s Pride has been changed from the Ritz to the smaller Le Gamaar.

Unfortunately, the German soldiers have been drinking schnapps all evening; emboldened by drunken stupor, Wilhem interrupts the conversation between Hicox and Von Hammersmark to request an autograph for his son. She obliges him and includes a big, red lipstick kiss on a napkin next to her signature. But when Wilhem casually sits at their table to strike up conversation, Hicox scolds him for his rude behavior, reminding him that he has intruded on an officer’s table. Instead of retreating, Wilhem questions Hicox about his curious German accent. Although he is fluent, the lieutenant grew up in England and his speech pattern is not that of a native German. Stiglitz yells at Wilhem and threatens him and his friends with jail.

At that moment, another SS officer, who has been sitting in a corner of the tavern hidden from view, intervenes. It is Major Hellstrom (August Diehl), the same man who brought Shosanna to the meeting with Goebbels. He, too, has an acute sense for accents, and has noticed that Hicox’s is not quite up to par. As a Major, he outranks Hicox, who can’t swat him off like he did with Wilhem. But here the Englishman proves that his background in film is essential to the mission’s success.

HICOX
I was born in a village that rests in the shadow of Piz Palü.

HELLSTROM
The mountain?

HICOX
Yes. In that village we all speak like this. Have you seen the Riefenstahl film?

HELLSTROM
Yes.

HICOX
Then you saw me. You remember the skiing torch scene?

HELLSTROM
Yes, I do.

HICOX
In that scene were myself, my father, my sister, and my two brothers. My brother is so handsome, the director Pabst gave him a close up.

The critic’s extensive knowledge of G.W. Pabst has saved the day, at least momentarily. When the actress confirms Hicox’s story to the Major, he joins them at the table, sitting between Hicox and Stiglitz. The Major suggests they play the same game that Bridget was engaged in earlier with the soldiers. After one round of the card game — in which Tarantino draws an allegory between the movie King Kong and the story of the enslavement of African-Americans in the U.S. — tension is ratcheted up a notch when Hicox asks Hellstrom to leave. The Major finally agrees, not before offering them a round of expensive scotch. This is when Hicox commits his only mistake: he signals for three glasses using the English style (index, middle, and ring fingers raised), and not the German style (thumb, index and middle fingers).

Hellstrom calls Hicox’s bluff, and a bloody shootout ensues, which only Bridget and Wilhem survive. At this point Raine and his men have heard the gunfire and are trying to find a way to save the actress, who has a gunshot wound to her leg. The brief negotiation between Raine and Wilhelm underscores the toll of war on the German side. The Nazi soldier has been a father for all of five hours, and he does not want his son to grow up an orphan. It is Bridget who convinces Wilhem to drop his weapon, after which she shoots him herself.

When Raine gets the actress to a veterinarian for treatment, he decides to interrogate her, as he is suspicious of the way the entire night went down. Once he is satisfied that Bridget is not double-crossing The Basterds, he inquires about the plan for the premiere. The mission is essentially ruined because none of the other Basterds speak German, and they were supposed to attend the event as members of the German film industry. Then Bridget reveals the big news she was trying to deliver to Hicox: Hitler himself will be attending the screening of Nation’s Pride at Le Gamaar. This changes Raine’s position; he decides they must get inside the theater no matter what. When Bridget learns that the lieutenant and the Jew Bear both speak some Italian, they decide that Raine, Donowitz, and Omar Ulmer will accompany the German actress to the premiere. Tarantino’s alter ego will attempt to assassinate the Führer.

Back at La Louisiane tavern, Colonel Hans Landa has again made an appearance. He discovers Bridget’s autographed napkin and one of her shoes that was left there. Kissing the imprinted lipstick mark, he smiles. The final face-off has been set up.

Silver Screen Showdown

Chapter Five, “Revenge of the Giant Face” opens with Shosanna looking out the window of her living quarters above the movie theater; it’s the premiere of Nation’s Pride. As the David Bowie song “Putting Out the Fire” (from the movie Cat People) plays, Shosanna stands in front of a mirror and applies her makeup. When she smears rouge on her cheeks we are reminded of a Native American warrior painting his face in preparation for battle.

Shosanna sips some wine and slips a small pistol in her clutch purse. Then, through a short flashback, we learn that she and Marcel have shot some film (its content is not yet shown), coerced a developer to create a 35 mm copy of it with a soundtrack, and then spliced the film into a reel of Nation’s Pride. Shosanna and Marcel use corporeal movie activities — acting, filming, editing (and eventually projecting) — in their fight against Goebbels, an eminently intellectual cinematic enemy.

Shosanna lowers a black fishnet veil onto her face (preemptively mourning her own death) and enters the theater lobby from the upper staircase, where we get a view of the “German night in Paris.” Leaders of the Nazi party, SS officers, filmmakers, and celebrities all intermingle downstairs amongst the hanging movie posters and red Nazi banners. The place is packed. And to make sure we know who’s who, Tarantino literally uses an arrow to point out Hermann Goering for us (later, inside the theater, he will do the same with Martin Bormann). Shosanna sees Zoller and Goebbels and descends the grand staircase to join them.

The camera pans back up the staircase, where we find another person surveying the scene: Hans Landa. He locates Bridget Von Hammersmark, who is flanked by Raine, Donowitz, and Ulmer, and approaches her. Her wounded leg has been set in a cast, which has not impeded her from getting a pedicure for the evening. Upon Landa’s inquiry, she tells him her cover story: she suffered an accident while climbing a mountain. Landa keeps asking her questions about the accident, and while Raine and his men don’t understand the exchange in German, they become visibly uncomfortable. When Landa asks about her companions, Bridget introduces them as Italian filmmakers. Raine is Enzo Gorlomi, a stuntman; Donowitz is Antonio Margheriti, a cameraman; and Omar Ulmer is Dominick DeCocco, the camera assistant. Tarantino has added three more cinema soldiers to the efforts of the Allies.

It is then that we discover the true extent of Landa’s linguistic skills. He is fluent in Italian, and tries to strike up a conversation with the three men in their purported native language. Obviously Landa knows by now that this is all a ruse, and he is simply having some cruel fun at their expense. As Donowitz and Ulmer go inside the theater with the rest of the crowd, Raine stays behind with Landa and Bridget.

Meanwhile, Shosanna goes back up to the projection room to finalize the details of her plan with Marcel. She will socialize with the enemy while he projects the film. In the middle of the third reel, they will switch places, and she will place the fourth reel, which contains the film they made. She instructs Marcel to lock the theater and await her signal to burn it down. Immediately we move to a shot of Donowitz and Ulmer sitting uncomfortably amongst Nazi officers. The camera pans down to show us that each one has several sticks of dynamite strapped to an ankle.

Before Bridget can go inside, Landa asks to have a word with her in private in the office of Shosanna, which he has taken over. Raine stays in the lobby. Inside the office, Landa presides over a very theatrical revelation that he knows the actress is a traitor to her country. This includes him taking off the right shoe she is wearing and asking Bridget to pull out from his jacket the shoe she left at the tavern. We can see Bridget’s face as she fingers the shoe in the pocket and realizes what it is before taking it out. Her superb acting skills, which have helped her navigate two years of undercover work, let her down for an instant, enough for us to see the defeat in her eyes. But her acting instincts tell her the show must go on — no one has yelled “cut” — and she continues with the charade. Landa plays his role of evil Prince Charming to the very end, strangling the turncoat Cinderella to death. Then he calmly picks up the phone and orders his men to capture Raine.

Landa has Raine and Utivich, another of the Basterds, transferred to a tavern outside Paris, where he is already awaiting. He seats them across a table to have a conversation.

LANDA
So you’re Aldo the Apache.

RAINE
So you’re the Jew Hunter.

LANDA
I’m a detective. A damn good detective. Finding people is my specialty. So naturally, I worked for the Nazis finding people. And yes, some of them were Jews. But Jew Hunter? Just the name that stuck.

RAINE
Well, you do have to admit, it is catchy.

LANDA
Do you control the nicknames your enemies bestow you?

Tarantino is imbuing Landa with some nuance, distancing him from the stereotypical Nazi character. Christoph Waltz’s performance throughout the film has been brilliant, and Landa appears to be a multi-dimensional character from the moment he steps on Pierre LaPadite’s property (in fact, Hans Landa may be one of those rare film characters that one “hates to love”), but Tarantino goes a bit deeper. Landa is obviously a man who, although he commands a degree of respect from his colleagues and superiors, has not been able to step out of the shadows of a moniker given to him some time ago. He is continually trying to prove his worth as a detective, and yet no one seems to take him seriously.

Perhaps this frustration has played a role in his next move. Landa tells Raine he is willing to let Operation Kino play out if they can cut him a deal. He asks Raine to request a commanding officer from the OSS to authorize the terms of his surrender.

While Raine mulls his decision, we return to Le Gamaar, where Nation’s Pride is in full swing. As Zoller the actor takes down American G.I.s one by one with his sniper rifle, Zoller the spectator squirms uneasily in his chair. For all his bravery and hubris, he is yet another victim of war, a man who is uncomfortable with being cast as a hero by his party and his people.

The Bear Jew discovers the private balcony where Hitler is sitting and calls Ulmer to join him. Meanwhile, Shosanna and Marcel kiss each other goodbye, and the projectionist leaves her to lock the theater and take his place behind the screen, where all the nitrate film reels have been piled up like logs in a gigantic bonfire. Shosanna places the last reel of the film, reel 4, into the projector and waits to make the switch.

Back at the tavern outside Paris, Colonel Landa is already discussing the terms of his surrender with Raine’s superior. They are stomach churning: Landa will get credit for the undercover operation, as well as the Congressional medal of Honor; he will also receive American citizenship, a full military pension, and even a property on Nantucket Island. He monopolizes the conversation in such a way that we hear Raine’s superior (voiced by Harvey Keitel) only when Aldo gets the receiver back.

In the cinema, Zoller continues to shift in his seat, while Hitler, Goebbels, and his translator heartily enjoy the movie. Shosanna switches the movie to its final reel, a process which Tarantino shows step-by-step, once again impressing upon us the physical aspects related to film. Meanwhile, Zoller has decided he can’t take it any more and goes to the projection room, where he tries to flirt once more with Shosanna. When she rejects him yet again, he loses his cool and forces his way inside. Shosanna realizes her plan may be compromised and asks him to lock the door, making him think she will let him have his way with her. When he turns around she shoots him in the back, synchronizing her gunfire with the shots heard in the movie. But before Zoller dies, he manages to get off a few rounds of his own. Shosanna expires without knowing if her plan has succeeded.

In the meantime, Donowitz and Ulmer have disguised themselves as waiters and successfully attacked and killed the two men guarding the door of Hitler and Goebbels’s theater box. Unaware of what has happened, the two Nazis continue to enjoy the movie; Hitler praises his beloved film producer, who is visibly moved by the compliment.

And suddenly the climax is upon the viewers. Zoller’s face appears in a close-up on the screen, followed by Shosanna’s.

ZOLLER
Who wants to send a message to Germany?

SHOSANNA
I have a message for Germany. That you are all going to die … And I want you to look deep into the face of the Jew who’s going to do it! … Marcel, burn it down.

Hitler and Goebbels are up in arms, yelling for the projectionist to stop the movie, but it is too late. Marcel flicks a lit cigarette on the pile of nitrate film and the entire screen goes up in flames as Shosanna has the last laugh, literally. The fire spreads quickly throughout the theater. Before Hitler and Goebbels can exit their balcony, Donowitz and his comrade break in, machine guns blazing. At this point the attendants are in panic mode, scrambling to get out, while Shosanna’s voice continues to taunt them, making sure they know whom their executioner is. “My name is Shosanna Dreyfus, and this is the face of Jewish vengeance,” she says. The Basterds add to the terror by shooting at the crowd from above. While the Nazi banners go up in flames, the two men reload their weapons several times and discharge them. As Shosanna’s laughter echoes throughout the theater, the audience can make out her face projected against the smoke and fire, a silver ghost looking down at the chaos she has created.

The Bear Jew turns his attention to the Führer — already dead — and empties his machine gun into Hitler’s face, effectively pulverizing it. Interestingly, this echoes a Hebrew expression that is commonly used when mentioning Hitler’s name: imach shemo (literally, “erased be his name”). Here Donny Donowitz, a.k.a. the Bear Jew — possibly a golem — takes it a step further by physically obliterating the man himself. As he finishes, the bombs detonate and the entire theater explodes in a ball of fire. Tarantino has the movie theater metaphorically swallow and digest its evil occupants. The final battle has ended, and cinema has defeated Hitler, ending the war nine months early and altering history.

Immediately the film cuts to a peaceful, quiet scene in the woods, where a truck rumbles towards the audience. Tarantino uses a long shot and the truck takes a while to come to the forefront, giving the viewers an opportunity to gather their senses and recover from the mayhem they have just witnessed. In the front of the truck sits Hans Landa, chauffeured by the German radio operator. In the back are Raine and Utivich. When they reach the American lines, the colonel instructs the radio operator to uncuff his “prisoners” and then officially surrenders to Raine, handing him his sidearm, his knife, and Raine’s knife, which Landa had kept. As Utivich cuffs Landa, Raine shoots the radio operator dead and orders Utivich to scalp him.

When Landa protests, Raine tells him that his superiors are only interested in the colonel. Then he compliments Landa on the deal he was able to make, the “pretty little nest you feathered for yourself.” Raine asks Landa the same thing he has asked countless other soldiers: whether he will take off his uniform once he gets to his new home on Nantucket Island. For the first time in the movie we see fear reflected in Landa’s eyes (and some might consider that enough of a victory), a fear that prevents him from speaking.

RAINE
I mean, if I had my way, you’d wear that goddamn uniform for the rest of your pecker-suckin’ life. But I’m aware that ain’t practical. I mean at some point ya gotta hafta take it off. So I’m gonna give you a little something you can’t take off.

The lieutenant uses his knife to carve a swastika in Landa’s forehead as the German screams in pain; it’s the first time this action is shown in the movie, and Tarantino gives it a very graphic flourish. As Raine and Utivich examine their work, the lieutenant offers his opinion.

RAINE
You know something, Utivich? I think this just might be my masterpiece.

The final line in the movie is directed as much to the carving as to the film itself, whose credits have started rolling. Tarantino uses his alter ego to toot his own horn, but who can blame him? Inglourious Basterds is truly a masterpiece. Ten years in the making (the idea popped into the director’s head in 1998), well-paced, sharply written and brilliantly directed, Basterds is a fun film that runs the gamut of emotions thanks to the mostly first-rate casting of a multinational group of actors.

Inglourious Basterds operates on two levels. The first one involves the storyline and its uniqueness among all war movies in which plots against Hitler were hatched: in Basterds the conspirators actually succeed in killing their target and ending the war. Thus, Tarantino evokes the idea that cinema can be much more rewarding than real life. The second level is almost a meta-filmic allegory: Basterds is not quite a movie about making movies, but rather a film about the power of film, its strength as a weapon that can alter the course of history.

The film is peppered with allusions to other movies, from the borrowed musical scores to most of the character names. There are enough references to create a lengthy laundry list; the IMDB trivia page for the movie runs seven pages long, and Internet research yields an unending number of web pages that pop up with new information and interpretations. This is the type of film that can and should be seen more than once, as every viewing will surely produce new discoveries and insights.

Since 1992, Tarantino has been the foremost referential filmmaker out there, paying tribute to countless movies and genres. With Inglourious Basterds, he has crafted the ultimate homage to cinema. It’s a shame that the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences did not agree, for surely they would have rewarded his effort with their highest honor: the 2009 award for Best Picture.

<END>

[1] Eli Roth’s description for the film’s scenes in which Jews obtain violent re­venge against the Nazis.

BIBLIOGRAPHY & SOURCES

• Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, ‘Inglourious Basterds’, Charlie Rose, PBS, New York, 21Aug. 2009
• Goldberg, Jeffrey. “Hollywood’s Jewish Avenger.” September 2009. The Atlantic. May 2010. <http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/09/hollywood-8217-s-jewish-avenger/7619/>
• Gubern, Román. Cien años de cine, Barcelona, Spain: Bruguera, 1983
• Inglourious Basterds, Dir. Quentin Tarantino, Perf. Brad Pitt, Mélanie Laurent, Christoph Waltz. DVD, Universal, 2009
• Horn, Jordana. “’Inglourious Basterds’ and the Problem of Revenge.” August 21, 2009. The Wall Street Journal. May 2010. <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203550604574360451237742752.html>
• Tarantino, Quentin. “Inglourious Basterds.” Script. The Internet Movie Script Database, May 2010 <http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Inglourious-Basterds.html>
• The Inglorious Bastards, Disc 2: A conversation with Quentin Tarantino and Enzo G. Castellari, Dir. Enzo g. Castellari. DVD, Severin, 2008
• Woods, Paul A., ed. Quentin Tarantino, the Film Geek Files, London, England: Plexus, 2000

Sybil’s Garage No. 7
"Stylishly put together" — Rich Horton “There are some excellent stories contained in this volume.” — Tangent Online
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Clarkesworld Magazine

Also today in podcasting, Vylar Kaftan’s story “Fulgurite,” which was originally published in Sybil’s Garage No. 6, is now up at Escape Pod PodCastle (Thanks Rachel!) for your listening pleasure.

The story’s genesis is an interesting one.  My father had several old reels of film from when he was a boy, back in the early 40s, which he had recently converted to DVD.  On one long weekend we added his narrative voice-overs, so he could explain who the folks in the pictures were.  I saw a window into my ancestral past that I had never seen, and it was amazing, to see how my great-grandparents dressed, strolling through New York City, or idling their summers in the country.  I saw Passover Seders and New Year’s celebrations and walks through the Central Park Zoo.  And I saw my dad as a boy, a very rare sight.  And I realized that because the videos had now been digitized, they would never be lost.  I could pass them on to my offspring without degradation.  And my children could do the same to theirs, ad infinitum.  A thousand years from now, my ancestors could watch this film, if we kept it with us.  Now mix in an article I read in Discover Magazine about the possibility of black holes spawning other universes, and the possibility of sending information into that new universe as a way to escape the heat death of ours.  About a year and several revisions later appeared the story you see up at Clarkesworld today.

Please drop me a line and let me know what you think!

CT: What made you decide to include those cryptic marginalia, or music suggestions under each story/poem? (And wouldn’t it be cool if one day each magazine came packaged with a soundtrack?)

MK: For the latest issue, I created an iTunes playlist (http://www.sensesfive.com/2009/05/30/sybils-garage-no-6-playlist/), which is about 95% accurate to what appears in the magazine. I know iTunes isn’t available or convenient for parts of the world, but it’s a start.

For the musical suggestions, it’s simply because I love music. Music has always been very inspirational for me, and I thought it would be a fun way to see what others were listening to and inspired by. Kind of like peeking into someone’s record collection. Crap, I just dated myself. I should say “mp3 collection.”

For the marginalia, I’m not sure I can answer that simply. I think part of the reason I pepper it throughout the pages has to do with my obsession with detail, a desire to fill in every nook and cranny. I also think it has to do with the joy I’ve felt in finding similar cryptic messages or imagery in song lyrics, album art, comics, books, films, and other media. And then, as I dig in further, discovering what they mean. I’m purposely trying to invoke that in Sybil’s, that unexpected frisson when you suddenly discover three quarters of the way through the magazine that there’s a story written in the margins, for example. It’s no secret that my favorite film is Blade Runner, and I’ve always admired Ridley Scott’s obsessive attention to detail, the intense layering of objects, so I guess in a way I’m emulating that too.

But yeah, a Sybil’s Garage soundtrack would be brilliant. I’m actually working on something related to that, interestingly enough.

You can read the full interview here.

by Sean Markey
to the sound of “True Love Waits” by Radiohead…

This story appears in Sybil’s Garage No. 6.

MY DAUGHTER IS a tree in the desert. She doesn’t move; the world rushes past her. I sit in her thin, angular shade, against her diluted-green trunk, and listen as she gossips about the grains of sand as if she knows each one by name. I try not to think about her mother, the green woman, but cannot help myself.

I sit with her and nurse a beer until the sun starts to set behind the red mountains.  The sun colors the sky like pastel chalk.

“They love this part,” she says of the sand. “They call it the grand ball, the costume party.”

I am silent, because I know what’s coming next; it’s what she says every day at sunset.

“I wish I could dance.”

I get up from my place and brush the sand from my clothing. I tuck a beat-up copy of The Jungle Book I’ve been reading her into my back pocket. I kiss her rough bark and wonder why I ever told her about dancing.

“Wait,” she says. “Don’t go yet.”

This, too, is a part of our ritual.

“But I have to. You know I can’t be here after sunset.”  I think once more of the green woman and am ashamed. If I had been a better father, everything would be different, and I would be able to see her without restrictions. I try to change the subject.

“I’ll turn into a pumpkin if I stay any longer.”

Her laughter is the sound of quaking leaves.

“Then who will decorate your leaves at Christmas?” I ask. “Or sit in your shade all day and read you stories?”

A bird calls out somewhere above us, its voice brighter than the sinking sun. The mood changes, and that invisible line between afternoon and evening is crossed, but quietly.

“I have to go,” I say again, unable to keep the guilt from my voice.

“Okay, fine,” my daughter says. “But first, tell me a story.”

I stop myself from sighing. I know exactly where this is going.

“A story it is,” I say. “But it has to be quick. Look at the sun.”

The last of the sun is being swallowed behind the mountains, and low pink clouds are striking against the afterglow. I lean against her and close my eyes.

“Tell me about Mom again,” she says.

“Your mom is a green woman with no name. Sometimes, though, she is a crocodile. And sometimes she is the thunder, the bent wheat stalks, a black widow’s spinneret, African violets. We spent the night together once and watched the stars come out. In the morning she gave me a seed, told me it was you.”

It didn’t happen quite like that, but almost.

“She sounds funny,” my daughter says. “I want to meet her someday.”

I pour the rest of my warm beer out. “I’m sure you will,” I say. I brush my fingers across her trunk as I hurry away. I have to be in my car, driving toward the city or… what? The green women left me only with the threat, and I was too afraid, too ashamed to ask about the consequences.

My imagination fills in the blanks as I leave the desert, exit the freeway, and drive under the string of orange street lights. Maybe I’ll die, or maybe I won’t be allowed to see my daughter any more. They amount to the same thing, really, and I can’t think of anything worse.

Long ago, the green woman kissed my face one last time in the blue morning, her tongue the filaments of a flower, her lips two soft petals. She smiled, and I tried to memorize her heart-shaped flower face, the cedar and pine scent of her. She dropped a seed into my hand.

“Our daughter,” she said. “Take care of her.”

I dropped the seed to the ground, unconcerned. “Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me, we could live together in the wild. I would, I promise.”  I begged until the words no longer made sense.

“Don’t leave me, I have arachnophobia. I’ll empty my 401k. I’ll live off rain and honey. I’m afraid of the dark. I’m afraid to be alone. I love how you wear the green.”

The green woman laughed. It was not the last time I would hear her voice, but she left me then, and I was broken for a long time afterward.

Everyday I rush out of work, so I can spend time with my daughter before nightfall. I pick up a six pack of beer on the way out and drive into the desert. I exit the interstate at exit 4 onto a small road.

The sun is bright at five in the afternoon, and I have plenty of time to visit her.

As I get closer, I see her shedding leaves like green tears, her branches trembling. I jog the last few steps and find her weeping, inconsolable. She wilts like a flower. It takes an hour to finally calm her down.

“What’s wrong? What’s wrong?”

“A bird,” she says, her voice raw from crying.

“What? What about it? Did one make a nest on you?”  I cannot slow myself down. “You want me to get rid of it?”

“No,” she yells, and her voice shakes the sand like a little shock wave. “No, no, no, no, no.”  She starts crying again, though she doesn’t have any leaves left to lose.

“Okay, all right. I’m sorry. I promise I won’t do that.”  I wait for her to calm down again. “Is that what’s wrong?”

“A bird died on my branches. It landed on me and preened its feathers, and…and then it just died. I felt it.”  Her voice drops to a whisper. There are no other sounds in the desert. “It just fell over against my trunk. Its feathers tickled me. I felt its feet brush my bark. It died, Dad.”

I comfort her as best I can. It takes awhile, and the sun doesn’t stop along its track behind the red mountains to the west. Damn the day, and damn the way time never stops for anyone.

As she calms down, she keeps her silence, and I think of the green woman. Many years had passed since that first night, until she came to me again, but it wasn’t the reunion I had hoped for. The vines around her arms had sprouted red berries which shook when she spoke. She accused me of losing her daughter, and it took me a long time to remember what she was talking about. Too long.

“I wanted her to grow up near you, in your yard, around the other green life in your garden. I wanted more for her than the desert!”

She cursed me, crushed me with her words. This is the part I never tell my daughter. The green woman told me I could only visit our daughter when the sun was out. Because of my neglect, I could only enjoy our daughter’s company in the harsh sunlight . I must always leave before the light disappears completely.

When her tone softened, she charged me with taking care of our daughter and promised she would see me again.

My daughter speaks, and pulls me from my thoughts.

“Can you bury it?”

“Bury it? The bird?”

“Yeah. Right beside me. Please?”

I hesitate. I look at the sun, all the way behind the mountains. I know if I stay too much longer, I’ll have to face down the green woman’s threat.

“Please, Dad? Don’t leave me.”

I hear the desperation in her voice, the way my own voice must have sounded to the green woman so long ago.

“Okay,” I say. Maybe I’ll see the green woman sooner than I imagined.

I climb up to fetch the bird. Her limbs feel more brittle than I remember, and she has shed all her leaves in grief. I reach the bird, near the top branches, a black and brown woodpecker. The bird is cold and stiff in my hand.

Beside my daughter’s trunk, I kneel on the ground and push at the sand. The red mountains drink the sun down, and there is only a sapphire afterglow. I couldn’t have left her here alone, to mourn all night by herself. What kind of father would I be? The green woman would understand. I hoped.

I lay the woodpecker gently into the hole, and cover it with sand. Its grey legs stick straight up toward the sky. This strikes me as wrong, so I flip it over, feet first, and lay it back in the shallow grave. I imagine it shooting through a sky the color of sand, its wings tucked close to its side, bullet shaped.

I push sand back over the hole and stand up. It’s almost completely night now.

“Say something,” my daughter says. “Say something for the bird.”

I try to think of words to say, but all I can think about is how dark it is in the desert at night, even though the stars sparkle fiercely overhead.

“Uhm…it really was a beautiful bird. It’s a shame it died.”

“Yeah,” my daughter says and drags out the word like a gust of wind.

Then something familiar touches my skin, and I can smell honeysuckle and citrus, and overwhelming green.

I turn around and see her again, my green woman, framed by the night.

“Hello,” I manage.

“Stars came out,” the green woman says.

“I know, but, our daughter. A bird died. I—I couldn’t leave.”

The green woman silences me with a shake of her head. Her petals and leaves bounce in the quickly cooling desert air.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I shouldn’t have made that rule. I was angry.”  She reaches out a soft green hand and touches my face. “I can’t undo those words. If I break my word once, everything comes undone.”

I look away from her. I lean against my daughter for support, and even through my sadness, and the shock of seeing the green woman again, I’m surprised at how quiet she’s been.

“Please,” I whisper. “I just want to be with her. I just want to take care of her. I’m sorry. Don’t make me leave. Don’t leave me again.”

The green woman smiles and sits on the ground. She pulls me down with her. I curl up beside her and watch the stars overhead. They turn in blurry circles, like an overexposed picture.

When night becomes morning, I am awakened by the sound of my daughter sleeping. Her soft snore is branches scraping together. Once I emerge from the stupor of sleep and realize that I’m still alive after all, I notice how big everything appears. Green has returned to my daughter’s branches, and among the new leaves, pink and white flowers twine, like ribbons woven into hair.

They look so perfect, those heart-shaped flowers. They look sweet, and the shelter of leaves and branches is inviting. I reach up to them and am there quickly, hovering, drinking from the flowers.

“Hi Daddy,” my daughter says. I land on a branch, and fold my bright wings. My hummingbird feet clutch at her bark.

I attempt to speak, but my words have been replaced by feathers, tiny black eyes, a long hooked beak. I try to understand how much I lost when I chose to stay last night. Instead I think about what I gained. I can take shelter in my daughter’s maze of leaves, and drink nectar from the sweet flowers. She laughs at my acrobatics and is tickled by my feathers when they brush her. All year, in every season, green leaves and flowers decorate my daughter’s branches.

Day pass in the beat of a wing, and the stars shine in the beat of another. I wait for the green woman like an afterthought, but still, I wait. I see the green woman’s touch everywhere, taste her sweetness in the heart-shaped flowers, hear her in the sound of always-distant coyotes howling, smell her when the storm fronts carry the scent of rain on their edges.

“Tell me a story about Mom,” my daughter says.

I settle on a branch and start to chatter.

<end>

Sean Markey lives in Salt Lake City, UT. He is pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Elementary Education from Westminster College, and is very close to being finished. His stories have appeared in Fantasy Magazine and Strange Horizons. For more about him and his work, please visit his website: http://www.mrmarkey.com.

Sybil’s Garage No. 6
“Sybil’s Garage is one of the best run and downright prettiest of the small press magazines…” - Escape Pod, Stephen Eley, Editor
	$7.95	More info »

As soon as I stepped downstairs the car service I had reserved pulled up, and next thing I knew I was off, speeding out of Greenpoint towards the BQE.  I told the cabbie to listen to WBAI, 99.5 FM and he immediately tuned in to a reggae/talk politic show.  “Do you like science fiction and fantasy?” I asked.  “No, not really,” he said.  But he seemed more than happy to tune into the station and listen, I suppose because most of the folks he picked up at this quiet hour were either drunk or business folk worried about catching their flight.  How many had asked him what he liked?  Or perhaps he just wanted a good tip.

The caffeine kicked in as we sped along the BQE.  I felt high, superb.  It had been a long time since I was up this early, long before my circadian rhythm would have me, and as we sped over the Brooklyn Bridge, I glanced over at Manhattan, half-asleep, city lights dimmed for the night.  It felt magical, surreal, wonderful.

When I pulled up to the WBAI station, out pops Jim Freund from his car service.  With bagels.

We went upstairs and noshed and chatted and soon the rest of Altered Fluid showed up.  This time it was Rajan Khanna’s time to read on the air.  We shuffled into the studio, introduced ourselves to the listeners, and then Raj began “School Bus,” a story of a bus driver whose mother is dying from cancer and enrolls in an experimental drug program to get money to support her treatments.  But the drug, it seems, has unintended side-effects.  It was interesting, I recall as I write this, that in the car on the way to the studio, the talk-show host was talking about how prescription drugs often have side-effects which cause the same symptoms they are trying to cure.  Sometimes the universe just synchronizes that way.

Rajan has an excellent radio voice and did a superb job with his story.  (He’s recorded podcasts for Jeffrey Ford, among others.)  Then it was time for our critiques.  Eugene Myers, who was traveling, could not attend.  But thanks to the magic of Google Voice, Jim was able to play Eugene’s critique live on the air while we read a mostly accurate speech-to-text conversion of his voice.  Had we not prompted him, the casual listener might have thought he was present.

Overall, the morning went extremely well.  We even got to take several calls.  (Though, sadly, no trolls.)  Before we knew it, it was 7am, the show had ended, and the sun had risen over New York, and the East River, dark before, was now flooded with light.  All too fast, I thought.  All too fast.  Not to worry, though, I told myself.  We’d be back before long to do it again.  It’s become a regular thing.

For those interested, you can listen to a recording of the show here.  And you can see some of my photos from the show here.

by K. Tempest Bradford
to the sound of “Rock Me To Sleep” by Jill Sobule…

This story appears in Sybil’s Garage No. 6.

For Marjorie; I still have that dream.

Sybil’s Garage No. 6
“Sybil’s Garage is one of the best run and downright prettiest of the small press magazines…” - Escape Pod, Stephen Eley, Editor
	$7.95	More info »

by Devin Poore
to the sound of Bob Mould, Life and Times…

This interview appears in Sybil’s Garage No. 6.

Sybil’s Garage No. 6
“Sybil’s Garage is one of the best run and downright prettiest of the small press magazines…” - Escape Pod, Stephen Eley, Editor
	$7.95	More info »

by Paul Jessup
to the sound of “Love Her Madly” by the Doors…

This story appears in Sybil’s Garage No. 6.

ME AND JAZZ

Jazz sat against the tree, woomph, eyes lit up and his hand rubbing his bare chest. “Man, that Mary Mary May is some girl.”

I pulled out a joint and lit it. The smell was sweet, like flowers. “Yeah, you could say that. She’s not going to be back for another twenty or so years. And then we’ll be old, and she’ll still be young. But at least she’ll be safe. Those fucking molts will have purged her from the datamines by then, and she’ll be safe.”

“So it goes,” said Jazz, “So it goes. I’ll miss her madly.”

“We both will,” I said and watched as she hit the stratosphere, the last of the paint peeling and crackling in the heat of exit.

Bear was back in the station, not paying attention to us, his face buried in the guts of a robotic body. Spent vacuum tubes lay scattered across the floor in a circle, ringing around a pile of filthy sparkplugs.

He turned his bushy head round to see us. “Couldn’t convince her to stay, eh?”

Jazz kicked a rusted mechanical hand across the floor. “Nope. The molts have a scent on her code, man. You know how it goes. Once they sniff ya, it’s over on this planet.”

Bear put his head back into the machine. “Yeah, fuck. Why are we still here, then? They snuffed our code out ages ago, and now we can’t sleep in the same place twice without being hunted. Why do we keep on fighting on? Why can’t we go to Zappa, or Firebell, or even Skydew? Any of those stations are better than this. They say they share all, no greed, no law, no fucking molts. You know? Why can’t we have that?”

I reached over and grabbed the microwave rifle from the wall, feeling the power and weight of it in my hands. It was beat down, old and angry. Just like me. Just like Bear and Jazz. “Someone has to do this. Someone needs to stop the molts. We keep running into the stars, Bear — we keep running into the stars and they will move out after us, take the war away from those alien worlds and focus it on the stations. They will take their hands and squish the rings of moons, smash down the other stars. Those peaceful communes won’t last, not when the molts land and start opening up. Consider what we do a diversion, a sacrifice for their existence.”

Bear threw a wrench at the ground; it clanged and sparkled as it spun, sucking in the light. “Fuck. I know you’re right, right? I know you’re speaking good stuff. But — why does it have to be us? I’m sick of fighting. I’m sick of being revived. I’m sick of all this shit. Why can’t we just lay back and live on one of those stars? With Mary Mary May, or Silver Kitty, or Dopeling? Let some kids do our work for us.”

Jazz walked forward, his eyes on a poster on the back wall. Dylan in bright blues, Dylan holding a rally, and underneath it written in brilliantly curving balloon letters: Take Hold of Freedom.

“Because of Dylan, that’s why.”

Bear was quiet. The name of our patron saint, the king of the Weathermen — Dylan. He who died for our cause so many years ago, back when the first wave of molts came in and war was announced, before we stole the gene base and the revita chambers from the military compounds. We were the first to fight back, the first to say no to the molts, say no to the war. We won’t go and rape the alien planets, we won’t kill ourselves on the soil of relic worlds for the molts to pillage, we won’t play their games, live their lies.

We were the Weathermen. And Dylan was our leader, guitar in one hand and pipe bomb in the other. We blew holes in their buildings, had our heads knocked about by the molts and their machines. But in the end there are more of us, growing each day.

Bear didn’t say anything. He just went back inside the guts of that machine and tinkered about, the sparks of his soldering shooting out blue and leaving the air tasting like sweet ozone.

It didn’t take long for the molt dogs to sniff out our code and hunt us down in the ratted ruins of a bus station we had called home for the past week or so. We had to run that night Mary Mary May left, leaving our old home behind us, the metallic barking under the light of the full moon, the sound of pistons and steam wooshing into the forest winds. We each had a backpack slung over our shoulders, microwave rifles in hand.

Bear was the biggest and hung in the back, firing at the molts that ran us into the dark of the woods. The sound of the bolts from the rifle burst our ears, leaving them ringing for hours on end, the ping ping pinging of the metallic molt dogs piercing in even further than the bolt firings.

Bear was mad and yelling and hooting, his half finished baby robot Sunshine hung on his shoulders like a koala to a tree. “Come on you fuckers! You can’t kill us, you can’t cut us down! We are the fucking underground, and we will come up from all corners and smother you! The revolution is now!”

Blue lights of fissuring fire shot past us from the molt dog guns, burning the sides of my cheek and my face stinging from the pain. If I hadn’t bit some dream berries an hour ago, that would be a fuckload of hurt, but right now it was just warm and blistering and distant. Like it was all happening to someone else.

Eventually the molt dogs either all died or left us running because the blasts stopped coming at us and the barking died out until there was no sound at all. We ended up on a beach near the main lake, the lake that was larger than the moons that orbited around us. The night was gone and the sun was just beginning to rise up, painting the world in a cold blue that was both beautiful and haunting at the same time.

Cliffs lined the beach to either side, forests like a pine army lining the top of it. I saw a huge mansion on the top of the highest cliff looking dead and run down with haunted eyes. No lights, no star ships, no cars, nothing.

Above it we saw the glimmering stars that trailed the sky, disappearing with the light of day. Bear clamped his hand on mine, it was sweaty and dirty, Sunshine bot over his shoulder smiling the painted on smile, her little light eyes glowing blue. Her AI was half finished, just like her body, but she still had life, somehow. Even if it was mostly broken and artificial.

Bear laughed, heartily. “Now, that. I forgot about how much fun that could be. We were too complacent, man. Too stone still. I had forgotten about how much fun the fight is. I’m going to stay here and fight forever.”

Jazz was near the crashing waves, leaned over and panting. “We need a place guys. Need some pad to lay our heads, right?”

“Right on, right on,” I said, “You guys see what I see? Right up there. Now that’s a joint I could get used to.”

Bear shrugged. Sunshine bot mewled on his shoulders, making the only noise she knew how, blowing hot steam out of her back while the vacuum tubes that lined her shoulders flickered a soft blue and amber light. Black tubes lined her shoulders and back, clockwork gears twisting and turning the wiring. “Yeah, could do. At least until we get hunted again. Damn. You sure it’s empty though? I mean, it looks empty…”

Jazz stood up, his breathing more slow and regular, his body outlined by the grey and blue of the polluted lake. Over his shoulders was a bead blanket, keeping the bitter lake wind from biting his bare chest. “Like, looks can be deceiving though. We all know that.”

From the sky we saw a brilliant flash of light and then stars streaming down blue and gold. I felt like I was covered in honey, prickling, warm, bee filled honey. I felt the bee feet dance on my skin and I smiled. After the flash of light we saw some silver and gold object come skating down, off, behind the cliff and into the woods.

“Damn,” Bear said, “Fuck me if that ain’t a sign.”

I grinned, big pumpkin grin. “Question is — of what? Is that some moldy probe sent to kill us? Is it like some alien ship stranded down among us? Or is it some satellite that just happened to be hit and get knocked down? Could be a bad sign. Could be our death sign.”

Jazz laughed. “To hell with your astrology, man. I say it’s a sign we go and check out what it is, dig? And then we take that pad for our own. If someone lives there, it’s probably some old cat we can coerce into letting us crash. Cool?”

Bear nodded, Sunshine bot smiled and said, “Gooeygahmoo!”

I walked up the path towards the cliff, pushed my hands on the rocky face and felt a trellis of tree roots along the side like sandpaper against my palm. I grabbed it, pulled and yanked. Seemed sturdy enough for climbing. “All right, you bearded crazies. Let’s go. But I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

Trees bent out like broken ballet dancers, crushed under the weight of metal and heat. Circle of ash. I held my breath, because  I recognized the ship pieces, shattered, gossamer wings caught and ripped and torn in bare branches, the knotted fingers grasping through.

I called out, no — screamed, rushed forward. The air vibrated, and I saw the lean hungry shadows of Bear and Jazz run with me, pulling off piles wreckage, sorting through the debris. It was Mary Mary May’s ship — we all saw that. Memories of painting it fluttered through my mind, scattered scar thoughts of Bear building it, claiming the ship sky worthy, that the bounds of this sub earth could not hold The Goodbye Girl in the clutches of its gravity.

“Bear!” I screamed, “Bear!”  I hit him as we pulled out pieces of shrapnel and scattered metal pieces. He didn’t hit me back, he just pushed me and kept on searching through the wreckage. Sunshine bot on his back shot me a dirty look, said something to me in its clicking baby tongue that I’m sure was an insult, its illuminated eyes glaring through tin skull.

“BEAR!” I screamed, and howled, and punched my fists into the ground, dirt and rock breaking the skin of my knuckles.

I loved Mary Mary May. We all did, but I loved her moreso, loved her fingers against stomach, loved her lips on shoulders, loved her teeth running against my back. Loved her thrust and howl, loved her whole and shaking, coming and burning. I still felt her, like a ghost against me. Rocking.

Jazz called me out — yelled at me to come and help. He found her leg — the rest of her buried beneath some plastic chair that was torn to shreds with loose puffs of stuffing come loose and floating like clouds. I ran over and helped, whispering prayers to gods I thought long since dead and buried, hoping that she was alive underneath all of that junk.

We pulled her out, her body slid against the ground, pulling the hunks of metal and plastic off. She breathed — beautiful chest rising up and down, orange skirt frayed and torn but still there, the beads around her neck broken and scattered along the chair like tiny, colorful stars.

I held her in my arms. She was bruised, but in one piece. Nothing pierced through, nothing shattered. “She’ll be all right, yeah?”

Jazz grunted. “Won’t know, man. Not out here. Need to plug the equipment in.”

I nodded and ignored Bear, whose long lean body was sorting through the wreckage, scratching at his beard and making thinking noises as he did it. He sucked on his tooth as me and Jazz carried her off, towards the house to get some juice for Jazz’s equipment.

I was going to say something rude and thought against it. Better Bear stay out here, amongst the scraps of this tin can that he strapped a rocket to. Safe my ass. He sent her up to die.

“Hey guys,” he called back, not turning his head, “She was shot down.”

And we said nothing. I knew he was right. He followed behind as we head up to that old mansion. We felt something igniting in the air — a feeling of being watched. The molts watched us. In the trees, in the sky. Somehow, the molts watched us, using their damned molt technology.

That was a spooky old place, definitely one that had gone up and given the ghost. Nobody had stayed in that pad in ages — the wallpapers were all from the early century, the clocks and furniture were covered in dust and cobwebs. We heard the noisy feet of spiders scurrying in the shadows, and tried to pay it no mind when the ancient clock chimed out the angry hours.

“Damn,” Jazz said as we laid her body flat against the floorboards, “I’ll be lucky if there’s any juice left in this old place.”

He pulled open his backpack and rummaged around inside. The sound of gears cranking and mechanical whirring tasted the air as his nimble fingers moved about, searching for the device.  He pulled out it with no great flair, all of us on edge. I held her body, close, that soft velvet skin of Mary Mary May, hoping she would be fine, good, cuddle close and still breathing.

Bear said nothing. He only peeked with cautious eyes out of the windows, microwave rifle in hand, joint in mouth with smoke pluming around his head. “They watching, I think.” He said in his big bear voice, “They shot her down right here, and they’ll be here to get her. That’s why they stopped chasing us, man. We’re in for a big bang of a brawl.”

Sunshine bot clung to Bear’s shoulders, mechanical arms and legs wrapped around tight and making low whirring noises, like a small broken wristwatch. Bear petted Sunshine bot and the thing cooed and mewed in pleasure, tin head arcing up beneath the stroking fingers.

Jazz pushed aside an old table and chair, shoving a tiffany lamp to the floor and followed its mouse eaten cord back to the wall. “Ancient, ancient. This is ancient. But it should have enough juice. Enough sparkly sparkle for what we need it to do.”

He plugged the machine in. Hummmm.

Glitter glow of tiny tesla coils, arching strange light, snickering, snickering. Then the soft illumination of the vacuum tubes, and the tiny green screen in front of him, with glowing radioactive letters. “Give me a sec, boys. I need to calibrate it to her life waves. Focus in, get her signs. See if her chi’s in alignment.”

It sounded like a radio tuning in some ghost frequency — voices from dead stars, dead cities echoing about in the old mansion room. This device always gave me a bad feeling, like something inside of me had gone sour and spoiled my bones.

“Kay, kay, kay. Got it, man. Got it. She seems fine, doing okay. But what’s this? She’s pregnant.”

I tried to speak, but all I got was muttered half words. Was it mine? Was it theirs? It was hers, I knew that, but whose was it? And was it okay after an impact like that?

More tuning, weak sounds like banging, ancient music. Bear pulled red curtain back, pushed his body flat against the boards, fingering the tip of his rifle. “Something’s outside. Like, something walking the beach. Ain’t ever seen anything like it. Fuck me, we are in trouble, boys. We are in trouble.”

“Ok. She’s got a minor imbalance here. Just need to change the flow of the chi, correct the balance with a few things. Baby is fine, kicking a little even. I doubt she knows she even has it.”

He turned some knobs, right, left. I sat by, watching, holding my breath. I want to go and look at the window, to see what Bear sees. But she needs me here, by her side. That’s my baby in there. That’s my girl, half dead from a blast from space, knocking her bird down to earth.

Her arms moved as she shook violently, her eyes flipping open, spasming. Jazz turned the knobs another direction, muttering something beneath his breath, tried to focus harder, his knuckles white, his eyebrow twitching. She sat up, gasping for air, holding her stomach and close to screaming, tears rolling down her face as butterflies flew out of her mouth. They flapped in the air for a moment, and then dissipated like colored smoke.

I grabbed her and hugged her, pushing her close to my body. I didn’t ever want her to go again, don’t ever want her to leave again. Even if the molts come directly for us, their dogs growling and bone hungry. I had wanted to set her free, to let her escape, to let her live in peace. I realized now that was just as selfish as keeping her near.

She shook, finally gained composure to talk. “Where am I? Oh, Captain Heart, you’re still here. Hold me for a moment. I fell from the sky, like a falling star. I can feel it — something shot me down. A bird with an arrow in its breast. How did I survive? My whole body feels twisted and wind-smashed.”

Jazz waved at her and smiled. “Got it done with a little help from my friend here. Just made sure the life forces were flowing properly. And — congratulations.”

I held her tight, knowing this might be the first moment she hears the news — our news. “Congratulations?” she whispers in an out of tune voice.

“Yeah, you’re pregnant.”

She shoved me away, I fall back and hit the floor skidding across. Not the response I expected, not the response I wanted. I’m hesitant, unsure, and must admit a little scared.

“Oh no,” she said, “Oh fuck no. I can’t raise a baby here — not in this world! Not in this — this hell. Those damn molts will eat the poor kid up, turn her into a machine…no, no I can’t do this.”

I reached out to hold her, reached out to comfort her. We heard a noise coming from outside, on the beach. It sounded like metal eating metal, machine devouring machine. “Mary Mary May — we can raise her underground — out of the way of the eating world. We can keep our baby safe from the molts — safe!”

She shook her head as Bear pulled out his rifle and aimed it outside, aimed it at something on the dark beach. “It hasn’t seen us yet,” Bear muttered, “And it’s not going to get a chance to, either.”

“Our baby? Our baby? What? You fuck me a few times and think you own this flesh? This is my baby, idiot, and I’m not raising her in a warzone while you and your buddies play revolution.”

I was hurt, I was broken. Bear fired out the window, the loud shots from the microwave rifle making our ears ring, the smell of ozone once again tinting our senses. “This is my baby too, right? It’s partly mine, right?”

Mary Mary May said nothing, she just ran, ran with her beautiful legs out the door and outside, into that forest where the molts wandered, laser cannons ready to hunt us down and take us out.

Jazz shrugged and unplugged his tool and then popped it back into his backpack. He then unslung his microwave rifle and started the charge, getting it ready to blast some metal to welded scrap. “No thanks, eh? Well, I don’t expect you to thank me for her, man. That’s just how it goes.”

I nodded at him. “Thanks man,” and gave him a quick hug. Our arms beat our backs and we parted for a moment. His beard was ragged, twice as long as mine and covered in tiny beads and braids. “I’ve got to go after her,” and I took out my own rifle, testing the scope, making sure the old battered-down beast of a gun still worked.

“Is cool. Don’t worry, you know? Go after her. I have a feeling this pad might be a good hangout for some time.”

Bear turned around, his face was twisted, his eyes mad with the feeling of a fight. Sunshine bot bounced up and down his shoulders, happily making baby bot noises in joy. “It’s getting closer, closer, closer. You best get her back here, before that damn thing gets to us.”

I took a look outside of the window, saw the beach beyond. Patches of the sand had been blasted into glass, the waves rushing about and crashing beneath the newborn sun. Birds darted over the lake, outlining the lone monster of a gigantic bipedal bot that stood about the size of a house. It was covered in molt designs — complex patterns made of intricate mathematical functions. It was rusty and old, and coughed smoke and smog out of giant tubes lining the head.

It had a tail that oozed out toxic sludge, probably some byproduct of its weaponry. Two arms on either side were lined with large cannons, firing a silent plasmatic bolt in the air, aiming for the cliff, not knowing we were in the house on the hill. It shook the ground, creating small landslides of sand and dirt and tree.

In the center of the biped was a molt. Clean shaven head, clean shaven face, thick black military glasses perched on the nose. Out of its mouth dangled a pipe coughing tar colored smoke in shadows around his head. A grey sweater vest accented his chest, a tie around his neck neatly tied and black pleated pants unwrinkled even in combat. He grinned with each shot, sussing out exactly where the weathermen were hiding.

Bear leaned back out, fired off two bolts just to the left of the machine. The molt swung his head around, trying to follow the trajectory with his eyes, tracing it back and discover the origin of the blast.

Jazz got his rifle ready, scope pointed out. “You missed him,” Jazz scolded.

“Naw,” Bear said, “I’m toying with him.”

Jazz looked back at me and shoved me with the palm of his hand. “Whatta ya doing here, gawking? Like, get out there and grab the girl. Make sure she’s safe, even though she’s fucking nuts.”

I found her sobbing in the wreckage, pushing around the broken parts of the space ship around, her skirt torn and almost a thin thread, her makeup running down her face as she sobbed.

“It’s OK,” I say as I walk up to her, “It will be all right. Everything’s cool.”

She sifted smashed wires between her fingers, looking at the glinting fibers in the palm of her hand. I walked up cautiously, listening to the sounds of the woods around me, rifle at the ready, knowing that with one molt here the rest should be coming round soon, sniffing out of code and swallowing us whole.

“I almost was out there — you know? Almost out to the Heaven’s Fire. My brother went there a few years ago, been sending me vtcards through the post. He can’t say much, but he’s so happy, you know? And they don’t have any of this there. None of it. They all live together, grow food together, take care of each other’s kids. It’s so beautiful. Why can’t we have that? Why can’t I have that?”

I got down at the balls of my feet. Ignoring my instincts to run and fight and kill. I put a hand on her shoulder, and her tear stained eyes look up at me, pleading. “We can have that. I — I don’t want to give up the cause, you know? Like, this fight is important. Because once the molts are done fighting on the foreign worlds and the alien nations, they’re going to target the communes next. And we’ve got to stop them before they start, cool?”

“I don’t care! I want to raise my girl in a place that’s safe. I want to be happy! Why can’t I be happy?”

And I leaned in and I held her close, and I knew, at that moment, that I was going to give it all up. Give up the war, the fight, the Weathermen, give it all up for what she wanted.

“It’s ok,” I said, “We’ve got enough martyrs here. If you want, I’ll help you. I’ll come with you. We’ll make it to Heaven’s Fire. If you’ll let me.”

She didn’t say anything. She just sobbed on my shoulder. We sat there, still in the wreckage for a moment, and then heard explosions and running feet. I moved to stand up, but she pulled me down, pulled me close, shielding her.

From out of the house I saw pillars of smoke, pillars of fire rising up and engulfing the sun. And running towards us, guns out and ready are Jazz and Bear. “I guess it’s not such a sturdy building after all,” Bear called out, Sunshine bot bopping on his back, “One blast from that molt and it was toast. Whoohee! Come on boys and girls, it’s time to run and keep running.”

They stopped in front of us, Jazz panting, holding out his hand. “Come on,” he said, “I don’t care where we go. We just can’t stay here.”

And I reached out, and he grabbed my wrist, and he pulled me up, and I pull Mary Mary May up with me. And she looked at me, and we heard the sound of explosions, and then saw the giant biped come up over the cliff, right towards us. “I’m scared,” she said, holding her stomach.

Bear laughed. “Join the crowd. Come on kids, let’s get moving.”

And then we run. We run through trees and woods, the molts chasing after us, we fire back, fire true, and over our heads we hear their mechanical birds flying, dropping down flames and fire and burning holes in the ground. And we go and keep going, running, running. Because the revolution is made to run. We are made to run. To fly. To keep on fighting.

<END>

© Copyright 2009 Paul Jessup & Senses Five Press

Sybil’s Garage No. 6
“Sybil’s Garage is one of the best run and downright prettiest of the small press magazines…” - Escape Pod, Stephen Eley, Editor
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by Jason Erik Lundberg
to the sound of “A Heap of Trouble” by Steve Sullivan…

As published in Sybil’s Garage No. 5

T

There have been stories and rumors from other towns, other counties, other states, but it doesn’t feel quite real until your own town is visited, snuck into, invaded. For the flyers are merely the first wave, the warning of things to come: the arrival of the Walkers. All that day, the day before, the cold air runs tense through the town, oozing through the leafless winter branches, sliding down shirt collars. The skies turn grey, as if responding to the news, rendering a flatness to the light and an ominous foreboding to the streets. You may laugh it off; it’s just a fraternity prank, or an activist stunt, or a harmless cult, but you hurry home nonetheless, that prickly feeling at the base of your skull urging you to safety, convincing you that there they are, right behind you, conjuring phantoms from the reptilian section of your brain.

The mayor goes on the local station that night, cheeks pinked by the cold, uncomfortable in his new toupee, suit more rumpled than usual, and he reassures you, all of you, that this is nothing to be afraid of, that we can’t let these strangers come into our fair town and terrorize us, though you see a note of fear in his shivering hazel eyes, in the way that beads of sweat drip down the sides of his face. He does not speak long, wanting to be home himself, and it is with some relief when the station returns to prime time sitcom reruns, or reality-based competition programs, or game shows encased in dazzling lights and ecstatic audiences, your regular nighttime showcase of entertaining falseness, full of all the beautiful people.

Your dreams are filled with images in monochrome: a concrete house in disrepair, spotted and stained with gray splotches, surrounded by maple and elm, shed of leaves, extending their skeletal fingers into a sky populated by the skrawks and caws of crows, circling lazily a ghostly form clothed in the robes of an ascetic and surrounded by the crackling blackness of unholy energy, and then the figure stands along the darkened path to the house, more substantial — you can perceive even the rough weave of his garments — and his hands reach up to pull back his hood and reveal his face, to tell you his true name: J. Something Something, but your dream-self recoils, and you scratch and claw your way through an infinite number of oneiric layers until you awaken, breathless, damp, in your own bed. It is an almost involuntary reflex to laugh, to banish the strange dream, to take away its gripping power.

The next morning, the skies still ashen, the colors bleached out of everything by the harsh light that suffuses the streets, you make your way slowly to your office, looking behind you every ten steps or so, passing store after store displaying Closed signs, and only a handful of brave souls wander the sidewalks, chatting and humming to banish the fear and anticipation, as if walking through a cemetery. You unlock the door to your travel agency and slip inside, letting out a breath now that a layer of glass and wood separates you from the outside, from whatever is coming. The work keeps your mind occupied through the morning, arranging flights over the phone, booking package deals with airlines and hotels as far away as Indonesia, filing receipts and reports since your assistant has decided to call in sick, and so the sound creeps up on you, background noise at first, but soon clear and distinct, emerging from the west side of town, and it is the unmistakable sound of more than a dozen men singing.

Naked, we are strong!

You want to march along!

Manly men, come join your kin

And listen to our song!

It is intoxicating, this simple chant, growing closer and louder, progressing ever more near as it approaches eastward, sailing the main street through the town, toward you. The words infect your ears, your bones, your skin, and abruptly your office has become too warm, too stifling, and your clothes too rough and confining. You long to be rid of them, to strip down to your essence, and that is exactly what you do. Off come the tie, jacket, shirt, pants, underwear, hurriedly shedding your second skin, the chant pulsing in your chest as you find the words emerging from your own mouth, and you run outside to join your brethren just now passing by, men of middle age: bankers, office managers, computer scientists, engineers, salesmen, high school sports coaches, now accompanied by others, your townsfolk: an accountant, a dealership owner, a bicycle repairman, an ice cream salesman, a pharmacist, a university professor, a gas station attendant, and yes, a travel agent, all marching and chanting and reveling in your maleness, in the communal bond with your fellow men, untouched by the cold winter wind.

You know that it all looks preposterous, absurd, twenty or so men all parading down Main Street in nothing but their shoes and socks, paunched and hairy and out of shape, far from the manufactured airbrushed magazine advert image of what a man should look like — glossy, coifed, tanned, muscular — as you step in joyful cadence down the lined asphalt, and although you spy horrified looks from behind the window curtains of the people you interact with every day, your voice grows louder, and stronger, and you truly don’t care how it all appears, because for this one all-too-brief moment you experience a near-nirvanic sensation of communion with something higher, of interconnectedness, of being in the world and of the world, tears in your eyes, loving every single man and woman on the planet, vowing to do all you can to deliver this feeling to others, this sense of being liberated, unconstrained, free.

<End>

© Copyright 2008 Jason Erik Lundberg & Senses Five Press

Sybil’s Garage No. 5
A spectrum of stories and poems from the past, present and elsewhen
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