The November 3rd ClubVictor D. Infante, the Editor-in-Chief of The November 3rd Club (and mad ferret-fancier), and I have hung out on some of the same online venues for over 5 years, off and on. When I was planning this issue, I realized that his passion for political activism makes The November 3rd Club, tagged “Literary Values In a Political Age”, the perfect spotlight. MD: Tell us a little about The November 3rd Club. How long has it been around; how often does it come out; how many stories are in it on average; is there poetry in every issue? What kinds of essays do you include? In particular, what’s special about it? VDI:The November 3rd Club, in its first incarnation, began on November 3rd, 2004 – the day after George W. Bush was re-elected president. I was somewhat hung over and in an apoplectic rage, feeling absolutely powerless to prevent the country from diving head first into oblivion. Then I realized that there had to be other writers who were feeling the way I did, many of whom I knew. So I started a private mailing list for professional writers of all stripes to discuss politics, literature and where the two intersect. That list was the original November 3rd Club, and it still exists. My hope–both at the time and now–was that putting disparate writers together like that, we’d be able to generate some good ideas on how literature can actually affect the world. One of those ideas, however, was to start a Web journal, which is something I was initially cool toward. After all, I could already see who’d be editing it, and I didn’t know if I’d have the time. Still, I was eventually won over by the idea, and we launched the first issue in September of 2005. By this point, the goal had changed. I was less interested in putting forward a traditional literary journal as I was broadening the conversation between writers. thus, I see Nov3rd as a map, in a lot of ways: a guide to the pain and hurt that fracture the country, because the country is fractured and wounded, and I wanted to see those breaks clearly. And what else is politics but the act of balancing the pain and need of every group that’s forced to live with one another? MD: Nov3rd is unusual, I think, in having a relatively large group of people working together on it. Why did you structure it the way you did? What does this disparate group of people bring to the table? VDI:I’m not sure we’re so terribly unusual in that, but the original idea was that, if we’re going to do it, we were going to do it big. The Internet is about 99.99% signal to .01% noise, and I wasn’t interested in wasting my time. I wanted people to pay attention. So I began assembling a team that could both deal with each particular discipline – poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction – as well as keep their eyes toward the literary. It’s very easy to get lost in politics. I wanted to transcend that. I wanted to show people how political literature should be done. I’ll leave it to other people to decide whether we’re accomplishing that goal, tough. But, to answer the original question, I was very clear that I couldn’t do this alone. It was too big, and frankly, I didn’t want my perspective to dominate the discussion. So that was a factor in choosing the staff. It wasn’t hard to find people. Nonfiction editor Carlye Archibeque and I have worked together at various publications, including Next … Magazine and The Independent Review Site. We’ve been each other’s immediate editor, and we know how each other work, so she was a gimmee. She brought along Richard Modiano, whom I knew but hadn’t really worked with before. He may well be the smartest man I know, and I know a lot of people. The choices for poetry editors were also obvious: Richard Beban is very much a literary, MFA-wielding poet, and Ray McNiece is a hard-scrabble, hard-touring working poet with roots in slam. They were a natural team, a poetic Buddy Flick, if you will. They’re very much equals, and very much opposites, and they bring a lot of frission to the poetry section, instead of consensus, which bores me. I wanted poems that some people would hate and others would fall in love with. They do that, with aplomb. Lenore Weiss was someone whom I had never met, but we published one of her poems early on. When our original fiction editor, Michelle Ben-Hur, wasn’t able to continue and Lenore expressed interest, I knew she’d work out well. She’s got an amazing eye for taking a good story and making it great. Seriously, these people do all the work. They’re amazing, and I don’t think I could do this without them. MDNov3rd seems to me to be looking at the political climate of the US and the world from a US perspective. Do you publish authors from other countries? What will readers from other countries get from it? VDI:It’s funny, when we started, I asked myself if I was going to restrict publication to American authors, and that got blown out the window right away: In the first issue, we published Todd Swift, a Canadian writer living in England; Gabriel Rosenstock, a brilliant Irish poet and translator, and Mark Ames, an expatriate American journalist who was a founding editor of the raucous Moscow-based “The eXile” newspaper. That crystallized things for me: There’s no such thing as a strictly American issue. Everything America does effects the world, and vice versa. There was no way we could present a complete portrait and restrict ourselves to only American voices. Which is lucky, because we would have lost out on some amazing work, including Dennis Brutus, a poet who helped to end Apartheid in South Africa, and France’s Camille de Toledo, whose book Coming of Age at the End of History may well be my favorite book of contemporary philosophy. The only way America – or anywhere, really – can change the things that’s wrong with it is to begin shaking off the shackles of perspective. That’s always our goal, and bringing international voices into the mix is a great way to do that. MD: What are you looking for in a piece you publish? What makes it special? Do you use reprints? Do you have a particularly favorite piece up right now? VDI:We bore easy. We want someone to show us something new. Yeah, I know every journal says that, but when you’re dealing with political literature, it’s an absolute imperative. It’s so very, very easy to rant. It’s harder to find the humanity in an issue, to make it real. To make it break your jaded, media-whipped heart. And I very, very much want to break your heart. That’s how I’ll know when you’re finally paying attention. We do take reprints, but increasingly we’re only taking them by invitation: We get too many submissions to give reprinted material much priority. On the other hand, we’ve been fortunate in that a number of major poets, such as Rita Dove and Alicia Ostriker, have been kind enough to let us reprint things from their books. Some writing, such as theirs, is just so vital that it needs to be made available free to anyone in reach of a computer. And yeah, I have my favorites. I fought like hell to get Lea Assenmacher’s poem “First, Dakotah,” when I heard her read it in New Hampshire, because I wanted to be the first person to show that one to the world. I also begged Richard Nash, publisher of Soft Skull Press and one of our biggest supporters, to let me publish Daphne Gottlieb’s beautiful “Kiss Someone When You Hear Of The Woman With The Gun And You Will Make Magic” before her book Kissing Dead Girls came out. I am definitely not too proud to beg if I want a piece enough. I also love the poems by Antoinette Brim and Jamie O’Halloran a lot. MD: How do you choose the art in each issue? Where do you find it? VDI:I have been blessed to have the acquaintance of many fabulous artists. Otherwise, dealing with art gives me a headache. See, artists – for the most part – expect to be paid. And we can’t do that. So I live on artistic charity. Many, many fine artists have taken pity on me. I think they like to see me beg. My other secret weapon is my wife, Lea Deschenes, who builds the site from scratch every issue. She’s responsible for the clean layout and sharp navigation. She’s also my safety if the art ever goes terribly wrong. In a pinch, she’s capable of whipping something up. Because she’s amazing. MD: How do you support Nov3rd? VDI:Like I said, it’s all volunteer. No one gets paid for anything, and even our server space is donated by a brilliant but anonymous poet in Boston. A lot of that is political, and a lot of that is simple necessity. I don’t want ads on the site, and I don’t want money to complicate things. Which of course, makes things hard when you’re dealing with writers who routinely get paid to write out their grocery list, but so far I’ve found the support from established writers has mitigated those concerns, and indeed, it gets easier every issue. MD: How do you define success for Nov3rd? Is it reaching that goal? What is its future? VDI:There is no success. You have to understand, you don’t win these sorts of battles. But you fight them anyway, because you have to. I’d like to think that the world’s going to become magically healed when Barack Obama descends upon the White House in a explosion of rainbow lights in November, but I’m smarter than that. In fact, we’re in the process right now of retooling the sight to take the fight for America’s soul – and that’s always been the fight – deeper. Because if John McCain wins, then we’re at status quo, but if Obama takes it … that’s a start. A smaller start than most people think, but a start nonetheless. That gives us enough room to begin chipping away at the carapace of evil that’s encased the country these past eight years. A big part of the change at the site is going to be the columnists. Originally, we started with a left-wing columnist, Elizabeth Ross, and a right-wing columnist, Marc Solomon. But Liz is a Pennsylvania Republican, and – at the time at least – was only liberal on social issues. And Marc is a Libertarian. Eventually, their evolving perspectives, with Liz moving more left and Marc moving even more antiestablismentarian, meant that it was prudent for us to strip them of the “wing” designations, to let them loose unfettered. In addition, starting with the next issue, we’ll be adding regular columns by slam poetry icon Phil West and socialist revolutionary Pham Binh. They’re both powerhouse writers, and I think they’ll add a lot to the mix. MD: You’re involved in a lot of stuff, both online and off. What are your passions? Where can people track you down? What are you involved in that you want people to know about? What do you read when you’re not putting together an issue of Nov3rd? What music do you listen to? What informs your point of view? VDI:I’m a pretty easy to find guy, actually. My main portal to the outside world is my Web site, VictorInfante.com, which has a link to my blog and various other things I get up to. I’m also keep accounts on Facebook and MySpace, because I’m endlessly fascinated with those sorts of things. Poetry, obviously, is my main passion. It was my first love, and it’s still the one thing at my center. I have a book just out on Write Bloody Publishing, called City of Insomnia, and it’s eating even more of my attention than Nov3rd. I didn’t even think that was possible. Otherwise, I’m a voracious reader of other people’s poetry, and of fiction and comic books. I’ve recently fallen in love with Martin Millar’s novels – the ones available in the U.S., anyway – and read anything by Michael Chabon, Warren Ellis, Neil Gaiman or Terry Pratchett. I’m also an avid music fan, and would probably have done that instead if I could play an instrument or carry a tune. But I fail at both. My sensibilities skew toward old-school punk and older-school country, with a lot of contemporary folk thrown in, but I find myself falling easily in love with all sorts of things. Currently listening to a lot of Cold War Kids, Dresden Dolls and VHS or Beta, and a fair amount of hip-hop. Recently, my wife came into a large number of old records which have been burned to MP3 – we’re talking Lena Horne, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday and the like. It’s all awesome. I also have a large number of TV fixations, most notably of late Doctor Who. MD: You’re a very busy man; a reporter, a poet, podcaster, and a ‘zine editor–what made you decide to do this? VDI:This is who I am. Whether I’m at my newspaper day job, or writing poetry or doing Nov3rd, it’s all an extension of the same thing: I write, and I work with other people’s writing. I don’t see any of it as separate from the rest. MD: Why ferrets? VDI:To steal a joke from wife, I need a pet with my attention span. MD: If someone’s already read everything in your archive, what online venue would you recommend they visit next and why? VDI:I’m really excited by some of the English-language stuff coming out of Europe right now, particularly things like NthPosition, which has the aforementioned Todd Swift as a poetry editor, and the fiction on 3 A.M. Magazine, edited by Andrew Gallix of France. I really see those two sites as being way ahead of the curve, in a lot of ways, particularly in those two respective fields. |
Lone Star StoriesLone Star Stories has published some of my favorite authors, so when I had the opportunity, I sat down with Eric Marin and we chatted over a cup of coffee about his work on Lone Star Stories and the anthology he has coming out from it soon, as well as what makes him do the thing he does. [This being the Internet, that actually translates to: working to deadline, I suddenly recalled I had asked Eric for an interview, so I sent him an email the day before it was due with my questions, which he very kindly answered and turned around in fewer than 24 hours. We have never actually spoken.] He’s a really nice guy. MD: Tell us a little about Lone Star Stories. How long has it been around; how often does it come out; how many stories are in it on average; is there poetry in every issue? In particular, what’s special about it? Eric Marin:I started Lone Star Stories in late 2003 as a bimonthly webzine of speculative fiction. The first issue went live on February 1, 2004 with four stories, and I soon began publishing speculative poetry as well. (I was writing and reading speculative fiction and poetry and wanted the webzine to reflect my interest in both.) By the end of the first year of publication, I had settled into a more or less constant pattern of three stories and three poems per issue. MD: You should probably clear up the Lone Star part as well. It’s not just westerns, or about Texans or Texas writers, right? What made you choose the name? How often have you had to explain it? EM: Lone Star Stories began as a niche market of speculative work with a “Texas twist”—works about, set in, by, or connected to Texas. I live in Texas, so the Texas nexus made sense for me personally and served as an initial differentiating factor. I discovered, though, after the first several issues, that finding enough Texas-related work to meet a bimonthly schedule was just too difficult. So, I broadened the theme to include all speculative fiction and poetry. Surprisingly, I haven’t had to explain the name often at all. MD: What makes you choose a piece for LSS? What makes it special? Is there a particular type of story or piece of poetry you’re looking for? Do you use reprints? EM: I look for well-written stories and poems incorporating or referencing elements of the fantastic, futuristic, mythic, etc. that engage me right from the start and keep me engaged to the end. That works for me and appears to draw readers and keep them coming back to the site as new work is published. I do accept reprints, although I’m much more likely to reprint a poem than a story. MD: What’s the future of LSS? You have an anthology coming out. When will it be out? Who’s in it? Do you have a favorite story in it? What else are you up to? EM: I plan on continuing to publish Lone Star Stories through my small press, LSS Press, as a venue for speculative fiction and poetry for many years to come. I have just begun to publish print works. The anthology that you so ably designed the interior layout for [Note: I designed the anthology book block, which is how I met Eric. DF], The Lone Star Stories Reader, is the first such print work. It is comprised of fifteen stories selected from the first twenty-five issues of Lone Star Stories to give readers unfamiliar with Lone Star Stories an idea of what they can expect to see in any given online issue. The authors are (in order of appearance) Martha Wells, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Gavin J. Grant, M. Thomas, Marguerite Reed, Ekaterina Sedia, Sarah Monette, Catherynne M. Valente, Tim Pratt, Sarah Prineas, Samantha Henderson, Stephanie Burgis, Josh Rountree, Jay Lake, and Patricia Russo. Sherwood Smith was kind enough to write an introduction to the anthology as well. I plan to release the book in November of this year. Oh, and I like all of the stories equally, of course! MD: What else should we be looking for from LSS Press? EM: If The Lone Star Stories Reader does well enough, I would like to publish additional anthologies of collected fiction (and poetry) from Lone Star Stories, as well as anthologies of original fiction and poetry. I might even publish novellas or novels someday. MD: How do you choose the art in each issue? Where do you find it? EM: I look online (often on Wikipedia) for images in the public domain or that are available through a GNU license or Creative Commons license that mesh thematically with the stories and poems in an issue. MD: How do you support LSS? I didn’t see a single “donate” button anywhere on the site. EM: I pay for Lone Star Stories out of my own pocket, which is something I can afford to do because of my full time law practice. It helps that I keep costs low, but that translates into lower-than-I-would-prefer pay rates for fiction and poetry. I am working to build the reputation of Lone Star Stories over time with the hope that I will find a way to leverage the growing readership of Lone Star Stories into a sustainable funding source to pay authors and poets more for their work. MD: So, let’s talk about Eric. What do you read when you’re not putting together an issue of LSS? What music do you listen to? EM: I read a lot of legal works during the day, but when I have time to read for pleasure, I enjoy speculative fiction and poetry, short and long, as well as more mainstream works. For music, I like alternative rock, new and old. Some of my current favorites are Metric, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Arcade Fire, and Muse. MD: There’s always a lot of talk about where speculative fiction is going. Are more people reading it or fewer? Are the small presses being squeezed or gobbling up more than their share of the pie? You’ve been around a relatively long time (I think Internet years are very similar to dog years in the life of an online venture). What’s changed in speculative fiction–on and offline–since you started LSS? Where do you see it going? What would you like to see? EM: Honestly, I don’t know if more people are reading speculative fiction or not. One bonus of the internet publication of speculative work is that readers from the around the world now have access to speculative publications they never would have seen otherwise, so that in itself probably increases readership. I think the small presses are filling niches that larger publishers are leaving alone because the niches would not satisfy the larger publishers on an economic basis for any length of time. That’s great for small press publishers, writers, and readers, as it encourages literary experimentation and general diversity in the field. As far as change and the future of speculative fiction go, I’m really not sure. Those are excellent subjects for academic essays, which I’d certainly enjoy reading. That said, I do think that the quality of writing for speculative fiction, in general, has improved and continues to improve. (There’s always been extraordinarily well written speculative fiction, of course, but there seems to be more emphasis on it now than in the past.) I’d, therefore, like to see speculative fiction (and poetry) continue to expand the minds of its readers in engaging and well written ways. MD: If someone’s already read everything in your archive, what online venue would you recommend they visit next and why? EM: If readers are looking for freely available works that are less traditional and more literary while still remaining largely speculative, Strange Horizons (for fiction and poetry) is an excellent choice. (There are many other cool online venues to explore, some of which are listed on the Lone Star Stories Links page.) Of InterestI’ve been toiling tirelessly to find our readers more sites that might be of interest (okay, I asked people). These are some sites that have been recommended: Writes Rudy Ch. Garcia: Since 2004, each week we’ve regularly reviewed books, both fiction and nonfiction, in all genres–including poetry and children’s books–cultural events (currently, La Semana Negra in Spain) and included reporting on a variety of related subjects concerning the Chicano, Latino in U.S. society, while also occasionally branching out into mainstream culture and topics. The contributors are crime fiction, children’s, poetry, spec fiction, mainstream, Latino novelists and writers who post something new nearly every day of the week. The site has been nominated for awards and was recognized as “Best Blog” in 2006 by L.A.’s Tu Ciudad magazine. We also maintain possibly the most complete and updated list of Chicano author website on the Internet and receive about 11k hits a month. The inagural issue, sent out in PDF in June, includes stories and articles by C. L. Rossman, Henry P. Gravelle, D. L. Russell, R. Scott McCoy, and Natalie L. Sin. Editor D. L. Russell writes: “After you’re finished feel free to pass the pdf. in its entirety onto your friends.” So if you want a copy drop a comment and I’ll be glad to send it along. Other sites of interest: Thinking About Race and MediaThink Girl Other ‘Zines Welcoming DiversityDog Vs. Sandwich |
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Coyote’s Last Adventure
Amy J. Benesch
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I was down at Bear’s Bar and Grill, knocking back a few, when who should come strutting in but Crow, dressed from head to toe in black, as usual. “Well, well, well,” I said. “Look who’s here. Johnny Cash himself.” That got a few chuckles from the few patrons who were still sober enough to chuckle, because Crow thinks he’s got the most beautiful voice in three counties, when the truth is that Bear only let’s Crow sing when it’s closing time and Bear wants to clear the place out in a hurry so he can go home and get some sleep. Crow ignored my sarcastic remark and strode up to the bar and asked for “the usual.” Crow’s usual is a cheap whiskey that he’s siphoned into a bottle of Johnny Walker Red and asked Bear to keep behind the bar for him. He knocked it down, then turned around and asked real casual-like, “Anybody seen Coyote lately?” Now if there’s one thing Crow has a talent for, it’s getting people’s attention. I’ve never met anyone who hasn’t wanted to wring Coyote’s scrawny yellow neck at one time or another, but I’ve also never met anyone who will walk away when someone has information on his latest escapade. Myself, I stayed away from Bear’s Bar and Grill for four weeks, because I was so sick of buying drinks for that damn freeloader. But I have to admit that I was disappointed when I walked in and he wasn’t sitting there in his usual spot by the door. Crow waited for his answer. He wasn’t going to continue until we begged him. Finally Bear obliged by saying, “I haven’t seen Coyote in over a week. That’s got to be some kind of record.” Now that the ice had been broken everyone talked at once. It seems that the last person who saw him was Rabbit. She said that he had taken to standing by the hedge of briars and brambles on the outskirts of town. She said he seemed to be waiting for something. “Or someone,” said Owl. We all looked at Owl in amazement. Not because he seemed to know something the rest of us didn’t. Owl always seems to know something the rest of us don’t. It’s just that he’s usually passed out, and therefore doesn’t contribute to the conversation. But there he was, sort of blinking and nodding and looking like his head might fall back onto the table at any second. “What do you mean by that, Owl?” Bear asked. Crow could see that the story was getting away from him, so he jumped in before Owl could continue. “He means that it’s time for the Prince to come!” Crow said in his loud grating voice. We all looked at Owl for confirmation. Owl nodded a few times, but it was hard to say if he was agreeing with Crow or simply nodding off, because he put his head back on the table and seemed to go to sleep. So now we had no choice but to trust Crow to tell us what was going on, and that’s never a happy situation. “Yes, indeed,” said Crow strutting, up and down in front of the bar. “Somehow our little Coyote friend got it into his head that it was time for the Prince to come, so he parked his behind in front the hedge to wait for him.” “But why?” asked Rabbit in a worried tone. “What does Coyote have to do with princes and such?” “Well, that’s the very question I asked him myself,” said Crow. “‘Coyote,” I said. “Don’t tell me you’re having fantasies about that princess who’s been hibernating on the other side of that hedge.’ “‘No, of course not,” said Coyote. “What do I want with some fifteen year-old virgin who’s never read a sex manual or seen a pornographic movie. Where’s the fun in that?’ “I had to admit that Coyote had a point there. So I asked why he was waiting for the Prince. Well, he wouldn’t tell me until I swore I wouldn’t tell anyone else about his scheme. So I promised.” “Then you shouldn’t be telling us now,” Ant said primly. Ant sat next to her friend Rabbit, crocheting a baby blanket. She always said that she only came to Bear’s to keep an eye on Rabbit and make sure she got home safely, but if you watched very carefully you’d notice that Ant consumed an awful lot of alcohol for such a tiny person. “Oh, it’s all right to talk about it now,” said Crow, his voice suddenly taking on a mournful tone. “Coyote’s adventure is all over. In fact this was Coyote’s last adventure.” There was silence in the bar, then the sound of weeping. I have to admit that my own eyes filled with tears. But even now, with this terrible news, Crow was still making us beg him for the story. “Tell us what happened, Crow,” Bear growled. “Well, “ said Crow, “as you know I’m very busy, but I did make a point of flying over that hedge at least once a day. For three days Coyote just sat there, waiting. Then, on the fourth day, he wasn’t there any more. I flew back over the hedge, keeping a sharp look-out, and I noticed a path being cut through the dense foliage. I swooped down and there was this fellow on a horse. The briars and brambles were melting away in front of him and growing back up behind him, so that you’d never know anyone had ever been through there. It was the strangest sight. And there, trotting along beside him, was Coyote. You see Coyote had heard somewhere that the Princess and everyone else in the palace had fallen asleep on the day of her fifteenth birthday, and all he could think about was the free food just sitting there, and no one to shoo him away. Now, knowing what a mess Coyote can make when he pokes his nose into places he has no business going, I decided to follow them. “As soon as they got to the palace, Coyote headed straight for the table, and I have to admit that he had been right about the feast. From the window sill I could see huge platters piled with slices of roast beef, red and juicy. There was a whole suckling pig with an apple in its mouth and a mound of that stuff, what do you call it? Pate’ de foie gras. I soon got tired of watching Coyote stuff his face, so I decided to see what that Prince fellow was up to. I thought I caught a glimpse of him running up a steep flight of stairs. From the outside I saw a turret with a very small window. I had a hunch that that’s where he was headed, so I flew up there and perched on the ledge. Sure enough, this young gal was sleeping away. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but she seemed to have a bored expression on her face. That didn’t bother the Prince any, though. He bent down and kissed her. Her eyes fluttered opened. She looked into his blue eyes, yawned, and said in a disappointed tone, “I’ve had this dream before,” and went back to sleep. |
“As the Prince stood there scratching his head, I heard a huge crash. It didn’t take me long to figure out what had happened. When the princess woke up, everyone in the palace woke up, and someone saw Coyote up on the table gnawing away at the feast and went after him, probably with one of those long carving knives. Now that the princess had elected to go back to sleep, everyone else in the palace had joined her, but Coyote didn’t know that. He was too busy running. And wouldn’t you know, in that whole vast palace, the place he headed straight for was the turret where the princess had gone back to sleep and the prince was trying to figure out what to do next. Coyote streaked into that tiny room like a flash of yellow lightning. He was running so fast that he would have collided into the stone wall if he hadn’t leapt up into the air and land on top of the princess instead. The impact sent her sprawling to the floor. “ ‘Ow!’ she said loudly, rubbing her head and opening her eyes. And there, an inch in front of her face, was that mangy coyote, tongue hanging halfway down his chest and covered in saliva. The Princess screamed and fainted. Then, slowly, she opened her eyes again. ‘Who are you?’ she asked in wonderment. ‘I’ve never dreamt you before.’ “ ‘I’m Coyote,’ Coyote answered. ‘Go back to sleep so I can continue my meal.’ “ ‘I don’t want to go back to sleep,’ said the Princess. ‘Please stay here with me. I’ll give you anything you want.’ “ ‘Anything?’ asked Coyote. “ The Princess nodded. “ ‘How about some of that roast duckling, minus the orange sauce.’ “ ‘At once.’ The Princess jumped up, and clapped her hands. When the servants came running into the room, she ordered them to fulfill Coyote’s every wish. “I didn’t stick around too much after that,” Crow said. “Frankly the sight of Coyote lying in a soft bed piled high with eiderdown comforters, being waited on by servants, and having his head scratched by a Princess made me sick. Besides, I had business to attend to. But finally curiosity got the best of me, and I flew back. “There was a flurry of activity in the kitchen yard. The servants were preparing a feast that made the birthday one look like a snack. I eavesdropped and learned that the Princess was getting married. But to who? Not Coyote! Surely not Coyote! I flew into the apple tree in the middle of the yard where two young women were gossiping as they plucked chickens. ‘Cook thinks it was the Prince what done it,” said the thin, dark one. ‘But I don’t believe that. He’s so handsome, he would never do anything bad.’ “ ‘Then who do you think done it?’ asked the fat, fair one. “ ‘I think he just et hisself to death. That’s what I think.’ “As soon as she said that I knew they were talking about Coyote, and I shook my head. “ ‘The king said it was food poisoning,’ said the fat one. “ ‘Yes, but who poisoned the food? Cook says that the prince took the meal from her and said he wanted to give it to the dog hisself.’ “ ‘Coyote.’ “ ‘Whatever. Anyway, no matter who done it, I’m glad he dead. That didn’t make sense, a princess fawning over a dog that way. I’m glad she come to her senses and agreed to marry the Prince.’ “I didn’t want to hear any more. I flew all over the grounds hoping to see Coyote somewhere. All I found was a pile of stones and a maker that said: Beloved Coyote, Rest in Peace. I bowed my head and paid my last respects to our valiant friend who has given us so many moments of fun and unexpected delight.” And Crow was off. Now that he had moved us with his story, he was going to make us sit through his eulogy. I gulped down my drink and was headed for the door when Coyote came crashing into the bar. ”I need a drink!” he said. For once, Coyote didn’t have to ask twice. Bear set up four shot glasses in a row, and Coyote chugged them all back. Coyote was filthy. His yellow coat was matted and dirt clung to every part of him, even his eyes. “What happened to you?” Bear asked. “I’ve been in the ground,” Coyote said. “Coyote,” Crow called out. “I thought you were dead!” “I sure wasn’t feeling too well,” said Coyote. “That Cook should be shot. I’ve never had such stomach pains in my life! So the Prince decides to bury me in the ground, as a cure I guess. Well, it worked, but he forgot to leave a place for me to get out. It was so dark in there, I didn’t know if it was day or night!” “So what happened?” I asked. “How did you get out?” “Oh, mole came along just in time. She showed me her underground tunnel. It’s a good thing I didn’t have anything to eat while I was in the ground. As it was I barely squeezed through.” Well, we all treated Coyote pretty well that night. Crow even offered to share his Johnny Walker Red with Coyote. He was trying to be a good sport about the fact that Coyote had stolen the spotlight. “I know.” said Coyote. I’m waiting for mole to pop out and take me back into her tunnel. Crow told me that there’s a huge wedding feast going on at the palace. I plan to make a surprise appearance.” |
Amy J. Benesh has been published in Aboriginal Science Fiction, Midnight Zoo, Short Stuff, Space and Time, Tales of the Unanticipated, (issues 14, 18, and 20), Millennium Science Fiction & Fantasy, The Darklands Project, and peridotbooks.com. The story from Space and Time was cited in the Honorable Mentions section of The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror Seventh Annual Edition, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling.
Her story, “The Crone’s Tale” is archived in the on-line magazine Lorelei Signal, and she has a story in the anthology Into the Dreamlands, which came out in May 2007 from Simian Publishing. Her poem “The Changeling” appeared in the last issue of Membra Disjecta.
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Of Solitude
Ijasan Adelehin
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To understand retardation is to understand solitude. Solitude in its rawest form crippled eternally with the impossibility of hopelessness. Solitude in which for friends there are fiends and for family there are handlers; solitude in which the face in the mirror is nothing but the visage of some unfamiliar person, a face slack as if weighed down with the burden of stupidity—eyes drooping, nose bulbous and lips agape in the absence of intelligence, the supposed ingredient of sanity. In the house of seventeen gables, there was a girl who lived in solitude. Her name was Anna but it could as well have been Sarah or Charlotte for she owned the name as she owned a liver, with the peremptory compulsoriness of ownership and without prior acquaintance or palpable relationship. In the house of seventeen gables, she was known to the numerous maids and butlers who fluttered around in a whirl of organized chaos as ‘the girl in the downstairs room’. To her parents she was simply, coldly, ‘the girl’. And to herself she was nothing in words for words lay beyond her range of comprehension. The face which stared back at her from the mirror was a face which bore all the possible irregularities of a yam tuber. It was as though in the making of that organ, when it had been soft and malleable, some unseen force redolent of a fist had dealt blows unto it before it was cast in iron. Her expression held not a blank idiocy as one might have expected in relation to her degree of retardation, of solitude, but a grimace of vehement animosity. One eye lay open in queer pretence of sanity whilst the other had taken up an effortless squint, the eyeball of which lay tucked in the inner canthus, disappearing into a small crescent of black. Her mouth was, for most of the time, agape closing occasionally with a fish like rhythm that had everything to do with the primordial reflexes that had been salvaged from the wreck that was supposed to be her brain. And with this funereal face she stared. It was a look of hatred, but it was impossible to know for sure if she was capable of such feelings, whether the arrangement of her features was simply a confusion, another manifestation of her solitude. Or whether truly her expression meant, as it intimated already, that she longed to pluck out the eyes of her visitors with her claws and put them in her mouth; and without a single atom of remorse to accompany, for alongside her lack of sense it seemed probable that there should be an equal lack of conscience. Anna was the only child of the Remembers, a stiff and nervous couple rich in their own rights but whom between them hung solely the conjunction of an arranged marriage and nothing else. The Mrs. was a large-eyed bony woman with a sharp mouth that was more literal than figurative. A strong willed creature she was, who by a haughty submission that was so absolute, so perpetual, she conveyed her inexorable distaste for her husband, an equally bony fellow whose dressing was never complete until he had donned a sweater around his neck and shoulders. Their forceful union, a business initiative of their parents, had estranged her and her true lover and for this she never forgave. Not her parents, not her friends, not the husband she was given, and not the world. She isolated herself entirely and wrapped herself in the bitter sweet cocoon of hate. And she bore this emotion so vehemently, so close to her bosom that it seemed probable that it seeped into her womb as she carried her child and damaged the fetus therein. And when it was diagnosed that her daughter suffered from palsy, she disintegrated from her state of hate into one of recalcitrant depression. Drugs couldn’t help her and neither could therapy; the only thing which seemed to halt the waterworks was the care of her child who inescapably she had also come to hate. So, she immersed herself completely in the care of the girl. No maids or butlers were allowed around ‘the girl’ and consequently catering for her became a kind of punishment, a species of self flagellation for having brought her into the world in such an incapable state. And sometimes, whilst she, say, gave her daughter a sponge bath, she would fall into a chasm of hopelessness, a caesura in the lucidity which the care provided and there tears would bleed profusely from her eyes, tears which did nothing to soften the unshakeable expression of suppressed anguish which her bony visage, large eyes and pointed mouth proffered to the world. * One night, shortly after the girl had begun her menses evidenced by the arrival of crimson in the palette of her diapers, the wife woke the husband from sleep. It was the first time she was to lay her hands on him since the night they had conceived their child, in the rapid and unsatisfying frenzy of inexperienced coitus, that he gave her such a look of desperate gratitude that she felt nothing but pity for him. She sidled up to him with all the slithering cunning of a poisonous snake, enveloping him in the warmth which she emanated. He on the other hand was pulled to her involuntarily as if by some magnetic force, a look of desperation, hunger and shame on his equine face. She slipped a hand into his pajamas and nestled him in her hand. The whole length of his erection lay within her hand span like some technical object, a bolt or a screw, and she manipulated him, stroking, pulling, tugging, working mechanically as a craftsman works an item, watching him with her massive eyes, her expression plain and not contrived into any petty simulation of sexual interest. |
He walloped disgracefully beneath her, moaning and slobbering. In the height of his dramatics, a hand flew forth and alighted on her breast and she shot him a look of such hostility that he withdrew the offending hand apologetically, terrified of the implications of his oversight. “If you do it I will love you,” she said after a while as she worked him violently, causing him to halloo in volleys of monkey-like chatter, his face contorted in a mélange of pain, pleasure and embarrassment. “If you can do it,” she said again, “I will love you.” And abruptly she let go of him and turned to sleep as though nothing had happened. The man stared at her back in confusion and frustration. With the back of his hand he wiped spittle from his jaw and on his face the grimness of resolution was beginning to form. * The Mr. stood in his daughter’s room and stared for almost an eternity at her as she rocked in her chair, giggling and rattling within the impermeable bubble of her solitude. He knew what he had to do but he was terrified of the idea. As terrified of the idea as he had been the first time his wife had brought it up years ago. He walked up to the girl and squatted before her. Her face, hideous as it may, bore within the folds of ugliness the asphyxiated candle-flame of innocence and purity. “Look at me,” He said to her, perplexed by the anarchy with which her gaze vacillated, alighting on imaginary spots in the air and taking off almost immediately in search of other spots. “Look at me.” And this time he held her face gently and stared into her eyes. Finally, her gaze rested on him and in what seemed like a brief period of clarity in the irrevocable chaos of her retardation, her expression registered mild understanding. He had seen that expression many times before; when puzzle pieces were put before her, it would come upon her face like a veil and quieten her features as she with preternatural uncanniness rapidly organized a complex picture from a set of individual jargon tiles—a task which would have taken a normal individual days to complete. “I’m sorry for what I’m about to do to you.” He said matter-of-factly. “My wife, your mother, has been asking this of me for years. It’s the only thing which can cure her.” And he leaned forward to carry her from her chair. Immediately, the expression of understanding vanished from her face and in its place was the ever so familiar visage of tantrum. She snarled and growled and snapped as he tried to carry her. She hit him with her awkward fists and tried to use her head which, inadequately controlled by her neck, lolled dangerously. But despite her protests, she was light and frail and he held her close to his bosom in a tight vice and carried her to his wife’s bedroom. “What’s this?” The Mrs. asked, groggy eyed, as he eased the girl into the dressing mirror chair. “If I do it you will love me. You will never hold it against me.” The Mr. confirmed. “You want to do it now?” The Mrs. asked, a shimmer of fear crossing her face. “Here? And why did you bring her here?” “To watch.” “To watch?” And he climbed unto the bed, straddling his wife. He picked up a spare pillow. “Ready?” He asked unceremoniously. He seemed a different man all of a sudden. “She shouldn’t see this.” The Mrs. offered. “She deserves to, even if she will never understand it.” And without further ado, he put the pillow over her face and pressed down with all his strength. She lay quiet at first beneath him then she began to buckle and gallop and at a point she tapped him as though she had changed her mind, but he held on grimly till her efforts dwindled to pathetic little twitches and then to a stop. Afterwards he pulled the pillow from her face and saw, mangled by the horrid grimace of death, the mien of gratitude … and of course, the love she always promised. Ijasan Adelehin is a Nigerian writer residing in Lagos. He has been published in magazines such as The Deepening, Everyday Fiction, Epic Literature, On the Premises, The Tiny Globule and 63 Channels. Other works have recently been accepted by Big Pulp, Anathema and Takahe. He received the Foyle young poet’s award in 2004 and the Highly Commended Award for BBC Northhamptonshire’s Write ‘04 poetry competition. He also received the second place award for the On the Premises short story competition of March 2008. His most recent work, Wings Against the Sea, Mirines & Myaegles Book I, a fantasy novella, was published by Eternal Press publishers in June 2008. |
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