flashing by

l'amour, part 15

2012-02-27T16:18:00.009-08:00

by gabrielle-jeanette perfidy

illustrated by rhoda penmarq

part fifteen of seventy-eight

to begin at the beginning, click here

quiet, except for a few wind driven raindrops on the windowpanes, descended.

celeste was first to doze off, dreaming of walking on the beach.

jean-louis gradually relaxed his stern meditative pose, his pipe went out, and he too fell asleep.

albertine, attempting to read a book titled "the epistemology of fascism" by one of her acolytes, was the last to succumb.

l'amour, part 14

2012-02-26T10:09:00.006-08:00

by gabrielle-jeanette perfidy

illustrated by rhoda penmarq

part fourteen of seventy-eight

to begin at the beginning, click here

finally freeing herself from cousin berthe, leonie closed her bedroom door behind her, though she could not lock it.

she lay down on her bed and picked up a book, which after much ado, and enlisting the help of the local priest, she had persuaded cousin berthe to allow her to take from the local library.

the book was "the cathedral" by huysmans. she began to read:

"at chartres, as you turn out of the little market-place..."

part 15

toquette - 1. a young woman from the provinces

2012-02-25T19:45:00.005-08:00

by jolene de joinville

illustrated by roy dismas and rhoda penmarq

special thanks to Prof. Dan Leo for his editing efforts

on a bright morning in may, in the year ---------- , a small crowd had gathered in front of the offices of m hobart, wholesaler of fine foods.

two sisters of the night, perhaps one step up from the lowest class. were engaging in spirited fisticuffs, and were being desultorily cheered on by some grocers boys, young gentlemen returning home after a long night, and other idlers of the sort habitually seen in the streets of the capital, in peace time.

georges groy, second clerk of m hobart wholesalers, was arriving for work only a few minutes early. he would have liked to put his thumbs in his vest and enjoy the proceedings, but he felt m hobart's eyes on him from the second story window and proceeded up the open stairwell and into the offices without breaking stride. but as he did he fleetingly caught the eye of one of the pugilists - an eye of palest green, in a face startlingly young, though heavily rouged.

"bit of a ruckus," groy remarked to m hobart on entering the office. adding with a smile, "some might be inclined to summon the police."

"not i," m hobart responded. "i have every confidence that they will arrive in their own good time. but i am glad to see that you have arrived on time, groy. the comtesse d'a-------- is disputing her bill. be so kind as to go over it, if you please. give it your most ruthless appraisal. "

"yes, monsieur." groy cleared his throat. "i had hoped to have a word with you this morning, if i might."

"certainly. after you have checked the comtesse d' a---------'s bill, bring it to me and after we have gone over it - you may have your word."

for complete episode, click here

l'amour, part 13

2012-02-24T17:23:00.022-08:00

by gabrielle-jeanette perfidy

illustrated by rhoda penmarq

part thirteen of seventy-eight

to begin at the beginning, click here

for previous episode, click here

part 14

“A Town Called Disdain”, Episode 116: warpath

2012-02-23T14:37:00.003-08:00

Paco's station wagon with original owner

Our author Larry Winchester*, responding to an overwhelming volume of cards and letters, now turns his focus on a couple of beloved characters we haven’t seen in a while, the Native American brujo Paco and that dissolute rock star and wit, Derek Squitters.

(Click here to see our previous chapter or go here to re-start the whole damn thing.)

*”The anti-John Updike.” -- Harold Bloom

Paco and Derek roared through the desert in Paco’s scabrous green ’55 Plymouth station wagon.

Derek was loving it. It was all so -- American.

Paco was even letting him drive. Driving wasn’t so hard if you just stayed in one gear and there were no other cars around for miles. Paco gave Derek directions, they stayed on little trails and dirt roads and they roared along.

The Seeds were singing “Pushing Too Hard” on the radio and it was all so fucking beautiful. Derek felt like he was in a fucking western, a fucking John Ford or Larry Winchester movie, he felt like he was Burt Reynolds in Navajo fucking Joe. This fucking desert all around, these weird buttes or mesas or whatever the bleeding hell they were called. Bleeding cactuses. Fucking tumbleweeds for Christ’s sake. Driving out here with this real Indian. And with his own shotgun, man. Just like James Caan in El Dorado.

This was the best fuckin’ night he’d had since his group first headlined the Albert fucking Hall.

Paco had loaded his granddad’s old Winchester repeating rifle for himself and his own double-barreled Purdey 12-gauge for Derek to use. The spirits had spoken through his TV set, and it was time to go on the warpath. It was strange that he had to go on the warpath with the Englishman, but life was strange.

Just to be on the safe side he made the Englishman his blood brother before they left, cutting slits in the palms of both their right hands with a butcher knife and then clasping the wounds together, mixing their bloods, then sticking Band-Aids over the cuts. He sure hoped he wouldn’t catch syphilis or some other white man’s disease from the Englishman.

(To be continued. Soon to be a major motion picture featuring Burt Reynolds as "Paco" and Tom Courtenay as "Derek"; music by Ennio Morricone and the Spike Jones Orchestra; a Dino DiLaurentiis/Larry Winchester Production in association with Jack Webb. Rated R for vulgar language and excessive drug use.)

PEST CONTROL 1:1

2012-02-23T14:20:00.002-08:00

Pest Control

ONE: NORAH

They arrived in the spring of 146, quiet narrow wheels and faces whispering through the green orgasm eating the city. The children were very quiet, even more so than usual, but the...wariness was gone, their eyes light and quick with motion as the ancient new place slipped by. Their mother's sure, slim fingers turned the car absently, perfectly, her own eyes following each looming grey hulk as they passed. The guide slipped back to green from amber and straightened up, beginning to blink gently. Their father, not looking up from his lap as he muttered into a headpiece, tapped a finger inaccurately on the small green arrow as it flashed on the dash.

"I know, dear." Norah spoke gently in the unaccustomed quiet of this place. Her low voice was somehow just as penetrating now as it had been back on the Deck, as she roared and bellowed orders and warnings to her dirtscrapers, the endless distant rumbling her only argument, constant machine-clatter and drill hiss her involuntary punctuation. "We're almost there. I hope it's in better shape than the rest of these."

"Hmmp. Better than the farm. Ohhh, shit...recomp, 7, 3, interrelate. Pause. Sorry."

"Might as well close it, dear. We're here."

The skinny, battered torpedo of their new car (a proudly reconditioned 2073 Hong Spandler Zipper, in jaunty, uneven yellow) slowed, making the final turn from the tree-lined and littered street. It drew to a nearly-silent halt, faint hum of braking power and crunch of rubber on leaf disappearing into the warm stillness.

***

All text ©Peter A. Greene 2012

tales of the hotel st crispian, chapter 47: "all in this together"

2012-02-22T17:24:00.000-08:00

by horace p sternwall

illustrated by roy dismas and konrad kraus

artistic supervisor: rhoda penmarq

for complete episode, click here

l'amour, part 12

2012-02-20T07:43:00.001-08:00

by gabrielle-jeanette perfidy

illustrated by rhoda penmarq

part twelve of seventy-eight

to begin at the beginning, click here

for previous episode, click here

"ah, heaven is witness to my patience! go to your room, mademoiselle!"

" i will go to my room. where else would i go?"

part 13

l'amour, part 11

2012-02-19T13:48:00.002-08:00

by gabrielle-jeanette perfidy

illustrated by rhoda penmarq

part eleven of seventy-eight

to begin at the beginning, click here

for previous episode, click here

part 12

you say I want a revolution/cleansing (be careful of your bedfellows)

2012-02-18T09:02:00.000-08:00

by Peter Greene

illustrated by rhoda penmarq

you say I want a revolution/cleansing (be careful of your bedfellows)

dedicated to a bomb named Little Boy

Kill the Kulaks
in the banks, hear the
klancs of the locks as we put them away for their greedy crimes. in
warmer climes, we've got war: and a man has to finish his business.
at home we adhere to family values: love of country and collect
Norman rockwells, build (b1b) airplane models

dream of softball summers and beer with the fellas and pie
watermelon ice cream pik nik holidays
abroad we think of
funny names for our weapons, endear
ourselves to others by
taking their stuff.

Once we have finished
rebuilding™ this nation, we'll

get back to you on that matter of breakage: sorry
about your nuclear plant, that lovely- coloured
"revolution" your civilian

airliner and/or your
scientist (sign here, for no insurance): we
wouldn't have done this
if you hadn't made us, but
sorry anyway. A little. We'll

see you soon, re
branded: no
more corruption in our ranks (and our banks): we'll

just kill you kleanly from here OK?

paint the drones white
or something

©Peter A. Greene 2012.

pastoral - 1. the valley

2012-02-18T04:48:00.001-08:00

by quinette de quieroz

illustrated by rhoda penmarq

special thanks to Prof. Dan Leo for his editing efforts

the valley of o---------- had long been reputed to be the most peaceful in italy. for centuries its lack of natural wealth and its remoteness kept it from being fought over by princes, and its temperate climate - hardly subject to storms or severe winters - made it a favorite retreat of those same princes and their wealthy supporters, when they sought brief respite from the turmoils and dangers of power. indeed, the valley became in effect a neutral area where arms were laid down, quarrels set aside, and the fiercest enemies - even those embroiled in blood feuds of millennial duration - could side by side enjoy what the poet calls "the beautiful wine of peace."

the only dwellings in the valley, besides the castle and surrounding buildings belonging to the ancient duchy of o----------, were the country retreats of the aforementioned potentates, and the humble huts, scattered about the countryside, of the few shepherds and herdsmen who survived on the barren hills and plains. these herders plied their ancient craft almost year round, and for centuries it had been the chief delight, of the owners of the country estates, when taking their ease in the valley, to observe from their verandahs and balconies the wanderings and frolickings of these unencumbered ones, and to compose poems and songs based on their observations.

this account, i am sure, brings a smile to the lips of the reader, accustomed as he or she may be to the frenzy of the modern world.

in any case, everything changed with the coming of the corsican.

for complete episode, click here

Paintball

2012-02-17T12:14:00.000-08:00

It was the summer of 2009. We were two friends who had grown up together, almost as brothers. My first recollection I have of Gavin was when we got into a fight over a yellow Tonker-Truck in kindergarten at 3 years old. I won that fight, but it was just the first of many. Our constant need for competition and to challenge each other would be a running theme for the next 30 years. Whether it is athletic achievement or academic achievement, our need to pit our wits, ability and even our very lives against each other has never ceased. In the years we have known each other we have literary come to blows, sworn that our friendship was at an end and issued fatwahs over such trivial subjects as video games, drinking sessions, women and pretty much every sporting event that can be played by able bodied Welsh men. During this time I have suffered alcohol poisoning, almost drowned on my own vomit and nearly broke my back in an attempt to keep up with my much physically larger friend on our wild day trips. But his challenges to me have not gone without incident either. He has fallen through a ceiling, lost jobs due to Muppet porn I sent him via email and has even suffered compound fractures resulting in my highly cynical and brutal football challenge; where after being barged off the ball by his sharp, savage elbows, I proceeded to chase after him and sweep his legs from behind, sending him crumpling onto the hard concrete where he would stay until the ambulance arrived.

People have often remarked that if they didn’t know we were friends, they could easily mistake us for mortal enemies. But then they just don’t get it. We don’t compete and try to beat each other due to a deep sated hatred; we do it because it’s just really, really funny making the other person look like a loser while you look like a rock star. I have no interest in destroying the man, any more than he truly wishes to destroy me; we both just really want the upper hand and the ensuring bragging rights. Sometimes it does get out of hand of course, but for the most part it is just a really intense rivalry that will probably continue for as long as we are friends. Truth be told, it is probably the main reason why we have been friends for so long. Most friends are just random people you hang out with and talk to now and again, but Gavin…. Well, he’s the one person I can hang out with, talk to now and again, but also, and I cannot stress this point enough, also try to destroy. It keeps us on our toes, keeps us sharp and ready for the next round.

When Gavin announced that he was making his way to the alter before me, I felt a slight twinge of envy as he had beaten me in this one particular competition. But despite my loss I went through the motions of congratulations and platitudes. I would achieve something of a counter victory though as he, as is tradition with such events chose me to be best man at his wedding. My joy with this news was tempered somewhat by the knowledge that he had originally wanted me to be “co-best man” along with a friend from Scotland. Sadly his so called “friend” couldn’t make it down to Wales for the nuptials, so all the responsibilities and traditions of best man fell solely on my shoulders.

You don't have enough hair to be a best man. Prick.

Deciding that my victory of becoming sole best man was too much to bare without some sort of retaliation, Gavin decided that if I were going to be sole best man, then I would pay for it dearly. His first master stroke was telling me that I would have to cross-dress for the special occasion. Well played Sir…. Despite being about as Scottish as a vegetarian diet and sensible alcohol consumption, Gavin decided that he would have a Highland themed wedding and I (as best man) would have to match his kilted attire. “Fine” I thought. I have great legs, I can pull this off. But then the son of a bitch executed his coupe-de-grace. Generously offering to buy me the correct kilt pattern for his wedding, I was somewhat pleasantly surprised and humbled that he had loosened his purse strings long enough to consider my needs. My feelings of good will did not last for long. Though he still maintains his innocence to this day, for some reason he bought me a kilt that I would have struggle to fit in when I was a lithe, slim 16 year old with a 28inch waist, let alone a somewhat out of shape 32 year old I had slowly morphed into.

“I honestly thought that was your waist size.” He lied.

No matter. I would not let him win this one. Over the next 2 months I cultivated a serious case of anorexia, managing to shed an impressive 25lbs. It was hard work and honestly, there are periods of several days where all I can remember is a hazy darkness and semi lucid visions of a pizza chasing me down a street. But I fitted in that damn skirt and looked bloody fabulous.

But before the wedding. Before the vows were said. Before I offered to take him to the airport in order to fly to Brazil, I would have one final chance for revenge. Deciding that this would be one of my last opportunities before he became a married man (and as such pretty much dead to the outside world), I would arrange a stag party that would be give this eating disorder causing git the send-off he truly deserved.

When you are the age we are, you grow up watching shows and movies such as The A-Team, Terminator and Robocop. These purveyors of ultra-violence lead to our almost primal fascination of guns and shooting things. Sadly as shooting at each other with real guns is somewhat frowned upon and now limited to the few human hunting reserves of Africa, I decided that we should participate in the next best thing.

PAINTBALL!!!

Deciding to keep the stag-do small, the party consisted of just myself, Gavin and our mutual friend Ryan.

The last photo taken of 3 old frinds before the horrors of war changed us forever.

I had made but one critical error in my otherwise stellar preparations for the trip as I had fallen into the trap of “Stag Party 101” and made up special hats for everyone with their names on. This in itself was fine, but the point I didn’t really pick up on was that it might not have been the best idea to order bright red baseball caps when trying to conceal oneself in green foliage. To say these special hats made us stick out somewhat was something of an understatement.

Having to decide between wearing the hats and making ourselves more visible, or having no protection on our heads and taking direct hits to the scalp, we decided to wear them and hope that the limited protection they offered would be worth the added visibility. This was a mistake of such epic proportions; it could very well qualify for its own blog entry.

We began the games in good spirits. We played on the same team, the brotherhood of war and combat strengthening our bond. Things started well and our cunning, experience and ruthlessness make short work of the enemy. But it was to be something of a false dawn. We had taken early victories and sustained no injuries or hits. This was to be our undoing. Thinking ourselves above our enemy, we got cocky.

As the games progressed, so did their difficulty. Our enemy were positioned waiting in their heavily fortified base as we stealthily and carefully advanced on their command position with the intention of capturing their stronghold. Everything went fine for the first few minutes, then we realised that there might be a problem.

All of the previous games had been out in the open. Being seen wasn’t really an issue if you had cover, but this new game was different. The fortified base was surrounded by thick ferns and bushes, with our objective being to advance through the foliage and take them by surprise. However there was just one small issue.

The sight of bright red hats bobbing through the undergrowth must have come as a pleasant surprise to our enemy, but one which they gratefully accepted and then proceeded to shoot the living shit out of.

There is a reason “Paintball” has the word “Pain” in it. Using our hats as target practice, the enemy proceeded to crack our skulls open with unnerving and worrying accuracy. 200mph balls of luminous death cracked into my skull as I ducked for cover and tried not to worry if the red stuff dripping down my face was blood or paint.

I fell to the floor behind cover and howled in pain, fuelled by anguish and torment. Ryan was already lost. A casualty of war forever to be remembered and celebrated on this day every year hence.

He laid there, motionless and slug like. It was his only defence

Myself and Gavin quickly ducked down as our cover received a pebble dashing of death.

We were outnumbered, outgunned and now low on ammo. Figuring out that they could sell 5 times more paintballs if they only counted torso hits as “kill shots”, taking repeated hits to the brain counted for nothing at this particular paintballing complex. Though when I say they counted for nothing, I of course mean that in the sense of the rules of the game and not the worrying buzzing sound coming from my now one working ear. The pain felt white hot and pierced my skull, penetrating every nerve and synapse in my brain. But for all intents and purposes I was still in the game, as was Gavin.

I should have probably raised a white flag at this point

There was only one thing left to do. I looked at my brother in arms and told him that if we were going to go out, we were going to go out like men! I devised a plan that would recall the finest of last ditch, heroic assaults. Executing the Young Guns 2: Blaze of Glory tactic, we would go all out in, well a blaze of glory. One final push, one final insane attack.

He would take the right flank, I would take the left. We shook hands and said our farewells as we prepared for one final stand agains the forces of evil (blue team).

And save me a throne in Valhalla!

The words of the Bon Jovi classic reverberated in my shattered and broken skull. We leapt from our cover and charged the enemy.

Arghhhhhhhhhhh.....

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhh.....


????


Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....

What the fu.....


ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

The spirit and memory of a thousand action movies overtook me as I flew towards them using, what felt like at the time, my own personal Matrix bullet time effect. My first shot was one in a million. I somehow managed to explode off the affixed paintball container from the first sentry’s gun, sending his paintballs falling to the floor.

How???

A total look of shock and amazement was etched on his face as he viewed this approaching assassin of death flying towards him. This original look of shock however was nothing compared with the one that replaced it when my next bullet slammed into his forehead, spraying out paint, blood and brain chunks and sending him flying backwards and out of the game.


DIE YOU F%*&$@G IMPERIAL DOG!!

I continued my amazing advance and took out another two enemy soldiers.

I could not believe my luck and skill as I headed towards the enemy stronghold in order to begin the final attack with Gavin and execute our pincer manoeuvre, allowing us to take this base and kill those bastards.

I charged deep into enemy territory, fearless and without mercy. My recklessness and valour may have been out of place given my location, odds and bleeding ears, but I knew that with my best friend by my side we would have a damn good chance of coming out of this alive.

Yes, my best friend.

My best friend at my side.

At my side…..

It had suddenly dawned on me that since leaving the cover we had both been using, Gavin had vanished. I looked back and saw his head peak up over a wooden slat as he gave me a little wave.

I was undone! My friend and fellow soldier had left me to die behind enemy lines. The unmistakable whack of paintball bullets began to slam into my spine and neck. More enemy fire found contact with my soft, damaged flesh as I was riddled with water soluble death. It was all over for me in this game. I fell to the ground and did my best Platoon death scene as I embraced my contemptible fate.

Willem Dafoeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

But there was yet another game to go, one final conflict to fight. This time it would be different. I swore as I fell to the ground in the last game, as I watched Gavin, safely hidden behind his fortress of shame as he laughed at my demise, that I would have my revenge on those who had left me to die.

The final game of the day was to be a little different to the others. It would start out normally enough, team verses team, but after 5 minutes it would descend into an all-out death match where it was every man for himself.

They say war changes a man. Once you have participated in and committed acts of such savagery and hate, you are never able to unsee what has been seen. It stays with you.

The horror. The horror.....

Every time you close your eyes, every time you go to the hardware store and see pots of paints, the flashback hit you. From that day on an innocent tin of emulsion was like a naked, murdered Vietnamese body to me. My experience in the last match had given me a worrying thousand yard stare (that could have either been severe emotional trauma or a worrying eye condition that had been brought on by repeated blunt trauma) and a lust for blood that could only be achieved through crushing your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.

The game started in a pretty standard normal way, teams attacked, teams defended. I made sure I kept myself close to Gavin, but not too close.

Soon my friend. Soon....

I let the war go on around me. I conserved my ammo and maintained position waiting for my chance to seek the high court of battlefield justice. I stayed close to Gavin, just close enough so I could see the fear in the traitors eyes when the time came.

After five minutes a marshal blew a whistle and announced that it was now a free for all and all rules were off.

Gavin, upon hearing this decided it would be funny to take a pop shot at me. His effort missed, but he had now given me all the excuse I needed to utterly destroy him.

Oh no you di'int

He had no idea what I was planning and unbeknown to him he had made a crucial error in his defensive positioning. During the first five minutes of the game, his position and covering made him well defended against forward attack, but not attack from the rear. It probably never occurred to him that someone would attack him from behind or indeed that that person would be his best man and life-long friend, and that man would bring the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse with him.

After his first pot shot at me, he giggled and gave me a look that said “What do you expect? I’m trying to shoot you, you would do the same if you could.” Then it suddenly dawned on him that I could and that I would be doing just that. He suddenly realised just how exposed and vulnerable he now was to my wrath. A sudden dawning and realisation crept across his face as I raised my gun towards him.

For the briefest of moments our eyes locked in a second that told the story of a life time. He could see there was no soul within me now. It had been lost on the battlefield where he left me to die. I was no longer the guy who he had grown up with and had known for over 30 years. I was now death incarnate and I was riding a horse of justice and revenge. There was nowhere for him to go. He was still under attack from forward positions and was on the edge of the game arena. He looked to his right and saw the fence some 15 foot away that signalled the boundary, if he could reach the fence he would be out of the game and I would no longer be able to extract my revenge.

I had no intention of giving him this opportunity however. Even before he could raise himself from his seated position and advance towards to the fence like a punch drunk boxer desperately trying to save himself till the bell, my bullets started flying towards him. He took the first few hits well, but winced and arched in pain. Managing to crawl onto his hands and knees he started his slow advanced towards the fence.

Still taking shots from forward positions, he foolishly decided to lie on his back in a desperate attempt to return fire on me. This was a tragic mistake that would stay with him for the rest of his life. He was now unable to get up and make a run for it as my bullets kept him pinned down on the ground.

I advanced further upon him. My trigger finger a blur of fury. Taking careful aim from all of 3 foot away, I made every precious shot count.

*no caption needed*

Ignoring the bullets whizzing around my head I unleashed the full extent of my hatred. From just a few feet away I unloaded over 200 bullets into him. He started to scream, the full realisation of what was happening suddenly dawning on him as he desperately tried to crawl further towards the rope, his progress hindered by the fact that his body was now just a pulp of blood, bone and paint. He attempted to raise his own gun in some feeble attempt of defence, maybe more in reflex than attack, but as soon as his fingers were exposed, I took aim on them and turned them into what looked like overcooked sausages that had burst open in the middle.

Now racked with tortuous pain, he continued to crawl on his back towards the rope as I bared my teeth and cursed at him in 4 different languages in order to ensure that his soon to be daparted spirit would never find peace. Turning onto his front he wiggled and flopped like a drunken bull seal on a beach as he continued his pitifully slow advance towards the rope.

The rest of the group had stopped playing at this point. They just stood in stunned silence at the horrors being committed in front of them. A small child, not old enough to understand the complexities and brutal nature of man quietly wept; falling to his knees as he looked to the sky in questioning of an unloving God that would allow such a thing to happen.

All attempts to conceal his pain and anguish had long since left his crippled body. All Gavin could hope for now was the sweet release of death. But it would not come. I made sure of that. I wanted his pain to last a life time.

He screamed at me to stop.

“STOP!!!!”

“FOR THE LOVE OF JESUS, STOP!!!”

He somehow managed to drag his bloody mess of a carcass to the boundry fence as a marshal came to his aid. The marshal looked at me with a mix of awe and disgust.

The Marshall would later tell us that he had been in the actual army for 20 years and had served in many real life bloody wars when in service, but this was the most brutal, terrifying and shameless war crime he had ever seen committed.

He later erect a plaque to the “Massacre of Heatherton Sports Complex”. He would leave a single rose upon that site, on that day, every year, for the rest of his life.

Gavin didn’t really talk to me on the way home for some reason. Maybe he was in shock, or maybe he took a bullet to the larynx.

So i'm still best man right?

All I know is you NEVER leave a man behind, you never make him cross dress in a skinny kilt and you never mess with me when it comes to mother fucking paintball!

If you do…. I will make you pay.

“A Town Called Disdain”, Episode 115: aftermath

2012-02-16T01:48:00.002-08:00

Our author Larry Winchester* now returns to the suave voice of Dick Ridpath, last seen floating in free-fall following a shoot-out in a flying saucer (see Episode 108) as it passed through dimensions, several thousand miles above a town called disdain...

(Click here to read our previous chapter.)

*”The Homer of our age.” -- Harold Bloom

Well, by the time I came out of it I won’t say I couldn’t have used a martini.

We were out of free-fall now and I had somehow wound up back in my seat. To my right Daphne was slumped in her own chair, passed out. Harvey was passed out in his seat also, his head against the console.

“They’re okay, Mr. Ridpath. It always gets a little weird passing through dimensions. They’ll probably wake up in a minute or two. I stuck you and the lady back in your seats. The young fella was already strapped in, so he was okay.”

This was Brad, sitting to my left. Rather intently turning dials, toggling switches, punching buttons.

On the floor behind us Mr. MacNamara and Buddy lay stretched out on their backs side by side, their eyes closed, in a big pool of blood. Blood was splattered all over the place, actually. I suppose it had all slopped down like rain when we left free-fall.

Over by the refreshments nook Frank lay curled up in a slightly smaller pool of blood.

“Are they all dead?” I asked.

“I don’t think Frank’ll ever croon ‘Fly Me To The Moon’ again. Buddy and Mac, I dunno. They’re still breathing, but it don’t look good.”

Wait, have I mentioned all the TV screens? All these TV screens spread out above and around the pilot’s console. And by glancing from one to another you could get some idea of what was happening back on the Earth.

There was Enid’s truck sitting out in the dark desert somewhere.

Close-ups of Enid and Hope, smoking cigarettes in the cab of the truck, Hope at the wheel, Enid next to her.

That motorcycle guy, Moloch, unconscious with his nose smashed in, slumped next to Enid.

On another screen a wide-shot of all these motorcycle guys ranged along the outside edge of the atomic sinkhole below that mesa, the one that awful desert-trash family had disappeared into.

And my old friend Pym’s head sticking out of the sand.

At this point nothing surprised me.

On other screens I saw Big Jake and a thin bald man driving in Jake’s Cadillac. (Later I found out that the bald man was the town doctor, named Goldwasser.)

Another screen showed Paco and Derek driving together in an old Plymouth station wagon.

And on one screen I even saw the flying saucer we were in, it was flying away from the Earth, just zipping along, the Earth getting smaller and smaller.

I asked Brad what he was doing.

“Takin’ us back to the station, Mr. Ridpath. Soon as I build up enough steam, we’re crashing back through the dimensional wall again and heading back to the casino. Sorry, but that’s the way it is. Unless you want to try to pilot this baby.”

I looked at the controls. They were rather daunting. But then I thought about the casino. I really didn’t want to go back there again. Especially considering the circumstances under which we had left it. And lugging back its boss’s bullet-ridden corpse to boot.

Also there was the question of Hope and Enid and those motorcycle fellows.

No, this was an untenable situation.

I saw my old Browning lying on the deck near my feat.

I got off my stool, picked up the gun, pointed it at Brad.

“Now what the fuck, Mr. Ridpath.”

“Get up, Brad.”

“Jesus Christ, you’re not serious.”

“I’m perfectly serious, Brad. Now move.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, you’re gonna try and pilot this thing, and land it in one piece?”

“You betcha.”

“Fucking earthlings. Y’know something? I live another hundred thousand years I will never understand --”

“Just move it, Brad. You’re wasting time.”

“Ah, fuck, look, you win. I’ll bring the fucker in to earth, okay?”

“Well, no, not okay, because I want you to do that finger-healing thing finger-healing thing with Mac and Buddy and try to save them.”

“Look, Mr. Ridpath.” He flicked another switch and then swiveled around on his chair to face me. “It’s like this. I can try to land this heap, which is the very latest model and which to tell the fucking honest truth even I am not familiar with, except for one article I skimmed through in Flying Saucer Mechanics -- let alone qualified -- and try to get all our asses down on the ground in one piece; or I can, say, turn the controls over to you who are shall I say even less eminently qualified while I try to do the laying on of hands bit with these two guys who are probably goners irregardless. Now -- you’re an intelligent man for a goddam earthling. You decide.”

Well, I chewed on this for a couple of seconds. He certainly had his points.

“Turn it around,” I said, “and point it at the Earth again, Brad, then I’ll take over.”

“Oh, right, and send us all maybe crashing into fucking Mount Everest at fifty thousand fucking miles an hour.”

Well, sometimes I’m just a little nutty, I admit. So I cocked the pistol, took a step closer and pointed it between Brad’s eyes and told him to do as he was told.

This seemed to scare him. He swiveled around again and did something with the dials. You felt the saucer lurch. I looked up at the screen and now the Earth was getting larger.

I told him to get up.

He got up.

This time I was thinking. I patted him down, and sure enough I found a snubnose .38 in his coat pocket. Mac’s gun. I put it in one of my own pockets. Then I found my Airweight in Brad’s trouser pocket, and I took that. I stuck it in my other pocket and told him to get to work on Mac and Buddy.

Then Daphne woke up.

And she was upset of course.

(Continued here. Soon to be an American International Picture starring Alain Delon as Dick, and featuring Eddie Constantine as Brad; produced and directed by Jean-Pierre Melville.)

w h y i d i d n o t a n s w e r y o u r l e t t e r

2012-02-14T03:56:00.000-08:00

by Peter Greene

illustrated by rhoda penmarq

w h y i d i d n o t a n s w e r y o u r l e t t e r

. there is a stone
tower
. in a secret place, its walls are
. thick and pierced only by
. slits of blackness . Around the tower
. on the ground
. lie the endless faces
. of the damned all
. screaming, calling out, all
. motionless and silent. Above

. the tower , wheeling
in a sky ·
. (black star
. lace
. . . hangs a
. great bird , whose
. yellow jewel eye occasionally

scans below, pausing
here and there
on a face
it has known : here,

there are no names
and I do not
remember_

©Peter A. Greene 2012.

tales of the hotel st crispian, chapter 46: "Call me Mac"

2012-02-13T19:23:00.000-08:00

by Horace P. Sternwall

edited by Dan Leo*

illustrated by konrad kraus

artistic supervisor: rhoda penmarq

*Associate Professor of Classics and Entomology, Olney Community College; editor of The Importunate Policeman and Other Previously Uncollected Tales of Suspense by Horace P. Sternwall; Olney Community College Press, “The Sternwall Papers”.

for complete episode, click here

gertrude - 1. the saint

2012-02-11T19:19:00.001-08:00

by dorine de santos

illustrated by rhoda penmarq and roy dismas

the familiar boundaries of europe were yet undreamed of, when this story commences.

the sun had not yet risen when a young woman, scarcely more than a child, emerged from a tiny hut sheltered among towering trees on the southern slope of a mountain in what is now southern central france.

a river was barely visible in the distance - the allier? the garonne? to the girl, it was "the river" as the mountainside was "the earth" , the sky was "heaven" and the rain was "the rain".

heaven, earth, the river, the rain, and her flock - all she knew except when she drove the flock to the base of the mountain, to the little village, once a year, when the sheep were ready to be shorn.

since the death of the old woman, three - or was it four? - trips to the village ago - she had not seen another human on the mountain.

occasionally, when she drove the flock down to the river, she would see what appeared to be another human in the distance.

so it was with some surprise that she heard a voice behind her on the morning our story commences. she had not caught the words of the speaker, being unprepared for them. she turned and saw a tall man - the tallest she had ever seen - wrapped in a black cloak and standing in the shadow of the wide and ancient tree whose southernmost boughs sheltered her hut.

for complete episode, click here

tales of the hotel st crispian, chapter 45: "a friendly argument"

2012-02-10T18:35:00.000-08:00

by Horace P. Sternwall

edited by Dan Leo*

illustrated by roy dismas and rhoda penmarq

*"Associate Professor of Classics and Assistant Phys. Ed. Instructor, Olney Community College; editor of Sidewalks of the Damned and Three Other Early Novels by Horace P. Sternwall; Olney Community College Press, “The Sternwall Initiative”

for complete episode, click here

“A Town Called Disdain”, Episode 114: regrets?

2012-02-08T22:04:00.000-08:00

Our author Larry Winchester, never one to leave a plot strand loose for more than a month or two, now returns to Captain Alexis Pym (USN), last seen descending the steep slope of Dead Horse Mesa in a jeep with the air force officers Col. Masterson and Lt. Perkins on a night in early September, 1969, in the desert near a former A-bomb testing site not too far from a town called Disdain, in the great state of New Mexico, "the land of enchantment"...

(Click here to read our previous chapter, or go here to return to the beginning of this novel, recently short-listed for the Sandoz Award for Mind-Expanding Fiction.)

Pym stood straining on tiptoe on the hood of the jeep. He didn’t know it but the jeep was sitting on the cab of the deceased Thorndyke family's truck . With his head tilted back the sand was just up to his lower lip. He had been standing here buried up to his mouth in the loose but heavy sand for what seemed like an hour (but which he realized was probably more like ten minutes) when the motorcycles and the truck appeared. He had watched as the motorcyclists shot out the truck’s tires and then proceeded to circle the truck, shouting and shooting into the air and behaving like savages. He had not even attempted to yell for help. They would not have heard him over the din and even if they had they would not have helped him. They would have laughed at him.

But then the one big squat fellow went flying into the air with his bike and then down, to disappear into this strange sand, the same sand that had swallowed up Masterson and what’s-his-name, Perkins.

Masterson and Perkins had panicked when the jeep began to sink into the sand, they leapt out of the jeep and tried to slog and thrash their way to solid ground. And cautious Pym, cool Pym, had watched the two men sink, thrashing, grunting, yelling, then screaming, and then silence as their heads sank under, only their grasping clawing hands visible, and then nothing, the starlit sand settling, smooth and impassive as the surface of a quiet lake.

Pym on the other hand had climbed onto the hood of the jeep as it sank, prudently deeming it best to see how the other two fared before doing anything else. And he and the jeep had slowly but surely sank. Oddly enough he hadn’t panicked. He had felt only a corresponding sinking feeling in his chest, a certain sadness. Some regrets. A few massive regrets. Like having been a sort of worm all his life, a weasel at best. Like never having enjoyed a sexual act with another person as much as his most cursory solitary masturbation. He regretted now not having eaten more pork chops, more mashed potatoes with lots of gravy, not having gotten drunk more often.

And he realized now, yes, he had long been in a sort of love with Dick Ridpath. All these years. And now, of course, Ridpath would triumph in the end, whereas he, Pym, would slowly suffocate in this pitiless sand amid his own quite self-piteous and weaselly regrets.

When first he had heard the motorcycle and truck engines he had thought, Well, maybe there’s still a chance. To live. To drink fine wines and eat succulent pork chops. To hire beautiful and expensive and sensitive call girls with his children’s college funds. To find Ridpath, and, and to say, I am not a worm, sir, I am not a weasel, no, sir, I am every bit as good as you, sir, Mr. Ridpath!

But then he saw that ragtag cavalcade of armed motorcyclists and the old flatbed truck and he realized that he was apparently going to die tonight after all, a worm and a weasel to the end, with Ridpath somewhere unknowingly triumphant, with a martini in his hand and a bon mot on his lips.

(Continued here. “At last a novel we can believe in.” -- Harold Bloom, overheard at the lunch counter at Woolworth's.)

perception of a door

2012-02-06T05:19:00.000-08:00

by Peter Greene

illustrated by rhoda penmarq

the perception
of a door

the central vac u um
is a Bermuda
Triangle
for ants : sucked up, traceless
at the end
of scents : followed
footsteps
only go
one way :

(upwards)

alien
visitations
  may be fatal

©Peter A. Greene 2012

imperialism - 1. hotel grande

2012-02-05T21:42:00.000-08:00

by sabine sablon

illustrated by roy dismas , konrad kraus and rhoda penmarq

for complete episode, click here

the fourteenth princess - appendix a: the official rules

2012-02-02T11:40:00.000-08:00

to begin at the beginning, click here

a. contest rules and judging

1. novel is to be 133,225 (365 x 365) words long. no credit will be given for reaching count. points will be deducted for going below or above count.

1-a. all words including articles and abbreviated words will be counted. hyphenated words will count as one word. numbers, such as"6" or "6,888,999" will be counted as one word.

1-b. manuscript may be in any language. judges may be presumed to be conversant in english, french, spanish and german. english or french are advised.

2. judgment will be weighted 40% for faithfulness to designated theme.

3. 25% for faithfulness to designated author style.

4. 35% for overall literary quality (as determined by judges).

5. research materials will be provided (see more detail below) including samples of designated authors work. however, severe demerits will be assessed for outright copying or plagiarism.

6. manuscript to be submitted at end of contest. there are no other rules as to timetable.

7. there will be no preliminary judging or grading.

8. manuscripts may be submitted either hand written, typed, or some combination of handwritten and typed (see below).

9-a. no points will be added or subtracted for spelling, grammar or punctuation except as the judges might find these relevant to literary quality (see above).

9-b. no points will be added or subtracted for any drawings or artwork.

b. writing materials

1. paper, pens and pencils are provided. further supplies of these items may be requested through staff.

2. each room is equipped with a manual typewriter. these are not guaranteed to be repaired or replaced if broken or otherwise rendered inoperable.

c. research materials

1. each contestant will find standard reference materials - encyclopedia's, etc - in personal room, along with samples of designated author works.

2. a library is adjacent to dining room. it may be visited during breakfast and dinner hours and books checked out. staff will always be present. collusion rules will be enforced, as at meals. it will remain open between breakfast and dinner hours and contestants may request books at that time through personal and guard staff.

d. food and exercise

1. breakfast in dining room is at seven to eight thirty a m. dinner from six to eight p m. contestants will be accompanied to and from dining area by guards.

1-a. conversation is allowed, but no collusion or discussion of contest. staff will be present to enforce this. first violation of collusion/discussion rules will result in a warning. further violations will result in confinement to rooms - duration to be determined by administration. repeated violations will result in permanent confinement.

2. attendance at meals is not compulsory. those choosing to not attend may request meals to be delivered to rooms. (they will not be delivered automatically).

2-a. those confined to rooms may request meals to be delivered to rooms. (they will not be delivered automatically).

3. food and drink may be requested at any time through staff. note "requested". compliance with requests is at discretion and convenience of staff.

4. contestants may request to walk outdoors during daylight hours, always accompanied by at least one guard. staff will use their discretion in granting requests, and in duration of walks. only one contestant may be outside at any one time. this rule to be very strictly enforced.

5. contestants confined to rooms during meal times may request to go outdoors, subject to conditions of rule 4 above.

e. staff

1. each contestant's room will have at least one, usually two, guards at all times.

2. each contestant is provided with a personal maid, whose services they may use at their discretion. contestants may dispense with the maid's services if they choose. if they do, they may also request a replacement. note that any replacement requests will not be considered a priority by administration.

3. contestants are not prohibited from conversation with guards or maids. they may discuss the contest, and even request advice or input regarding the contest. note that staff were not retained on the basis of any presumed expertise on matters relating to the contest.

f. medical

1. medical attention may be requested through staff to administration.

2. requests for regular medications should have been made prior to arrival. further requests may be made through staff.

3. it is hoped that no contestants have arrived in a state of pregnancy. such a situation would be regarded with extreme annoyance by administration.

g. general

1. no contestants will be disqualified, or allowed to leave contest, except by decease.

1-a. in the event of contestant(s) becoming deceased, the final order of finish in the contest will be adjusted by eliminating second place, third place, etc through thirteenth place, then first place. please ask to consult administration if you are not clear on this.

2. repeated or willful violations of rules will be dealt with severely.

2-a. any attempt to contact persons outside the contest area will be regarded as a most severe breach of rules.

3. administration and staff will determine enforcement of rules.

4. there is no appeals process.

“A Town Called Disdain”, Episode 113: Hope's eyes

2012-02-02T00:51:00.000-08:00

Larry Winchester's crane-mounted camera now swoops down from the desert night to a band of motorcyclists circling a ‘54 Dodge flatbed truck (with tommy-lift), its tires deflated by the guns which the cyclists, members of a foul gang of reprobates known as the Motorpsychos, now fire into the air as they shout and roar and cause their engines to emit rude explosive noises. Inside the truck sits the sculptress/café proprietor Enid, holding an army .45 on the gang leader Moloch, whom she has just knocked out with said heavy weapon, while at the wheel sits the rancher’s daughter Hope, of the lustrous dark hair and deep dark eyes. (Click here to review our previous chapter, or go here to return to the beginning of this novel, of which the critic Harold Bloom has said, “The 21st Century canon starts here. Let’s hope it doesn’t end here.”)

Hope softly smoked, stroking Moloch’s Webley in her lap, and watched the Motorpsychos wheeling and bucking round and round, shooting and screaming, headlights so bright, lighting up the dust and stones and pebbles flying all about, while off there to the right loomed the dark hump of Dead Horse Mesa with that great scooped depression spreading out from its base.

All this now was some sight, a beautiful and amazing sight in its way, a sight she doubted anyone had ever seen in quite this way -- no, of course no one had ever seen it this way. How could anyone, unless she, Hope, had existed before, been stuck in this truck with Enid and Moloch, surrounded by circling Motorpsychos exactly in this same spot on this same night in September 1969 at...well, never mind.

She realized for the first time in her life that each moment of existence was unique.

She decided to make this moment even more unique.

She picked out one Motorpsycho in particular, the particularly ugly fat and ugly one who had shot out their right front tire with his shotgun.

She watched him as he idiotically roared around the front of the truck, howling and brandishing his shotgun high, so huge and so fat he made his enormous motorbike look small.

He zoomed around to the right and she waited till he reappeared on the left, and then she stared with all the darkness in her soul, concentrating it through her pineal gland and out of her eyes, and just as he came directly ahead his motorcycle leaped up from back to front as if something had stopped the front wheel (and something had) and the Motorpsycho flew high into the air, still gripping his sawed-off shotgun, his massive body turning seemingly in slow motion head over heels, followed by his not quite so massive and cartwheeling Harley-Davidson, as all the other Motorpsychos screeched to a halt, watching man and machine flying and turning in a great high arc.

And then the man, bellowing, like a hog, like a man, his bellow resounding from the great sloping wall of the nearby mesa, fell, followed by his still-roaring chopper, all starkly lit by the gang’s headlights, down toward that broad shallow hollow.

One last fiery burst belched out of the man’s shotgun and then he disappeared into the hollow, his howl abruptly ceasing, and then his motorbike followed him, disappearing also and leaving not the slightest trace in the smooth silvery sand.

(Continued here. Soon to be a major mini-series event on the Sci-Fi Channel, featuring our cover model Barbara Steele as Hope.)

the fourteenth princess - chapter 4: celine

2012-01-31T08:59:00.000-08:00

by emily de villaincourt

illustrated by rhoda penmarq, roy dismas and konrad kraus

click here for previous chapter, here to begin at the beginning

"well then, i know you have all had a long day. i will ring for the guards to take you to your rooms. "

"our cells, "said dorine. "if we have guards, they must be cells, right?"

"call them what you like," miss prue answered good naturedly . "i think you will find them comfortable enough."

"do they have bars on the windows?" asked sabine.

"why no. but i don't think you will be climbing out of them. "

"are there moats beneath the windows, with alligators in them?" asked jolene.

"no. now those are enough silly questions. two last things i want to mention. each of you will find a complete set of rules to the contest in your room. look them over, please, and if you have any questions you can ask them tomorrow when we meet in the dining room for breakfast. and tomorrow we will make sure each of you has the proper library, as we discussed before. " miss prue looked down the table. "anything else?

minette raised her hand. "can i have one of the hats?"

"excuse me?"

"you said earlier i might have one of the hats - that you pulled the pieces of paper from."

"oh. well, the last girl still has to pull, when she arrives,"

"why? there is only one left in each hat. she is sure to get them, is she not?"

"yes, of course. i suppose you can have the hats, why not?'" miss prue brought the hats back from beneath the table. she took the black hat out of the white one, then reached in and took the last paper out of the white one. it was stuck slightly to the bottom but she pulled it off without batting an eye. she repeated the process with the black one, where the paper was also stuck lightly to the bottom. she placed the two pieces of folded paper on the table in front of her and handed the hats to ameline. "pass these down to her, please." she looked down to minette. "if someone else wants one of them , give it to her"

"is that the way of it?" asked dorine. "just ask and we receive?"

"if it's no trouble, yes." miss prue reached under the table and touched a button and a chime sounded, not too loudly. after a few seconds the door opened and two young women in gray uniforms entered.

"you will be escorted to your rooms two at a time." miss prue beckoned to the taller of the two guards. she handed her a piece of paper on which she had recorded the girls assignments. "get their names as you go, and write down the room numbers you put them in."

the guard nodded. she turned to ameline and sabine. "all right, you two first." they stood up. all the girls had fallen silent, even minette and nanette, who had been trying on the two hats and giggling over them.

outside in the darkness, the trees were swaying in the wind. a few raindrops appeared on the thick windows.

*********

all thirteen of the girls had been taken to their rooms. miss prue continued to sit at the head of the long table, with all the lamps still lit. she had her ruled notebook open in front of her, and was doodling in it. mostly pictures of cats, and trees.

muggins the maid appeared in the doorway. "the last girl has finally arrived, miss."

"excellent. bring her in, please. "

muggins opened the door wider behind her and the girl entered. she wore her coat and a smart little hat, and had a large alligator bag on her shoulder. she was a little more stylishly dressed than any of the other girls.

miss prue looked up at the maid. "thank you, muggins. close the door behind you, please."

muggins left, and closed the door.

"well, celine, you certainly took your time getting here."

"oh, there was some kind of delay coming up the mountains. but you know i love those old trains."

"oh yes."

the girl tossed her bag and her hat on one of the chairs and draped her coat over the back of it. then she came up and sat on the table on miss prue's right. she bent over and kissed her on the cheek. "miss me?"

"how can you ask me that?'" miss prue's voice wavered slightly. "you little minx."

the girl kissed her on the cheek again, closer to the lips. "well, here we are together again, duck." her eyes widened. "but under such circumstances! what a situation!"

"yes, yes indeed. i tried to give you some idea in my letters, but i had to be circumspect. of course you got all the official correspondance, like the rest of the girls."

"oh, yes. we have a year to write a novel, of what - about 130,000 words? that shouldn't be too difficult - if we have nothing else to do all day."

"actually it is 133,225 words. we can discuss all that later."

"and it is to be about what - anything i choose?"

"yes, my dear - you - you can write just about anything you like. you see, your theme - picked by lottery - is "universal" -

"ha ha! yes, i guess that is just about anything."

"and i was able to save it for you."

"oh my dear, and how did you do that?"

miss prue picked up the two pieces of folded paper in front of her. "my little scheme
wasn't foolproof but it worked. i put just a smidgin of clear glue on these papers and stuck them to the bottom of the hats they picked from. of course one of them could still have picked one or both but they didn't."

"my, such a trickster."

"i had a good teacher."

"ha. and what is this second paper?"

"the writer whose style you are to emulate. one of the papers was 'pick your own' and that of course, is what you got."

"ah."

miss prue picked up her pen. "but you do have to pick an author - i have to write it down."

"oh - how about anatole france." the girl yawned, and looked around the room and out the window.

" you must be tired. are you hungry?"

"not really. i had a lovely dinner on the train. but i could use a coffee - and maybe a little cake or croissant."

"i have coffee in my room. and some of those little cherry cakes you used to like."

"oh. so sweet."

miss prue blushed slightly. "another thing. you can have a room like the other girls, with a maid and guards - or - you can stay with me, if you like."

"oh. if i like. ha, ha! " celine put her hands around miss prue's neck and kissed her on the lips. "you mean you thought i would rather sleep alone?"

"thank you."

"so we can get away with that? how - circumspect do we have to be?"

"not very. leave everything to me."

"good. then i guess everything is settled."

"yes. but celine, listen, listen, before we go any further. you must understand how serious this is. i will do everything i can for you, but i can not do everything. i can only tell you what i told the other girls - i am not one of the judges, have no contact with them, do not even know who they are. in the end - you will be as alone as they."

"calm down, duck, calm down. everything will work out. we will prevail - you and i."

to be continued

reunion in the rain

2012-01-30T07:40:00.000-08:00

by horace p sternwall

illustrated by roy dismas and konrad kraus

originally printed in damned detective stories, march-april 1951

The Old 333 (Mandatory)

2012-01-29T05:56:00.000-08:00

by Peter Greene

illustrations by rhoda penmarq

The Old 333 (Mandatory)

 the old people
who were forced to join the Army
when their years ran out; boots bots and guns or
a mandatory death chamber: together
in adversity, they formed a regimental association, ex
changing tooth-brushes, dentures and orthopedic
inserts

saving the last scraps of their lives together in a little headquarters
building near the armoury on Bay; coffee armchairs and
few veterans, mostly grizzled newcomers
grace the seats

the Old 333
doesn't have many returnees
when you go to war at sixty-five, still
alive, still
strong in heart enough to qualify, you
don't expect a
welcome home, just a cemetery

that, and a little pillaged
time for chess and tea; the only
ones
on the battlefield
who take naps in the fighting

repost: the touching
endearment
of
old chaps and their wives doing
suicide missions
on their last night together: the
fine letters home from a grandfather
who won't be
back for Christmas but sends his love

and a jar of enemy ears, with raisins
pickled in plundered brandy

©Peter A. Greene 2012

tales of the hotel st crispian, chapter 44: flossie vs hyacinth

2012-01-27T17:28:00.000-08:00

by horace p sternwall

illustrated by roy dismas , rhoda penmarq and konrad kraus

for complete episode, click here

“A Town Called Disdain”, Episode 112: cowboy

2012-01-26T15:43:00.000-08:00

Our author Larry Winchester (“the Shakespeare of our age, but less boring than Shakespeare” -- Harold Bloom) now turns the unsparing lens of his Panavision eye on the rancher Big Jake Johnstone and the town physician Doc Goldwasser, driving across the dark atomic-bombed desert not too many miles from A Town Called Disdain.

(Click here to see our previous chapter. Today’s episode rated EP for excessive pulp.)

Big Jake was scared shitless as he drove the Cadillac slowly nearer to the lights and shooting, feeling like the scared little rich kid he always was deep down -- and not so deep down, either -- and he really wanted just to turn back and go home, or at least go to Burt’s for a beer, or to Mel’s Photographic Arts Studio for a blowjob and a beer, but he didn’t want the Doc to think he was a coward, or rather -- since he knew the Doc knew he was a coward -- put better, he was afraid to act the coward, even though he was a coward. And so one fear outweighed another and here he was acting seemingly courageously while he was damn near shitting his trousers in terror.

The Doc for his part had the opium working well now in his bloodstream and his brain, the weird internal voices and noises had gone away, there was only this world, this life, maybe it would end in a few minutes, maybe it wouldn’t.

Jake stopped the car. They were maybe a half mile from the circling lights and the shooting.

“Y’know what, Doc? Just remembered I got me a pair of bi-noculars in here somewheres. Let’s just take a little gander ‘fore we go any closer.”

Jake popped open the glove compartment, pushed aside the latest issue of Playboy, a couple of packs of Marlboros, three fat joints of fine Panama Red, a half-consumed pint of Old Forester, half a roll of Lifesavers, numerous traffic and parking tickets from other towns that he hadn’t gotten around to getting Sheriff Dooley to fix yet, and finally he pulled out a pair of German army field-glasses, left over from the lucrative Nazi souvenir business he had run back in ’44 and ’45 while posted as a supply sergeant in Paris.

Jake lifted up his hat, looped the binoculars strap over his head, and then pulled his hat back on, tilted a bit to the back. As he put the glasses to his eyes and adjusted the lenses he thought back to those good old days and the fortune he had amassed in girls and in black market goods during the war. Yep, V-E Day certainly had been a cause for celebration for a lot of folks and he had to admit he’d made quite a penny that day himself with his booze concession at the OSS officer’s club, but it had also spelled the beginning of the end of one of the best goddamned money-making set-ups he was ever to have. Why, by May of ’45 he had over a hundred people in his employ, not only regular GIs but deserters, Kraut PWs, Limeys, Frenchies and DPs, and this weren’t even counting a stable of twenty-five to thirty fine fillies of all nationalities and faiths --

“Shit.”

“What is it,” said the Doc.

“That looks like Miss Enid’s truck. And it’s got them damn Motorpsychos circlin’ around it and firin’ guns like a pack of wild Injuns.”

The Doc sat and watched Jake adjusting the binoculars.

“Shit, damn, and pigfuck.”

Jake lowered the glasses and turned to the Doc.

“That’s my baby girl in that truck. Her and Miss Enid.”

The gunfire continued.

“We gotta go in there, Doc,” said Jake.

The Doc just looked at Jake.

“We got to, don’t we?” asked Jake.

“You up for it?”

“Up for it? Sure I am. Sure I am. What we do, what we do is, we just drive right in there, drive in, drive on in, drive right on in there and get, get, get my daughter, and, and Miss Enid too, and just drive right on outa there, drive on, drive right on outa there, I ain’t ascared, I ain’t ascared of them Motorpsychos,” said Jake. “They wouldn’t do nothin’ to me.”

The Doc knew that Big Jake did drug business with the Motorpsychos.

“And,” said Jake, “and, and, they give, give, give us any trouble I ain’t, I ain’t ascared to use this-chyere Colt neither.”

He patted the bulge under his arm where the gun was and the Doc saw the sweat staining right through the jacket material.

“All right,” said the Doc. “Let me take the wheel then. I’ll drive, you wave that thing around if you have to.”

“Yeah,” said Big Jake, “sure.”

And he opened his door and got out of the car and shut the door, then walked around the front, weaving just a little, like a drunk man trying to act sober. He looked very pale in the starlight.

The Doc slid over to the driver’s seat. Big Jake got in the other side, breathing heavy and sweating and licking his lips. The binoculars hung around Jake’s neck, moving up and down with the heaving of his big gut. Jake reached his right hand down past his gut and rearranged his balls. He rolled his shoulders and his head and then took his hat off and wiped his sleeve on his forehead and ran his hand through his crewcut. He lifted the binoculars strap up over his head and shoved the binoculars back into the glove compartment. He tried to shut the glove compartment but part of the strap was still hanging out. He said “Fuck fuck fuck” and pushed the strap into the compartment, then slammed it shut. He sat back and fanned himself rapidly a few times with his hat and then put it on backwards. He took out his gun again and checked the cylinder. His hands were shaking.

“Your hat’s on backwards, Jake.”

“Oh. Thanks, Doc.”

He turned the hat around.

“Get your shit together, Jake.”

“I’m tryin’, Doc.”

The Doc put the car in gear.

“Do me a favor, Jake, will ya?”

“Yes, sir, Doc.”

Jake’s eyes were wide, he was sweating like a pig in the cool air, his teeth chattered audibly.

“Just keep that cannon pointed away from me.”

The Doc stepped on the gas and they pulled out.

Jake squirmed in his seat, holding the pistol with both hands across his massive chest.

“Jake,” said the Doc, “point the gun away from me.”

“Yes, sir,” said Jake, obviously not really hearing what the Doc said. “Yes, sir. Yes sirree, sir, Bob, sir. Bring it on. Bring it on down, bring it on down the line, with a dosey doe, and a whoopty-do, bring it on home, yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes.”

“Jake,” said the the Doc, much louder, “point the fucking gun away from me.”

“Woops!” blubbered Jake, “Yes, sir.” He pointed the gun rigidly upward, his elbow against his gut. “Firearm safety! Firearm -- man-stopper! Colt .45. Gun that tamed the wild west. Don’t point it at a man unless, unless, unless -- oh shit. Oh shit, Doc, we gotta stop. We gotta stop, Doc.”

The Doc stopped the car.

“What is it, Jake?”

“Doc, this is real embarrassin’, real embarrassin’, but, but, I gotta, I gotta --”

“What? Take a shit?”

Jake pulsed up and down on his seat like an excited sea lion.

“Yeah,” he rasped. “I gotta go, Doc.”

“Here,” said the Doc. He took his little brown bottle out of his jacket pocket. “Take a couple swigs of this.”

“That gonna help?”

“It should. I only shit about every other day, myself.”

“Gimme it.”

Jake put his pistol on the dashboard, took the bottle, unscrewed the cap, took three good swigs and then sat back with his eyes closed.

The Doc lit up a smoke and gave Jake a minute.

Up ahead the motorcyclists still swirled around the stopped truck, their weapons flashed and popped into the night, like firecrackers, like guns.

The Doc looked over at Jake. The big man’s breathing had calmed, his eyes were closed, he was no longer streaming with sweat.

“How ya feelin’, Jake.”

Jake opened his eyes.

“Feelin’ good, Doc. Feelin’ good. Floatin’.”

“Give me that bottle before you spill it.”

Jake slowly held out the bottle and the cap, and the Doc took them and capped the bottle.

“Still gotta shit?”

“No,” said Jake. “No, I think I got my bowels under control now, Doc, thank ya.”

“Don’t mention it.” The Doc put the bottle away in his jacket and put the car in gear again. “All right, Jake, better grab your gun. It’s cowboy time.”

“That’s right, Doc. That’s right.”

Jake slowly picked his gun up off the dashboard and held it, pointing straight ahead, in both untrembling hands.

(Continued here. Stocking up already for next year’s stocking-stuffers? Be sure to buy some Town Called Disdain™ Action Figures, now marked down another 75%, exclusively at Kresges 5&10s. Cash only, all sales final.)

there's a light...

2012-01-26T06:18:00.000-08:00

this is the fifteenth

of a series of poems by nooshin azadi

derived from drawings by rhoda penmarq

.

there's a light
in the window
perhaps the faraway star is a window too!
who's standing there behind it?

does the light from a gun come from a window too?
will the one standing behind it shine like a faraway star too?

a light in a window
and a light in a heart
a faraway star always travels with me

with me

with me

how lonesome is the one
who's got no light in his heart!
how sad!

yeah, the faraway light
might be a window!
who's standing there behind it?
could it be you?

can you see the lightless hearts
invading the land?
can you hear the marching boots
chanting hand in hand?

i kept a light on
for you to come
but you didn't

you betrayed even the moon
who lit the road all night long
for you to come

you didn't come
but they did

the lightless hearts
are invading the land
i can hear them

soon they will come to me
soon they will

i should take the cat
and flee into the dark
i'll take no light with me
i'll take no light

a faraway star always travels with me

.

the fourteenth princess - chapter 3: the assignments

2012-01-25T08:16:00.000-08:00

by emily de villaincourt

illustrated by rhoda penmarq and konrad kraus

click here for previous chapter, here to begin at the beginning

miss prue reached under the table and produced two hats - a white top hat and a black homburg - and placed them in front of her.

the girls looked properly bewildered.

"are you going to pull rabbits out of them?" asked minette.

"oh, i like those!" nanette exclaimed. "can i have one of them ?"

"perhaps, when we are through," miss prue replied. "they may be a bit large for you. now, pay attention." she looked around. "each of the hats contains fourteen pieces of folded paper - very neatly and tightly folded paper, i might add - which will determine the content and style of the novel you are to write. the papers in the white hat describe the essence, or ethos of the novel you are to write - "

"excuse me, " ameline interrupted, "but what does that mean? essence? does it mean something like a pirate novel, or a vampire novel, or a locked room mystery-"

"oh, nothing so specific as that. for example, one of the essences is "violent" - you would write the most violent novel you can. another is "romantic" , another is "left wing" - "

ameline looked around to the other girls. "but that is ridiculous! what if i am not a violent person? or a left wing person?"

"these are the terms of the contest. i will explain more fully later and you can ask questions. may i proceed?"

"i want the romantic one!" at least two girls cried.

miss prue ignored this. "the black hat contains papers with the names of fourteen famous authors. your novel will be written in the style of the author you pick."

"oh, but what if we are not familiar with the author!"

"they are very well known authors. and you are supposed to be well read young ladies."

the girls fell silent.

"actually, the contest has shown some mercy in this regard - more than i might have myself. you will each be provided with the complete works - or at least a generous selection - of your author. your rooms will contain a library with these and other useful works such as the encyclopedia brittanica - "

"i hope it is the eleventh edition," exclaimed paulette, " or at least the fifteenth."

"i believe it is one of those, yes. also butler's lives of the saints, the golden treasury of palgrave, the historical essays of macaulay, and i am not sure what else -"

"the bible, perhaps?'"asked quinette, the smallest and most timid of the girls, who had not spoken before.

"yes, of course, the bible."

"and the bhagavad-gita?" asked paulette.

"yes, i believe we have sir edwin arnold's translation -"

"oh, bother this!" cried rosalind. "do let her go on, please!"

"sorry," paulette mumbled.

"where was i? why don't we just pull the papers? then you can ask questions. "

"what about the girl who isn't here?" dorine asked.

"she will get the two papers left over - obviously. we will start on my right, and go around the table. you can either come up and pick the papers yourself, or have me pick for you. ready?"

none of them answered. miss prue nodded to ameline, who stood up and picked a paper out of the white hat. she unfolded it. "feminist. cool." she stared at the piece of paper. "that means i get to write the most feminist book i can?"

"that's what it means,"

"i can live with that." she looked around. the others looked back or looked away, not sure what to think.

miss prue pushed the black hat toward her. "now pick your author."

"bulwer-lytton! " a few of the others laughed. "well - we'll see."

"next."

sabine was next. she came up and quickly snatched a paper from the white hat. "left-wing." she looked at miss prue. "so i write the most "left-wing" thing i can think of, and i don't get in trouble?"

"the terms of the contest is that you indeed write the most "left-wing" thing you can think of. "

"this is weird," said laurene. "i thought we would pick something like the seven deadly sins or something. like something you'd do in dance class."

miss prue ignored this. "pick your author," she told sabine.

"oh yeah." sabine took a paper from the black hat. "graham greene. whatever"

"next." victorine, the youngest girl, was next. she stayed in her seat. "go ahead and pick for me."

"very well." miss prue took a paper from each of the hats. "ridiculous." this got a big laugh all around. victorine blushed. "yes, " said miss prue, "that means you need only write the most ridiculous thing you can think of. and your author is - kafka. "

"that's not a bad pick," said dorine. "i wouldn't have minded getting it." victorine blushed again.

perky minette was next. she came up and picked "violent." "ohhh - but i am not a violent person! " she looked around for sympathy. "can i trade with somebody?"

"absolutely not. pick your author."

"samuel beckett." she looked blank. "samuel beckett." she went back to her seat.

nanette was next. "pick for me, please."

"patriachal."

"patriarchal! what the - i am not even sure what it means."

"look it up in the fifteenth edition of the encyclopedia brittanica ," drawled rosalind. she stood up, as her turn was next.

"and your author is proust," miss prue told nanette.

"proust. i need help here."

rosalind strode up to miss prue. she took a paper from the white hat. "anti-religious. huh. what religious am i to be anti?"

"that is for you to decide. let me say to all of you," said miss prue, "that some of these categories are indeed very broad. you will have to use your own judgment as to what is best meant by them."

"you mean to read the judges' minds," said ameline.

"if you want to put it that way," said miss prue. pick from the black hat, please," she
told rosalind.

"sir walter scott. " rosalind rolled her eyes, and returned to her seat.

"i believe scott was the oldest author in the list," said miss prue. "next."

little quinette was in the last seat on the right. "pick for me, please, miss."

"non-violent. and your author is stendhal."

"that's a pretty broad category," said dorine. "that's another pick i wouldn't mind."

"who are you, the roving commentator?" rosalind asked her. "is anybody asking for your opinions?

"i'll say whatever i please, thank you very much."

"ladies, ladies. we have been here less than twelve hours. no temperamental displays, please. let's get through this." miss prue looked down the left side of the table. "i think it will save time if i make the rest of the picks. do any of you feel she absolutely has to pick herself?'

"yes," said dorine, "i would like to pick for myself."

"very well. anybody else? no? good."

"and by the way." added dorine, "are there not any women authors in the list?"

"yes, i believe there are a couple."

"two out of what, fourteen? that's great."

"i'm sorry. i didn't draw up the list."

"i'm sorry too. let's get on with it."

"you are a rude little thing, miss. you are not getting off to a very good start."

"i said i was sorry."

miss prue stared at dorine for another two seconds. "all right, you down on the far left, you are - "

"florine."

"florine." miss prue took papers from the white and black hats. "right-wing."

"i - i'm not sure what that means."

"well, you will have a year to figure it out. and the author you will imitate is - gertrude stein."

florine just nodded.

"next - you are -"

"coraline, miss."

"your assignment is - "politically correct."

"oh, i know what that means." coraline made a rueful little face. "at least."

"good. and your author is - thomas mann."

"uh."

"moving right along."

"my name is paulette."

"paulette. you are the lucky one, paulette. you get "romantic"

"oh."

"you don't seem all that excited. your romantic novel will be done in the style of - balzac,"

"oh. thank you."

"now you, miss." miss prue looked at dorine sternly, then softened her expression. "you wish to pick for yourself."

"yes, i do." dorine rose and approached the head of the table. she stuck her hand in the white hat, fumbled around in it and pulled out a paper. she slowly unfolded it.

"religious." she looked at it. "that might be the broadest category of them all."

"indeed."

dorine stuck her hand deep in the black hat. "and my author is - george sand."

"ah. happy now?"

"i'm not sure happy is the word. but thank you." dorine returned to her seat, clutching her two pieces of paper.

"we are almost done. you, my dear - ". miss prue looked at laurene and took a paper from the white hat - have as your assignment - "romantic comedy"

"oh!" laurene clapped her hands. "you didn't say anything about romantic comedy! all right!"

"and your romantic comedy will be done in the style of - dickens."

"whatever. romantic comedy. ha, ha!"

"and finally - " miss prue turned to jolene at her left elbow, and took a paper from the white hat. " you get - banal."

"banal? you mean i am supposed to make the book as banal as possible and i will get credit for that?'"

"interpret it as you wish."

"and whose style am i to write my banal book in?"

miss prue opened a paper from the black hat. "flaubert"

"ah."

miss prue stuck the black homburg into the white top hat and placed them under the table at her feet. "now - i am sure you have questions." she looked down the table. "no?" no one spoke. now that the girls had their assignments, they all looked more bewildered than ever.

chapter 4: celine

the fourteenth princess - chapter 2: rules and regulations

2012-01-22T17:37:00.000-08:00

by emily de villaincourt

illustrated by rhoda penmarq and konrad kraus

to begin at the beginning, click here

it had grown completely dark outside. the girls - still only thirteen of them - looked expectantly at miss prue as the maids cleared the long table of the remains of the tea.

"very well," miss prue announced. "i suppose we can not wait for our wandering girl forever." she reached into a briefcase beside her chair and took out a slender notebook of ruled paper, filled with handwritten notes. she consulted it briefly. then she looked up and muggins was closing the library door behind herself and the other two maids.

"first off - before we get to the contest itself - a few words as to your daily routine. you will each have your own room, of course. you will each have a personal maid, and you will each have at least two guards on your room. any communication with myself, during most of the 24 hour day, will be through them. you will have no contact with each other - none - except at meal times. you will have an hour and a half for breakfast every morning at seven o'clock and two hours for dinner at six. now listen carefully, for this is most important. you can converse with each other at these times but not - not - about the contest or the novels you are writing for the contest. the guards - and sometimes myself - will be monitoring you at these times to make sure that you comply."

"may i ask a question?"

"certainly. you are - dorine, correct?"

"yes. wouldn't it be a bit more civilized to call these persons monitors, or teaching assistants or some such, instead of guards?"

"they are guards. we do not engage much in euphemism in this etablishment."

"i have a question." sabine, the sultriest of the girls, spoke for the first time.

"yes?"

"these guards, or whatever you call them - are they human?"

"oh yes."

"can we talk to them?"

"talk to them all you like - assuming they have any interest in anything you have to say."

"then are they female, male - "

"they are all female." miss prue smiled. "anticipating any further questions on this subject, you will not set eyes on a manfellow, or a boy person, under any circumstances whatsoever, the whole time you are here. "

"oh." sabine thought about this. "but suppose the place catches on fire?"

"excuse me?"

"if the buildings catch fire, might not some male firemen be sent to put the fire out?"

"a good question - showing imagination. i don't know exactly what the procedure would be in such a circumstance, but no - there will not be any male firemen."

"oh. just thought i'd ask."

"any more questions?"

paulette, the most serious of the girls, raised her hand. "yes, i have a question."

"which is?"

"what happens if we are caught talking about the contest - or violating any of the rules for that matter? are there punishments? what are they?"

"a very good question. i was just about to get to that. to say that you do not want to know what the punishments are - best just not to violate the rules." miss prue smiled.

"yes, that is all very well. i guess what i want to say is - how will the punishments affect the contest?"

"it is for you to decide how they may affect your progress. punishments will not disqualify you. as we discussed earlier, only death will remove you from the contest. and the judges will know nothing of your punishments or your time here. they will know nothing of you at all."

"thank you."

"here let me make a related point - one that i can not emphasize enough. i am not - i repeat not - one of the judges. i have no contact with the judges and do not know who they are. so to put it in plain language, there is nothing to be gained from sucking up to me on that account."

"oh," cried minette, the perkiest of the girls, "but that doesn't mean we can't be nice to you, does it? i mean, when we see you here at mealtimes."

"of course not. courtesy and good breeding are always welcome." miss prue looked at her notes. "here is a subject we have not broached yet - exercise."

"oh yes," cried nanette, the sauciest of the girls, "i am sure we all love exercise! are we to have any?"

"you can ask your guards at any time to take you out to walk on the grounds - providing no other girls are out walking at the time."

"how about riding? can we have horses - or ponies? riding is my favorite thing."

"absolutely not. no animals of any kind are permitted on the grounds."

"ohhh. not even cats or dogs?" nanette looked around at the other girls for support. "suppose we wander down to the kitchen? surely the cook will have a dog, or a nice little kitty to catch mice, will she not?"

"have you been listening? you will not be wandering down to the kitchen or anywhere else. i do not spend much time in the kitchen myself, but there are no dogs or cats there. i repeat, there are no animals on the grounds, not to ride away on, or anything else."

"well," said josette. "since we are on the subject of the kitchen - and since i guess i am to be the one asking such questions - can we get anything to eat or drink - anything at all - between breakfast and dinner ? " she looked around as if expecting laughter, but all the girls were looking at miss prue expectantly.

"you can ask the guards to get you something - it will be up to the cooks if they can spare anything."

"i guess that will have to do. thank you."

"any more questions?" miss prue paused.

"um. i have a question." rosalind, the tallest and haughtiest of the girls, spoke up. she had a high, twitty voice that made some of the others affect to wince. "these guardpersons - can they beat us?"

"why? do you expect to do something to deserve to be beaten?"

"i am just asking."

"if you break a rule, they will report it to me, and a punishment will be meted out. i hope that answers your question."

"but they can't just up and decide to beat us?"

"no"

"i'm so relieved."

no one else seemed to have a question. "very well then," said miss prue. "all in all, fairly intelligent questions. perhaps you really are a group of well bred young ladies after all. i hope so, as good breeding will help us all get through a long year.
none of you asked the reasons for the rules - it should be obvious, to prevent cliques and collusion. personally, i would have made the rules a bit stricter, but i didn't make them. now." she turned a page on her notebook. "to the business at hand - your individual assignments."

"individual assignments?" asked ameline. "you mean we are not all to have the same assignment?"

"oh, no, no."

"that hardly seems fair."

"fairness - fairness. fairness has nothing to do with anything here."

chapter 3: the assignments

the fourteenth princess - chapter 1: waiting

2012-01-21T15:08:00.000-08:00

by emily de villaincourt

illustrated by rhoda penmarq and konrad kraus

the girls were getting restless. they had all arrived hours ago - all except the fourteenth and last of them, and they had been sitting on stiff chairs at the long table in the library waiting for her. it began to grow dark, and one of the maids came in and silently lit some lamps.

"how much longer are we going to wait?", ameline, the oldest girl (by a few weeks) asked.

"a little longer," miss prue answered absently. she looked out the window again, at a tree that seemed to hold some fascination for her. then she looked down the table. although none of the girls had met before their arrival at the school, a great deal of whispering was going on.

"you haven't taken a vow of silence. and you can get up and move around so long as you stay here in the library. please, talk among yourselves as much as you like. chatter away like the silly little geese that you are."

some of the girls took miss prue at her word, and rose from the table. coraline and florine, the two prettiest girls, who had been conversing most amiably, got up and moved to the corner of the library nearest the door, hand in hand.

now the maid lit a large lamp behind the head of the table. the room grew perceptibly brighter. a few more girls rose from the table.

"when shall we get something to eat?" asked jolene, the largest and fattest of the girls. she looked straight ahead and stuck her nose in the air in response to the smirks, eye rollings and giggles of the others.

"you want something to eat? you only needed to ask." miss prue turned to the maid. "mudgins, bring a full tea, will you? for fifteen, in case the last girl shows up. finish what you are doing first."

"yes, miss prue. i am finished now." and mudgins left the room. all the girls returned hurriedly to their seats in anticipation of the feast, except coraline and florine, who continued to talk in the far corner. coraline whispered something, and florine laughed loudly, her laugh filling the otherwise silent room.

florine flushed slightly. with a last glance between them, coraline and florine returned to their seats.

dorine, the boldest of the girls, spoke up. "so - this person who has not shown up - it can not bode too well for her in the contest, eh?"

"the contest will proceed on its own terms," miss prue replied. "what happens before it actually begins should be of no import."

"but," dorine persisted, "what if she doesn't show up at all? it seems to me she would automatically be declared last in the contest, would she not?" she looked around the table. all the other girls without exception leaned forwardly eagerly, waiting for miss prue's response.

"she will be here. count on it." miss prue answered evenly. "even in the extremely unlikely event she were to be hit by lightning or meet some other accident - a replacement will be found. the contest will proceed on it's own terms - with fourteen contestants."

the girls expectant looks vanished, and they fell silent for about fifteen seconds. finally laurine, the most languid of the girls, asked "can i ask a question?"

"yes, that is what we are here for.'

"i was just wondering." laurine twisted a strand of her blond hair in her fingers. "i mean, i've been wondering - and maybe some of the others have been wondering too - "

"go on."

"i mean we are going to be here for a year, right? that's a long time and a lot of things can happen."

"indeed."

"so - what if anything happens to one of us?" laurine continued to twist her hair and looked around the room. "or two or three of us. what happens then?"

"what you mean is - what if you were to die? because no other excuse will be accepted for not finishing the contest."

"yes. i guess that's what i meant."

"this question has been anticipated, and considered, so listen carefully." miss prue paused. "once the contest has started, any deletion will be taken from the top, starting with second place, and move down. the first place prize will remain the same - and last place and its consequences. no matter how many places are eliminated, there will be a last place finisher. if only two remain, one will be first and one last. so consider - if any do drop out the chances of finishing first will increase - and the chance of finishing last."

"and if only one remains?" asked ameline.

"she will be considered to have finished last."

"and nobody will be crowned queen? how then will a queen be chosen?"

miss prue smiled. "that is no concern of yours - or mine."

"that hardly seems fair," dorine protested.

"the contest is about judgment, not fairness. in any case, the question could hardly be more hypothetical. as you could hardly be more protected. the full resources of a triumphant empire are here for you in the form of security and medical attention, and i fully expect us all to be here when the final results have been determined."

"how much longer are we to wait for our last contestant?"

"the tea will be here shortly. when you have finished stuffing your faces, if she is not here by then, i will consider proceeding without her."

the girls fell quiet again, except for coraline and florine, who continued whispering, but in lower tones. outside, the darkness deepened, and now the effect of the new lamps was to cast darker shadows behind them. they were all familiar - very familiar - with the basic premises of the situation they were in. they were all princesses, of various nations that had been conquered by the irresistible sargon xii. they had been brought to this school in a distant mountain fastness and would remain there for a year, while they engaged in a novel-writing contest. each would write a novel of a certain length and theme, and at the end of the year their efforts would be graded by a panel of judges, with whom they would have no contact and whose identities - and even whose numbers - they would remain ignorant of.

the winner would become queen to the conqueror sargon (whether "the" queen or "a" queen was not clearly specified). the five runners up would become the queen's ladies in waiting. the next two after that would become the queen's personal servants, and the next five after that the personal servants of the five ladies in waiting. this would leave the last place finisher. on the morning of the royal wedding, the last place finisher would be led into an arena, in front of the hordes assembled for the ceremony. there she would be ravished by a succession of beast-men specially bred for the occasion. when they were through with her, her body, dead or alive, would be burnt at the stake.

the door opened, and muggins and two other maids entered with trays laden with tea and coffee, cakes, scones, muffins and jam, and other delicacies.

chapter 2: rules and regulations

“A Town Called Disdain”, Episode 111: trapped

2012-01-20T14:47:00.000-08:00

Our author Larry Winchester, that master of montage, now cuts back to the sculptress/café proprietor Enid and the plucky young Hope Johnstone in a '54 Dodge flatbed truck with their prisoner Moloch, surrounded by his uncouth biker gang the Motorpsychos, on a night in September, 1969, on a desert road some several miles from a town called Disdain...

(Click here to review our previous chapter. This episode rated NC-17, for excessive violence to the English language.)

All four of the truck’s tires had been shot out by the Motorpsychos who now gleefully circled around it, yelping and screeching and ululating, firing their weapons into the air, popping wheelies, and generally behaving just as one would expect.

It was still a long way from town, stark starlit desert all around. Off to the right hulked Dead Horse Mesa, a once popular spot to sit and watch the atomic bomb tests. The crescent-shaped depression of the atomic sinkhole below it spread out to about a hundred yards from the base of the mesa.

“Turn off the ignition, Hope,” said Enid. She still held the .45 firmly against Moloch’s left temple.

Moloch smiled, another pallid greenish glob of drool sliding from his mouth into his chin whiskers. Unlike the vast majority of Englishmen, he had once had a fine full set of pearly strong teeth, but, alas, several years of a complete eschewal of oral hygiene allied with round-the-clock ingestion of crystal methamphetamine, marijuana and hashish -- not to mention dozens of blows to the mouth from fists, baseball bats, night-sticks and monkey-wrenches -- had all combined to make his smile ungodly revolting. Moloch was well aware of this and indeed he quite often used his ghastly rictus as a psychological and emotional weapon, but this smile now was a genuine response to the real joy he felt at the awful noise and spectacle his men were making, a kind of joy he had whilom known only in great symphony halls or alone in his study with his gramophone, tears rolling down his cheeks as he listened to, perhaps, Kirsten Flagstad’s rendition of Brünnhilde's immolation scene.

Indeed his present situation filled him with an intense love of life, so much more intense than anything he had allegedly felt in his previous life of dedication to philosophy and music and literature, to family life and healthful walks across beautiful moors armed only with a thermos of sweet milky Earl Grey tea, a few slices of white toast, and a limp leather volume of Mallarmé.

What a fool he had been.

This, this, all this was so much richer than any so-called work of art!

He turned, still smiling, to face Enid, her gun’s snout now pressed between his eyes. He began to sing, softly, raspily, but in pitch and not without talent (had he not been in the buggery choir at Eton, the poncey Rupert Brooke Memorial Glee Club at Oxford?). The melody was slightly adapted from Radamés’s invocation to the god at the end of Act Two of Verdi’s Aïda:

We are going to rape you
We are going to rape you
You and your little friend
You and your little twitty friend

Then we are going to kill you
Then we are going to kill you
In a rather savage way
You, you and your little bitty twitty friend

Enid couldn’t help it, and just as Moloch was beginning another verse she quickly swung the .45 back across her left shoulder and then slammed the butt hard into his nose with a satisfying crunch.

He slumped down, out cold, mirrored shades sliding off his face, blood streaming from the jagged gash on what had been his nose, a bubbly purring sound coming out of his slackened mouth.

“What do we do now, Enid?” asked Hope.

Enid had the .45 aimed at Moloch’s head. She was watching the blood pouring out of his nose. She took Moloch’s Webley revolver out of her waistband and held it out to Hope.

“Know how to use this?”

“Sure do,” said Hope, briefly lapsing into a southwestern accent. She took the gun. “Should we start shooting them?”

“No --” said Enid, “not yet. Light me a cigarette, will you?”

She reached into her jacket pocket with her left hand, took out her cigarette case and popped it open. Hope took out a cigarette, lit it with her own lighter, and then put the cigarette between Enid’s lips. The Motorpsychos still circled the truck, screaming and shouting and firing their guns into the night. In their excitement they didn’t seem to have noticed that Enid had walloped and knocked out their leader. Hope took out her own Mexican silver cigarette case and got herself a pastel blue Vanity Fair.

(Continued here. Be sure to take advantage of our post-Christmas Town Called Disdain™ Action Figures Sale Event, all items marked down another 55%, exclusively at Ross "Dress For Less". All action figures made of the highest quality imported Chinese plastic and tested for lead and several other toxins.)

l'amour, part 10

2012-01-20T09:34:00.000-08:00

by gabrielle-jeanette perfidy

illustrated by rhoda penmarq

part ten of seventy-eight

to begin at the beginning, click here

part 11

tales of the hotel st crispian, chapter 43: "Mortimer's theory"

2012-01-19T03:19:00.000-08:00

by Horace P. Sternwall

edited by Dan Leo*

illustrated by rhoda penmarq

*Associate Professor of Classics and Ancient History; Assistant Volleyball Coach, Olney Community College; editor of Say Hi to All the Gang: Collected Letters of Horace P. Sternwall, Vol.4 (1946-1950); Olney Community College Press, “The Sternwall Papers”.

Mortimer knew that people looked down on him.

He knew people looked down on him because he was an elevator operator.

A forty-two-year-old elevator operator.

A forty-two-year-old elevator operator who lived with his mother in a third-floor walk-up apartment down at Bleecker and the Bowery.

But Mortimer didn’t care what people thought about him. He didn’t care because he loved his job and he loved his life.

What more could a guy ask for?

Who needed a wife, or a girl friend? Mortimer had his mom to do his laundry and darn his socks for him. Not that Mortimer had anything against dames, mind you. Wasn’t his own mother a dame? And Mortimer’s mother was a saint, bringing up her seven children all alone after Mortimer’s poor overworked dad dropped dead in the rendering vat at the hot dog factory.

And now after all these years Mortimer’s brothers and sisters had all moved out and finally he had the old apartment just to himself and his mom. He would come home from work, and day or night his mom would make him a cup of hot Chase & Sanborn coffee and they would sit and listen to the radio while Mortimer read the sports pages.

Mortimer had lived his entire life in this building, in this neighborhood, and when at the age of sixteen he had first applied for the trainee elevator operator’s job at the Hotel St Crispian he had never ventured farther south than the Battery, nor farther north than the southern edge of the Central Park reservoir. He had never crossed either the Hudson nor the East Rivers. He had never been on the Staten Island Ferry, nor had he ever gone out to see the Statue of Liberty up close.

for complete episode, click here

l'amour, part 9

2012-01-15T14:35:00.000-08:00

by gabrielle-jeanette perfidy

illustrated by rhoda penmarq

part nine of seventy-eight

to begin at the beginning, click here

part 10

l'amour, part 8

2012-01-13T05:32:00.000-08:00

by gabrielle-jeanette perfidy

illustrated by rhoda penmarq

part eight of seventy-eight

to begin at the beginning, click here

part 9

"A Town Called Disdain", Episode 110: ascared

2012-01-12T15:02:00.000-08:00

Our legendary author Larry Winchester now leaves the tortured mind of Testicle (see our previous chapter) and turns his attention back to the rancher Big Jake Johnstone, to the town physician Doc Goldwasser, and to the two Parsons kids, Cleb and Attie, on this fateful night in September, 1969, somewhere in the desert outside a town called Disdain...

Attie and Cleb hauled their bikes and themselves into the back of Big Jake’s Coupe de Ville, and Big Jake started out toward where the two headlights had disappeared into the blackness below the mesa.

“How’s your headache, Doc?”

“It’s better,” said the Doc.

“That laudanum really works, huh? Y’know, I was wonderin’, maybe you could get me a script just for like when I drunk too much tequila the night before, and, shit --”

It was a gunshot, coming from the right out there across the desert from that mass of headlights now seemingly headed straight toward the mesa as well. Then came another shot and then a ragged volley, and the mass of lights came to a stop. Or rather the crowd of lights stopped and circled round and round in a circle around two stationary lights, perhaps a mile from Jake’s car. And then came another volley of gunshots.
Big Jake slammed on the brakes next to a big dead barrel cactus.

“Whut in goddam hell.”

A burst of machine-gun fire ripped through the night air.

“Shit and goddam,” he said. “We better get outa here, pronto.”

Big Jake was looking at the Doc but the Doc just sat there smoking an Old Gold.

“Let’s go see what it is,” said Cleb.

“You crazy, boy?” asked Jake. “That’s shootin’ goin’ on there.”

“You ascared?” asked Cleb.

“Hell no I ain’t scared,” said Jake, twisting around in his seat, “it’s just, it’s just --”

“You’re ascared,” said Cleb, and Attie gave him a little nudge with her elbow.

“Kill the lights, Jake,” said the Doc.

“Good idea,” said Jake, and he switched off the headlights.

“All right,” said the Doc, “now you two kids get out of the car, with your bikes, and Mr. Johnstone and I are going to drive up just a little closer so we can see what the hell’s going on.”

“Hell, no!” said Cleb.

“Get the hell out of the car, Cleb,” said the Doc.

“Make me!”

“Cleb,” said Attie, “don’t sass the Doc. Now get out of the car.”

“Damn!” said Cleb. “You don’t let me do nothin’.”

“Get out before I punch you.”

“Uh, Doc,” said Jake.

“Yeah, Jake?”

Cleb and Attie were getting out of the car with their bikes, Cleb on Jake’s side, Attie on the other.

“Um,” said Jake, “doncha think it’s maybe best we drive the kids home?”

“You kids wait near that dead cactus,” said the Doc. “We’re not back in five minutes, cycle back into town and tell the sheriff.”

“Now wait a dang minute,” said Jake.

“You really are yella, mister,” said Cleb, and he slammed the back door.

“Yella?” said Jake. "I’ll show ya who’s yella. Look what I got, kid. This here’s why I ain’t ascared.”

Jake pulled his hand-engraved pearl-handled Colt New Service out of his shoulder holster and attempted to twirl it but it flew against the dashboard and clunked down into the footspace.

“Ha,” said Cleb, and Attie put her hand over her mouth.

The Doc stared coldly at Big Jake.

“Huh, slipped out my hand, hand’s a little stiff from this night air,” mumbled Jake, reaching down over his gut and scrabbling for the gun.

“Is that thing loaded?” asked the Doc.

“Wouldn’t carry it, it weren’t, Doc,” puffed Jake.

“Then do me a favor, don’t twirl it when I’m around.”

“Sure thing, Doc.”

Jake finally brought the pistol up. He was a little out of breath from bending over.

“You’re ascared,” said Cleb.

“Ascared am I?”

All bug-eyed in the starlight, Jake squirmed around, looking at Cleb, then over at Attie, then at the Doc. Sweat glistened on Big Jake’s face.

“Okay, then,” he said. “Let’s just go take a look-see!”

And then he just sat there, holding his pistol in both hands and breathing heavy.

Another volley of shots clattered through the night from the direction of that pack of circling lights across the desert, and Jake’s massive shoulders flinched and hunched together.

“Whatcha waitin’ for then?” asked Cleb.

“Nothin’,” said Big Jake, and he put the pistol away, missing once or twice as he tried to get the long barrel of the gun into its holster. “Absolutely nothin’. We’ll just go a little closer, right, Doc? Just for a look-see. I got a pair of Kraut field-glasses in the glove compartment, an’ we can do a little reconnoiterin’.”

“All right, Jake,” said the Doc, and he flicked his cigarette out into the desert.

(Continued here. Be sure to collect every single Town Called Disdain™ action figure, now marked down drastically and on sale exclusively at your local K-Mart. High-quality plastic model of Big Jake’s 1969 red Coupe de Ville convertible available free when you purchase the complete set. Offer void where restricted.)

l'amour, part 7

2012-01-12T05:32:00.000-08:00

by gabrielle-jeanette perfidy

illustrated by rhoda penmarq

part seven of seventy-eight

to begin at the beginning, click here

part 8

l'amour, part 6

2012-01-11T08:47:00.000-08:00

by gabrielle-jeanette perfidy

illustrated by rhoda penmarq

part six of seventy-eight

to begin at the beginning, click here

part 7

tales of the hotel st crispian, chapter 42: enter flossie

2012-01-09T18:20:00.000-08:00

by horace p sternwall

illustrated by konrad kraus and roy dismas

artistic supervisor: rhoda penmarq

for complete episode, click here

l'amour, part 5

2012-01-06T06:09:00.000-08:00

by gabrielle-jeanette perfidy

illustrated by rhoda penmarq

part five of seventy-eight

to begin at the beginning, click here

"perhaps your little friend would like to visit? invite her to dinner, if you like."

"why do you say 'my little friend' ?
you have never met her or seen her. she might look like a polar bear for all you know."

"it is just an expression. good heavens, celeste, must you always be such a little bluestocking?"

"but you are the world famous author, aunt. i would think you would care to use words in a precise manner."

part 6

“A Town Called Disdain”, Episode 109: Testicle

2012-01-05T21:51:00.000-08:00

Our author Larry Winchester leaves for the nonce our primary band of heroes in their unpleasant scene in the flying saucer, and returns to planet Earth and to another bad scene:

Enid and Hope have taken the Motorpsychos’ leader Moloch prisoner, and are barreling along in Enid’s '54 Dodge truck on a dark desert road accompanied by Moloch’s hog-riding band of cutthroats, five or six miles from A Town Called Disdain...

(This episode rated NC-17, for excessively purple prose.)

Testicle wanted to do something for his lord and master.

It was not right that Moloch should be held prisoner by that bitch in her truck, that bitch and her little, her little oh-so-fucking delicate sub-bitch. No, Moloch should be free and wild with his men -- with Testicle -- on his glistening mighty black Black Shadow. (And was not this fierce brave romping leaping roaring black Black Shadow kept black and glistening by none other than bold Testicle himself? He loved to do things for his lord, as much as he knew deep down inside how little, indeed how less than little, his lord cared for him.)

How dare those bitches! And where were they now riding but inexorably toward that benighted flyspot Disdain, where doubtless the Queen Bitch would turn Moloch over to that fat pig Sheriff Dooley. Who would at the very least lock up Moloch -- perhaps he would even shoot him; hadn’t he said he would shoot Moloch if Moloch showed his ravaged but noble face in Disdain again? Well, all right, Dooley probably wouldn’t shoot Moloch. But he would lock him up. Him! He! Moloch! Locked up in some backwater jail cell! Never! Testicle could not bear the thought -- unless, unless, perhaps, perhaps, he, Testicle, were himself to be locked up with Moloch, in the same cell…

Testicle had allowed himself to long for something. Something precious: Moloch’s callused fingers touching tenderly Testicle’s pocked and scarry face and dipping into the oily and wiry filthy bush of Testicle’s beard, making an opening in the bush around Testicle’s dead-wormlike chapped lips so that Moloch could bring his own scarred thin cruel lips, puckering like some dry hungry flower, to Testicle’s: such were Testicle’s dreams of love, or at least some of them. There were others, featuring bold and merciless manly buggering and lusty firm-gripping fellatio, but his mind durst not go there now, lest he perhaps lose control of his hog and wind up breaking his bullish neck.

And so as he roared alongside the hated truck through the desert night Testicle wondered: what should he do? He was used to having Moloch tell him what to do, especially when on a “run”. While out on a run Testicle would literally dare not even stop to defecate without Moloch’s permission.

Agonizedly he gazed at his captive lord’s head in the window of the truck. If only Testicle could read his thoughts!

But then Moloch’s head turned, his mirrored shades seemed to look at him, at Testicle!

Testicle could feel Moloch’s one good eye looking into his eyes. And then that ravaged noble visage lowered ever so slightly, and it, he, Moloch, seemed to be looking down and ahead, in the direction of the right front wheel. And then that oft-broken aquiline nose rose and turned again to point directly at Testicle, and its nostrils flared once and briefly.

Testicle’s heart swelled. His lord had spoken. And commanded.

Testicle raised his sawed-off full-automatic Remington 7188 shotgun in one hand, drawing his bike closer to the truck, so close to the steely mirrored gaze of Moloch that he could feel his gaze pressing warmly against him.

Testicle aimed. And squeezed the trigger.

And the report of the gun was one with the complete and pure explosion of the right front wheel of that Queen Bitch’s fucking truck.

Joy!

(Ecstatically continued here; third-place prize-winner of the L. Ron Hubbard Award for Religious Fiction.)

l'amour, part 4

2012-01-05T10:52:00.000-08:00

by gabrielle-jeanette perfidy

illustrated by rhoda penmarq

part four of seventy-eight

to begin at the beginning, click here

part 5

Observable Phenomena

2012-01-04T20:09:00.000-08:00

Jesse S. Mitchell

The alterations of faith, murmuring their parts,
Locked quarantine inside each vacant chest,
Loudest when boastful but when humble they
Beat best.
They beat best.

‘Science is what makes this earth my playground, my friend.
Iodine, quinine as toxic as strychnine’
‘But not half as much fun…’
‘So thin, my God you have become so damned thin.’
‘Mars is in retrograde, guess you know what that means?’
‘Venus in the ascent?’
‘I’ll have to draw out your chart.’

I have hyenas and hyphens, old hymns hidden under my skin
Masquerading as bones, tendons and bones,
Laughing laughing bones…
Lithium in my veins, pale.

This jaguar walks down the streets of London,
Cheek full of betel nut and coca leaf.
By Darwinian increments becoming more and more human
(don’t you know me by my spots?)
I come from far away, far away from far flung flaming sun planet earth,
Planet earth,
But this is where I shall pursue thee through these alien fields of happiness.

The alterations of faith, murmuring their parts,
Locked quarantine inside each vacant chest,
Loudest when boastful but when humble they
Beat best.
It beats best.

l'amour, part 3

2012-01-04T10:35:00.000-08:00

by gabrielle-jeanette perfidy

illustrated by rhoda penmarq

part three of seventy-eight

to begin at the beginning, click here

part 4

variations on a theme

2012-01-04T03:56:00.000-08:00

by horace p sternwall

illustrations by roy dismas

the first stanza is from an ozark folk song, "the hound dog song".

it was used as the campaign song of vice-presidential candidate champ clark in 1912.

for one set of complete lyrics, see here

every time i go to town
the boys keep kicking my dog around
even though he's just a hound
they got to stop kicking my dog around

every time i go to school
the teacher beats me with her rule
even though i'm just a fool
she's got to stop beating me with her rule

every time i go to sadie's
i get disrespected by the ladies
even though i may have rabies
i shouldn't get dumped on by those ladies

when i go down to the general store
pappy greets me with a snore
even though i'm just a bore
he ought to be too polite to snore

every time my birthday comes
i get myself a big steel drum
even though i'm just a bum
they got to listen when i beat my drum

every time i fall down drunk
i hit the sidewalk with a clunk
even though i'm not a monk
it feels much better when i'm drunk

l'amour, part 2

2012-01-02T14:39:00.000-08:00

by gabrielle-jeanette perfidy

illustrated by rhoda penmarq

part two of seventy-eight

to begin at the beginning, click here

part 3

tales of the hotel st crispian, chapter 41: "room 603"

2012-01-02T03:12:00.000-08:00

by Horace P. Sternwall

edited by Dan Leo*

illustrated by konrad kraus

artistic supervisor: rhoda penmarq

*Ass’t Professor of Classics and Television Studies, Olney Community College; editor of Hail the Conquering Loser: Previously Uncollected Stories of Horace P. Sternwall, Vol.3 (1946-1950); Olney Community College Press, “The Sternwall Project”.

for complete episode, click here

ode to the new year and dame fortune

2011-12-31T07:58:00.000-08:00

by horace p sternwall

illustrated by rhoda penmarq

a very very early effusion from horace p sternwall

brothers, let us play the role
of boon companions - raise a bowl
to the continuing success
of finding dame fortune's address

and in the dame's abundant arms
peaceful in her copious charms
in memory we will turn the page
to these bohemian bardic days

and if this prophecy be false
and the future prove no tranquil waltz
and all our days a baneful blight
let us remember yet this night

when in this golden glow of rum
how could our kingdom not but come
and ought but glory come to pass
- waiter, bring another glass!

l'amour, part 1

2011-12-30T03:46:00.000-08:00

by gabrielle-jeanette perfidy

illustrated by rhoda penmarq

part one of seventy-eight

part 2

“A Town Called Disdain”, Episode 108: bad scene

2011-12-29T13:33:00.000-08:00

After a brief foray (see last week's episode) on planet Earth, Larry Winchester now returns to our heroes in their hijacked flying saucer, and to the inimitable voice of that charming rogue Dick Ridpath.

(Click here to return to the very beginning of our serial. This episode rated NC-17, for excessive violence to the English language.)

Things got very confused at this point.

The problem was that Daphne couldn’t get her seat belt on. She always has problems with seat belts. Don’t ask me why. I’m sure it didn’t help her nerves that there was this high-pitched screeching noise going on. But, anyway, I can see she’s getting more and more pissed off and frustrated, so, you know me, always the gentleman, I unbuckle my belt and reach over to try to help her when all of a sudden Frank jumps over and wham! he rabbit-punches me right behind the ear, I fall into Daphne’s lap, and then in a flash Frank grabs Daphne’s little gold lamé purse which was lying on the ledge in front of her, he rips it open, takes out the little .38 and presses it against the side of her head.

I know, I know, I fucked up, and believe me I felt like God’s own asshole. What can I say? You have to remember that we were still tripping on that peyote we’d taken earlier that evening, plus of course I had probably had one martini too many, but, no excuse, I fucked up.

So I stand up straight, a little wobbly, Mac and Buddy are still busy at the controls, navigating us out of one dimension and into another, Brad’s just sitting there bug-eyed, I don’t know what Harvey’s doing, with this ungodly screeching science fiction sound getting louder and louder, and over it Frank shouts something dramatic like, “Okay, Mac, now turn this crate around or I introduce some lead into the lovely Mrs. Ridpath’s brain.”

“Well fuck you, mister,” snaps Daphne, turning around so that the pistol’s pointing right in her face.

“No, excuse me, bitch,” says Frank. “Fuck you.”

“Oh!” says Daphne, and she turns to me. “Dick, kill him.”

“Um, excuse me again,” says Frank, “you dizzy fucking broad, perhaps you have not noticed it is I who have got the fucking gat --”

Then, well, my wife has a temper.

She suddenly just whacks at Frank’s gun-hand with her hand, and as she does the gun goes off, I hear a grunt, I turn, and there’s Mac holding the side of his gut with blood streaming through his fingers, and I hear Frank say, “Oh shit,” and then Mac says, “You’re saying oh shit,” and then Frank’s pointing the gun at Buddy and yelling, “Turn this fucker back, Buddy!” and Buddy says, “Okay, Frank, okay, stay calm,” and he presses a button and then wham.

Wham.

Frank starts floating. I start floating. We’re in free fall. Daphne’s rising up in her seat but she’s holding onto her armrests, and Frank’s in mid-air thrashing his arms and legs and yelling, “Buddy, you fucker!” and I’ve got two damn guns on me, my Browning in my jacket pocket and this .38 Chief’s Special I’d taken off of Henry Silva in my waistband, and I’m trying to grab one or the other of them, but I’m spinning in the air like a drunken acrobat and the guns are flying away from me and all this blood is floating in these scarlet globules all around Mr. MacNamara and then through all the blood I see Buddy, who’s strapped into his chair, he’s got a .45 out from inside his coveralls and he’s snapping the slide back and aiming the gun at Frank and then Frank’s gun goes off again and Buddy gets hit in the lung, but he fires too and as I cartwheel around again I see that Frank’s been hit in the chest and he’s spinning back head over heels pouring out blood as Buddy empties his clip at him and now there’s just blood swirling around everywhere in red clouds and streams as if we were in a big aquarium and someone had just dumped a couple of buckets of red paint into it and then, well, I suppose it was then that we passed through this wall between the two dimensions.

I’d been conked out the first time we went through it, and so except for a few very weird dreams I had been blissfully oblivious on account of having been shot a couple of times by Grupler and Marlene, but now I was awake, and it was -- well -- difficult to put into words really -- like describing an orgasm or an acid trip or something of that nature.

Physically I felt as if my insides were rushing out of me through my head, through my ears and nose and mouth, through my eyes.

Mentally it was, well…

As you know, earlier that night while shaking hands with the Sailor Spaceman I’d had this instantaneous rush of memory, of everything I’d ever experienced from the womb on -- but now it was like I was experiencing practically everything anyone had experienced back through the whole history of man. Every life that had contributed to my life, all my ancestors, living all their lives in reverse, like some awful epic cinéma verité movie run backwards, I saw, I was, I don’t know, a caveman, thousands of years of cavemen, and before that some kind of ape man and so on back and back till I was something slithering out of the ocean -- or actually I was slithering back into the ocean -- and then I was something in the ocean and then back, and finally I was some kind of protozoa I suppose, if that’s what they’re called, and then it was just a bright light for a long time, a very long time, and then it was darkness, just darkness and silence, again, but, once again, oddly enough, I wasn’t afraid.

It keeps coming back to this empty black silence business, doesn’t it? The thing we’re all afraid of. Well, one of the things we’re afraid of. But, again, I wasn’t afraid. I was just there. Back in the old black hole again. But I don’t think I’ve quite described it properly. It was...damn it, I’m no writer, what do I mean? Well -- everything was nothing and I was nothing and everything. And this seemed to be an eternity. I mean I, it, everything and nothing was, were, is beyond time. It all just was. Neither good nor bad, it just was…

Well, whatever.

Okay, to cut it short, all good things must come to an end I suppose because suddenly, an eternity later, I was aware of a light, or I was the light, and then, well, the whole deal started up again but this time in the forward direction, I was the beginning of creation and everything that followed, flying forward through all of history, through the whole damn thing all over again.

And, well, I know Daphne’s going to jump all over me here but through all this it seemed I became aware of something, some sort of profound revelation or epiphany, but unfortunately it was like one of those profound revelations that happen in dreams. When you wake up it’s gone. You know you’ve had it, but you don’t have it now. Oh well. That’s life.

(Continued here. Soon to be a major motion picture event from AIP, starring John Saxon and Anjanette Comer, produced and directed by Larry Winchester; screenplay by Larry Winchester and Horace P. Sternwall.)

<•>

2011-12-27T17:56:00.000-08:00

by nooshin azadi

illustration by rhoda penmarq

.

a ladder leaning against an apple tree
bombs plowing the fields
a pretty pebble plunges into a pond

the moon hiding behind the clouds
fingers moving on braille notes
a crow drinks water from a creek

they hardly speak to anyone
anyone hardly listens to them

a creek kissing a crow
braille notes crawling beneath fingers
clouds rub their faces against the moon's

a pond meeting a pretty pebble
fields blooming into bombs
an apple tree leans on a ladder

.

Fall with Colour

2011-12-27T07:45:00.000-08:00

by peter greene

illustrations by rhoda penmarq

FALL WITH COLOUR

i love the crisp whiskey crackle love the
empty space so far filled with waves of wind, it is time for
centipedes to die and tiny things to curl like seeds below the soil it is time for
final toil: racking chest-heaves, the bringing in of squash and last rot tomatoes - of
apples in the basement, some seeping and others

openly weeping but so many hard and still as stones and
as silent pursed around their bitter seeds of twigs and a sad violent circle of feathers where that
big orange tom made to dance with a robin (he danced with my cat and she was all
holes around her big calico sweater neck:
Alice never loses, but age is in her teeth and in the
sometime stumble
since her stroke -

she doesn't get stuck-wink any more, but blood bloomed brown in one green shining
and for a while she was a kitten again, mewing even
now she is a season older and
maybe sometimes she loses. I am losing
time every day - how to keep up! I am assumed to be preparing this mortal volume for the
forensic apparatchik of publishers, supposed to be polishing
my own teeth - but there again is that
quiet cry

a few sharp grey hairs in brown have become
a veritable dust-storm up above; loss, and the thinning not confined to hair (or mind)
skin and tendon have quit their strength, put down quickness and begun the tremulous process of
old age: i walked past a leaf, red-green maple on wet dirt and remembered a truth:
in death, maximize both time (by twisting and turning, no other way through the wind but)
and display: with colour, lad, with colour.

2011.
©Peter A. Greene 2011.

tales of the hotel st crispian, chapter 40: the cabbie's tale

2011-12-24T02:16:00.000-08:00

by manfred skyline and horace p sternwall

illustrated by roy dismas and rhoda penmarq

for complete episode, click here