by Duncan Shields | Oct 16, 2014 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
I’m 43. A year on Carroway is fifty-six earth years long. Its long, lazy, almost-circular orbit kept it temperate for that whole time but the ecosystem had evolved to create 126 distinct ‘seasons’. I’d read of Earth’s four seasons of summer, winter, spring and fall repeating every twelve months. Sounded monotonous.
I’ve lived my whole life here on Carroway and I haven’t seen a single season twice. They’ve all been recorded so it’s possible to read up and prepare for them as they happen but I’ve been faced with challenge after challenge.
There’s crystal season when the mineral deposits go through a growth spurt and push up out of the earth like translucent horns. There’s a season of trees that grow up into the lower atmosphere. They stand with smooth bark, silent and ominous until they start humming. Their vibrating roots fissure open the ground and release the grass fog season. Then the trees themselves flower, blotting out the sun. Then there is a pollenfall season as the skyscraper trees die and the sun returns, shining down through their now-nude branch clusters.
The trees become soft and unstable, sinking back down to the ground like wilted celery. It’s a dangerous time. Luckily the trees bow slowly.
There aren’t many animals here except for the season when the kangabears come out of hibernation for six months and gorge themselves on the fallen skyscraper trees before going back to sleep for another fifty-six years.
There’s a season where the planet hums. The theory is that a deep-earth tectonic shift happens, making the core rub the mantle harder than usual. Like a planet headache. You get used to it until the earthquake stops it. After that, the planet feels too silent for a while.
The magnetosphere and dust particles cause shifts in the sky colour depending on what season just happened. I’ve seen eighteen different hues up there. There’s ashfall here after the post-humming eruptions. Then pigments in the ash-eating bacteria turn it all into a blue slime that dissipates until the pink grass shows up to eat the slime, turning itself blue in the process.
There’s a red snow season. There’s a season of thorned tumbleweeds. There’s a season of long, thin raindrops that hang down from the clouds like hair. Soon the season of ivy migration begins. And then the flowerworks seed pod explosion festival.
There’s a plant based war happening here that’s been going on for millions of year. It’s found a cycle. Each victor dying and feeding the next. Each challenger inadvertently existing as part of a larger circle.
Some people can’t handle the variety here but I love it.
Thirteen more years and I’ll have seen all the seasons Carroway has to offer. Not too many people in the universe can claim that, especially a human like myself with a relatively short life span. I wear that badge with honour.
Every Carroway meal I’ve had has only been for a few months, never to be seen again. I think back to the pink pricklepears I had when I was six. The thick leafsteaks I had when I was ten. The delicious brandyberries that showed up on my twenty-second birthday. So many tastes.
I’ve recorded them all here in my books. I’m the first human to keep a firsthand record of all the seasons here on Carroway.
Some cycles don’t seem like cycles because they last such a long time.
I’m looking forward to the end of the ‘year’.
by submission | Oct 15, 2014 | Story |
Author : P. Djeli Clark
An extra-dimensional portal has opened up in my grocer’s freezer.
Not a giant portal, that might send out shaggy mammoth blue beetles with a thousand legs–like what happened to poor Doyle McDonald out at the granary (no one’s still quite certain where that beetle’s gone, though pets and livestock are still disappearing from time to time).
Neither was it one of those floating portals that sometimes flitter about as giant translucent globules, sucking in everything they touch. Last month one of them floated down and swallowed up the PS 19 elementary school bus on a field trip to the strawberry patch. The bus showed up way out on route 75 near Occom’s Crossing at precisely 11:16 PM the following Tuesday (which is where and when all such things swallowed up by the giant globules always make their reappearance). But of course all the elementary kids are now middle-aged and speak only some language the government linguists (who seem overly excited at the whole affair) say is a dead Aluet dialect.
No, the extra-dimensional portal that opened in my grocer’s freezer was none of these things. It was small, tiny enough to be lodged between a box of Klondikes and the last pint of rum-raisin gelato, a perfect shade of cerulean blue that swirled and churned like an ocean.
As I stared at it, momentarily forgetting my need for late-night snacks of cold creamy sweets and ignoring a bored teller’s last calls for items that broke through the muzak adaptation of Barry Manilow’s Mandy, I knew two things. One, this seemingly small extra-dimensional portal was not really small at all. Oh it may have looked so from this end, but I knew without knowing how I knew, that it was unbelievably vast–vast enough to swallow the grocer, our town, perhaps the world. And two, what ever lay on the other side, there was a nagging familiarity, a yearning and comfort that made me long for it in a way that only one word would describe – home.
by Julian Miles | Oct 14, 2014 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Ten o’clock. Eight o’ clock. Nine. Left. Four. Tang dynasty.”
The wavelength goes to static and I roll off the bed, lean back to kiss Tamara, then carry my clothes out of the bedroom and dress in the lounge. My daughter, Sarah, is a light sleeper and if she wakes, Samson will too. My son may be only three, but I would back him in a noise-making contest against an F18 on takeoff.
Fifteen minutes later I’m on the road. The Landie may not be comfortable, but it can get to any place I need to go.
As ten o’clock arrives, I’m four miles down the first left turn that’s nine miles from my house in a vaguely south-westerly direction. I say vaguely because clock direction does not correspond exactly to compass points, and that’s the whole idea. Tonight, I am parked in a ploughed field, wet mud sucking so I am driving in slow circles to stop the Landie sinking beyond its own power to escape.
With a searing flash, the field has another occupant. It strolls over to the Landie and I wind down the passenger window.
“How old is the vase?” The check-in question.
“Tang dynasty.” I give the response that was given to me and it nods before opening the door and getting in. Something squeaks against the leather seats.
“Destination?”
It pauses, as if consulting an unseen guide.
“Taunton. Before dawn.”
Twenty minutes later I park at a service station and we transfer to a Maserati Quattroporte. All terrain capability is essential, but fast point to point is beyond the Landie.
As we accelerate, it looks about at the interior.
“The artisans of this are to be cherished.”
I nod. Every time I use this car, my passengers pass impressed comment.
Taunton at the cusp of dawn is ghostly in the fog that enshrouded us about five miles out.
“Stop by the next crossroads.”
I do so. The passenger door opens and closes. It is gone. Looking down, I see a teardrop cut star sapphire just under an inch long on the seat. Payment in excess, but that is why I do this. One day, I will have to leave. One day, the skies will fill with invaders. One day, I will have to tell my wife the truth and see if she loves me enough to take our half-breed children to another planet.
by submission | Oct 13, 2014 | Story |
Author : Roger Dale Trexler
“It’s amazing,” Hennrich Gould said. He shook his head in disbelief. “A pristine live recording of Robert Johnson….and with songs that have never been released! Where’d you find it?”
James Robinson smiled. He reached forward and clicked off the iPod on the table between them. “It’s an archive,” he said. “I found a vault of recordings by Charlie Patton, Robert Johnson, and a myriad other old blues and pop singers from the turn of last century…all brilliantly recorded.”
He took the iPod and put it in his breast pocket.
Hennrich shook his head yet again. “You have no idea the historical importance of these recordings,” he said. “Hearing someone like Johnson or Patton singing the popular songs of the day….it’s….it’s simply amazing.”
“It is,” replied Robinson. “And I would think there would be a lot of people interested in these recordings.”
He tapped the iPod in his shirt pocket to bring the point home.
There was a long silence between them. Then, Gould said: “I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”
Robinson let out a chuckle. “You’re a poor poker player,” he told Gould.
Gould drew a deep sigh, then let it out. He leaned forward. “Let’s cut to brass tacks, shall we?”
“Let’s,” replied Robinson.
“How much?” asked Gould.
Robinson let the air hang heavy for a moment. He wasn’t much of salesman; he knew that. But, what he did have was something worth a lot of money, and something that millions of people would rejoice in. He could release the music himself, but he had neither the time nor inclination to bother with it. His interests lay elsewhere, but he needed money to make those dreams a reality.
“A quarter of a million dollars,” he replied finally.
“A quarter million!” Gould almost shouted it in the confines of his small office. “Are you insane!”
Robinson smiled again. “Not in the least,” he said. “But, what I am is a man with a sellable product that will be much in demand when the music buying public learns about it.”
Another heavy silence fell.
“Listen,” Gould said. “The world has changed. Vinyl’s made a comeback, but the Internet and mp3 sales are still the way to go. We just can’t give out that sort of advance on sales….”
“….It’s not an advance,” replied Robinson. “At least, not this time.” He took the iPod out of his pocket and held it in front of him. “If you buy these recordings….which I will provide you the master tapes of….I’ll sell them to you outright. After you recoup the quarter million dollars, you’ll have nothing but profit.”
He grinned, then added: “On any future sells, I’ll require a percentage as well as an advance.”
“Future sales?”
Robinson nodded. “I can get recordings of practically anyone you wish…pristine recordings. Just tell me who you want a recording of.”
“How?”
“That’s for me to know,” replied Robinson. “Now, do we have a deal?”
Gould regarded him a moment. “I’ll have to check with the higher-ups,” he said.
“Of course…but don’t wait too long…there are other people interested in these tapes.”
“Don’t sell them until you hear from me,” Gould said. “We’ll meet any offer, plus ten percent.”
“I wouldn’t dream of selling them out from under you,” Robinson said as he stood. “I’ll expect to hear from you soon.”
“Very soon,” replied Gould.
Robinson smiled and turned.
As he walked out the door, he wondered where he would take his time machine to next. Perhaps Jimi Hendrix playing guitar for Little Richard, he thought. Or Elvis before Sun Records. Or Johnny Cash. Or Roy Orbison. Or John Lee Hooker. Or Lightning Hopkins.
Regardless of whom he chose, he knew the possibilities were endless.
Just like time.
by submission | Oct 12, 2014 | Story |
Author : Lesley Carhart
I want a divorce. I might say it, but as usual, the only sound is the crisp autumn leaves scattering across the gravestones. I glance over to Stephen across the frost-singed grass, and I know he’s thinking the same thing. On these cold days, we’ve both considered it, for over ninety years.
The point is academic. There’s no justice of the peace or pastor here to grant one. There’s really not anybody, save the odd relative setting prerequisite flowers, or groundskeeper raking the leaves. They don’t see us, of course. We’re dead and incorporeal. Arguing is no longer appealing, and Stephen is staring at the sky, caught up in a radio program about a distant war.
I believe the young necromancer meant well. She had other, foreign, names for her profession, but in our era, there was simply no other term for one who toyed with the dead. When she found us in the sanatorium, I was wracked with pain, and Stephen poetic and distraught. Her offer was too good to be true. She had been reading Shakespeare, she said – she hated the endings of tragedies, but tragedies were meaningless when death was no obstacle. She would resolve the cause of her distress, by making true love eternal, and we were the objects of her plan. Her idealism struck us both with such hope…
Of course we agreed. We had no concept of whom or what the creature in the guise of a pretty girl was, and she was promising us a certain eternity together. The consumption caused me such pain that rational thought stood no chance against our tragic love. Stephen, a failed actor, had a theatrical flair that made poisoning himself entirely natural.
She did not disappoint. I was laid to rest in black nothingness, but the next night I awoke in the graveyard, with Stephen beside me. The necromancer left with a prideful smile and airily tossed flowers. She had saved human love. We never saw her, or her kind, again.
Alas, despite her power over death and spirit, the mysterious woman did not understand what human love really meant. In truth, neither did we. The first few years were blissful. We haunted mourners and counted stars in the sky. Yet over time, we discovered things had changed since we left our bodies. We could not leave the graveyard. The necromancer told us we were anchored to that place to prevent us from soaring off with the spinning of the planets. That alone would not have dampened our spirits, except without bodies, love had left us as well.
They say the young do not know the difference between love and lust. We more than most know the bitter truth – love may transcend, but lust is tied to the humors of the body. As the years went by, we discovered that in truth we had little to discuss or want from one another. It became an arrangement of convenience. We watched the world change over decades. At some point, the ether became alive with music, in the form of radio broadcasts, which we could inexplicably interpret. For a time, we danced to Vivaldi and Sinatra.
The music has begun to stop, drowned out by senseless noise. They call it ‘digital’. Stephen still listens to the news broadcasts despite this, but I fear we’ll soon be left peeking at the groundskeeper’s puerile daytime television.
Dearest reader, if you are ever in love, cherish every moment. But if a strange woman someday offers you eternity with your lover, remember that she does not offer you eternal love.
