About Us
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Issue #3:
Anomalies,
by Richard S. Freeland
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Ghost Therapy,
by Gerald Sheagren
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Angel Envy,
by Ian Donnell Arbuckle
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Thromboles,
by Dr Terry Dartnall
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Trapped in a
Barrel,
by Steven Holmes
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Earth,
by Dena Graham
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The Tale of the
Brilliant Thief,
by Ally Wren
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Beat Burt,
by Mike Boone
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Issue #2:
Remembering
Krempla,
by H. David Blalock
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Cthulu Calling
Collect,
by Gregory Story
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At the Trial
of
the Loathsome Slime,
by William Meikle
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Just Another Day at
Roswell,
by Randy Tanner
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A Million Ducks
Quacking,
by Marc Crofton
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Editorials
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Issue #1:
July 1, 2003
by H. David Blalock
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by Janice Clark
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by Daniel Devine
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by Beth Long
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by Daniel L. Needles
----
by Susan Lange
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Editorials
Angel Envy
by Ian Donnell Arbuckle
"The sunsets here sure are something else. I tell you what."
Bjorn Stevens was having a pleasant evening until the angel came along. Night was coming across the miles long emerald bridge; Bjorn could watch the shadow's progress turn the glimmering road from the shade of a Irish girl's eyes to that of a warm island dancer's. And that's just what he was doing. A bench was there for him to sit on. Beneath his weightless feet, and those of the other dead, the silver city glowed as though it was made of molten iron; as though God had cast it all those ages ago and the metal hadn't yet cooled.
He was just pulling out a cigar when he heard the air swirl and smelled the light animal smell of feathers. The angel landed a few feet behind him. He didn't turn to look. Eventually, the angel walked around into his line of sight, carefully swinging its feet with nonchalance, and bloody well hoping he could see how sexy nonchalance can be when interpreted by the masters.
Bjorn grunted and lit his cigar. The smoke tasted sweet, the way he always remembered his grandfather's pipe tasting and smelling.
"Seen better. Down there."
"Oh, you're right. There have been some killers. Like that one, oh, when would you call it." The angel leaned against the railing and let its wings droop into a cape around its shoulders. The feathers ruffled of their own accord and settled in a perfect weave. "Eighteen sixty-five. There was a year for sunsets. Like those, you mean?"
Bjorn grunted again. He didn't say, My great granddaddy wasn't even born.
The bridge was dark, now, but not cold. The angel stretched and yawned, its wings curving out and up. Its skin glowed white, but faint as a star from a hundred million years ago.
"Well," it said. "Just saw you here and thought I'd chat a little. Must be back to work. Sweet dreams." It tensed its perfect legs, squatted, and leaped over the edge, swooping up in a wide circle until it was no bigger than a pin. Then the pin stitched across the sky toward a glowing hole in the billowed ground. They were building something there, all of them, and they wouldn't let any of the dead ones near it. Bjorn didn't care. He knew what it was.
He got to his feet, jamming his hands deep into his pockets and shoving the cigar into the corner of his mouth so he could grumble,
"Damn beasts."
Chuz was sitting on his usual stool at the Wind and Wonder. Bjorn slid in next to him. He had just walked what had looked like ten miles, but his legs weren't aching at all. He almost wished they would. He ordered a nectar, set his cigar on the bar, and let his lids drop half over his eyes.
"Hey, you son of a bitch," said Chuz.
"Hey, you bastard. How's the cabin?"
"Aw, I tell you what: don't get me started. Can't get a bloody thing done. I measure twice and then go to cut, and who's over my shoulder, telling me I maybe ought to measure again? Hell."
"Yeah," nodded Bjorn, taking a big gulp of his drink and feeling it rush warmth through his veins.
"If not that," Chuz continued, "then they're saying that a bloody art deco would fit better with the landscape, or that they're planning on moving a river through in the next couple weeks and I need to send a petition up to the big man, or telling me that Betty wants me to come home."
"Sheeit," said Bjorn sympathetically.
"Yuhknow," said Chuz in the swallowing tones of someone who is setting their mouth to auto-repeat. "I used to think we were gonna be like them. My pap loved an old poem. Something about how we come tripping on clouds of glory when we get born. Some nonsense. And then Betty used to say how she was so glad God gave me up and let me be in her life. But then we get here, and what do we find?"
"Nothin ever changes," muttered Bjorn, draining the last of his nectar. He smacked his lips once.
"Damn straight. Nothin ever does. You're a pissant there, you're a pissant here."
Bjorn had to relight his cigar. He took a big puff and stared at the swirls of smoke as they trickled out his nostrils. He thought about the other day, when one of the angels had brought him a message.
"Glory be. The Lord wants to see you. Come with me." Nice as you please; even let Bjorn ride on his back. God was standing in his garden under a trellis of vines, one of them silly French hats on his head, and throwing paint at a canvas perched on an old wooden easel.
"Good morning, Bjorn!" the Lord of Heaven and Earth said brightly. "You were an architect. You can go." The last was said to the angel, who tipped its head in salute and took off. "I love you architects." Bjorn didn't like it when God looked in his eyes. Normal human -- or, rather, formerly human -- eyes reflected everything, because everything was so bright. Even the angels' eyes were blank like mirrors. But God's eyes sucked it all in and trapped it. Bjorn found himself leaning uncomfortably toward the Lord, drawn in as the photons were. "You've got such precisely artistic minds. I'd like your opinion on something."
"Sure, God."
God turned the easel around so Bjorn could see what he was painting.
"Well? What do you think?"
The depth of color was breathtaking, the shapes so perfectly aligned that they molded themselves straight into the brain. Bjorn felt his mouth gaping open. The picture was divided into three parts; at the top was heaven, at the bottom, Earth; and then a thick band of nearly nothing in the middle. A funnel, sort of like an inverted pyramid, had its base in heaven and its tip reached halfway through the void. Bjorn closed his mouth and sniffed.
"What's it sposed to be?"
God grinned. "You remember the Tower of Babel?"
"Nah."
"Oh." God looked disappointed, but recovered majestically. "Well, I'm meeting them halfway."
Bjorn had said something lame, like, It looks good, boss. God had mumbled something like, I wonder if they can handle it, and sent him away and he chose to walk instead of being carried. He didn't bother telling God that he had been a business architect and not even a senior partner. He had usually designed bathrooms, way back when.
A couple days later, the angels were buzzing across the sky, thick as thieves. Off in the distance, they dug through the ground, building God's great big whatever. Bjorn wondered, if he had said the thing was ugly and pointless, would it have made a difference? Or if he had sounded interested, would God have let him dirty up his hands?
Now he clapped Chuz on the shoulder and said, See you tomorrow, and got a grunt in reply. Sometimes it was the other way around. And then he padded back out onto the wide emerald bridge, taking himself up into the thin air above the city. He leaned on the railing and watched an angel carrying a load of shining, bulky timber as though it was as light and important as the smallest, brightest flower.
Before the thought fully formed, he had pushed himself over the edge. He fell straight toward the sharpened towers of the cathedral. It's amazing what a guy will make for himself, make of himself.
The End
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