Category Archives: Bang*Bang no. 40

17
Dec

Everything living tries to get back to the soil

Posted by | Categories Bang*Bang no. 40, Text | Tagged ,

MARCH 7, 2012

Abraham wiped a bit of horseradish out of his beard with a paper napkin he’d swiped from some fast food joint or another. He had established quite a hoard of ill-begotten paper goods over the years, along with sugar packets, condiments, and other easily pocketed items, before he’d discovered the power of buying in bulk. Eating a roast beef sandwich didn’t merit breaking into the stash of the good stuff, though, so his crumbs were caught with stolen goods.

He took another bite and clicked on another random YouTube video. He’d started somewhere an hour or so ago with something he’d actually specifically intended to watch, but the internet being what it was and all, he’d lost time and all memory of where he’d started, and was now watching a man in a car giving a review of food he’d gotten at Arby’s. Good napkins, Arby’s.

17
Dec

Getting to Know You

Posted by | Categories Bang*Bang no. 40, Text | Tagged

For the first time in a long time, Jonah was not looking forward to the end of his workday.

Usually, going home meant a little workout on the treadmill before dinner preparation. Quentin would soon be home with a fresh bottle of wine, rolling up his sleeves to help with the cooking. Before long, they’d be sharing a delicious meal together, followed by their favorite TV show. Then they’d spend some quiet time reading or playing cards, before finally hopping off to bed for some fun and relaxation.

It was a nice routine. Jonah liked nice routines.

17
Dec

The Stones’ Earthen Grasp

Posted by | Categories Bang*Bang no. 40, Text | Tagged

Riaag Bough-Breaker set his feet and hunkered down behind his shield, axe at the ready. He was the only thing that stood between his charge, one Sarouth White-Hair, and the band of wandering orcs before them, but Riaag was unconcerned; he’d felled far more fearsome opponents than than this sorry lot, and in greater numbers, while Sarouth had divine magics at his command. Between their respective talents it was usually harder keeping unwilling converts alive than fending them off. They glanced at one another and exchanged nods before Sarouth took a deep breath, slammed the butt of his staff down against the earth, and lifted his war-mace above his head with a bellow. The scavengers’ heads snapped up towards the pair of strange men standing over them.

“Hear me!” said Sarouth, his voice fierce and clear. “Agritakh has grown impatient with the blasphemies heaped upon Him by those such as yourselves. I’ve been sent here to bring you a choice: repent, and you’ll be taken fondly to His side. Resist, and you’ll slake His thirst with your blood. Where do you stand, lost children of the hills?”

17
Dec

freedom will it capture, and lordship in its own wilderness

Posted by | Categories Bang*Bang no. 40, Text | Tagged

It was sunset, and Stellan Gunvor was standing in the desert. He was looking at the brand new fortress of a building that housed what Anson had called ‘the Wilderness.’ The Director, however, had jokingly named the whole structure ‘Area 42’ shortly after the swamp sprang up suddenly in the middle of nowhere. The building had a high, steel-supported glass dome that let the blooming moonlight filter down into the swampy jungle.

Since its first appearance, Stellan had realized that Area 42 held the answers to his problems. He couldn’t get to Anson’s Wilderness, but through some twist of fate, the Wilderness had come to him. Stellan wanted to be inside, so he simply was.

17
Dec

The Gray Fox

Posted by | Categories Bang*Bang no. 40, Text | Tagged

The full moon illuminated the expanse of virgin snow and the single set of tracks that bisected it. The fox that left them ran, heedless of his own exposure, as though something were calling him, urging him away from the village he had left behind, pulling him toward the wilds.

Some miles passed under the fox’s paws before he slowed. He was a handsome animal, with a gray back and red trimming his ears and snout, sleek and healthy despite his long run. His silver-gray eyes seemed to reflect the moonlight. But to an observer – had anyone observed him beyond the stars, the moon, or the bare black arms of the trees – he might have seemed disoriented. Whatever urge had pulled him here was fading, and now he felt only his heart hammering in his narrow ribcage. He sniffed the ground without understanding what he was looking for. Thirsty, he gulped a mouthful of snow. Eventually fatigue overtook him. He crawled beneath the low-hanging branches of a pine tree, curled up on a blanket of dry, dead needles, and fell asleep.

As the days passed the fox grew used to his surroundings. He survived off voles and rabbits, avoided the few other foxes he encountered, and every night bedded down under a pine tree. Nearly a week after his arrival, the man came.

17
Dec

The Eye and the Eye

Posted by | Categories Bang*Bang no. 40, Text | Tagged

London, 1867

There was a peach tree growing at the crossroads of Church Lane near Northey Street. It had not been there yesterday. Dao Chen stopped in his steps and gaped, all the while carts of goods and passers-by swept past him in hues of burnt grey and brown. This was Limehouse on the East End, Limehouse of the wharves, and peach trees did not grow here, their roots tangling through the surface of dirty city avenues.

Someone jostled him, and Dao Chen did his best imitation of a stunned brick, never taking his eyes off the peach tree. “Oy, watch where you’re goin’!” his unfortunate new friend said. Dao Chen made a sound in his throat that was meant to be an apology but came out more as continued awe. Not towards the labourer who had just budged him from the road, of course, though Dao Chen was certain that the man, as every working man trying to feed his family, possessed some small talent that deserved awe. No, his reverence was reserved for the pink-hued tree with its soft delicate petals, blossoms spouting from its branches like little poems.

The man who had crashed into him took another look at Dao Chen’s face, and disgust seeped into his voice like sewage. “Chinaman,” he said, a single word that was definition, judgement, and insult.

17
Dec

Greensinger

Posted by | Categories Bang*Bang no. 40, Text | Tagged ,

He gets to the top of the dune and falls down.

The sand is in his nose and hair and clothes and mouth and he wants to spit it out but his mouth is so dry so he swallows despite the way it claws down his throat. Everything is grit and heat and pain and a sky that pushes him down, oppressively blue.

Blue is not his color. Nor is the orange-yellow of the sand or the burning white of the sun. He’s known them too long, days and days bleeding together. Hateful colors.

He remembers green. He doesn’t remember what it was, but it must have been nice. Green is a nice color. Green is from before. Probably.

“Get up.”

17
Dec

Robin, after the apocalypse

Posted by | Categories Bang*Bang no. 40, Text | Tagged

Robin heard the cart as it rattled down the lane, horses’ hooves striking hollowly against the hard-baked August ground. From his sideline gaze out the window, he recognized the cart, and the horses, and the broad man holding the reins. He didn’t stir from his place until Negi dismounted, stepped in front of the horses, and gave the signal to what, for all he must have known, might have been an empty house.

Negi didn’t move until Robin unbolted the door, stepped clear of the threshold, and gave the return signal.

17
Dec

I Think You’ll Understand

Posted by | Categories Bang*Bang no. 40, Text | Tagged

Walking into the halls of Martin Luther King High School was like coming home, and that wasn’t really a good thing. Home was full of reasons I didn’t want to be there, and school wasn’t any different. This was supposed to be better, even though I knew that was a load of shit my mom told me to get me to pack up my stuff and leave in Dad’s beat-up old Corolla. It was Dad’s house, Dad’s rules, Dad’s decisions, or it was military school. At first I thought my mom was full of shit with that threat. You see that on TV; it doesn’t really happen. But there were fucking brochures on the dining room table the last time I came home with bruised knuckles and a black eye, and if she was bluffing then she was better at it than I thought. She called Dad the same night.

Their divorce had been bad and I probably made it worse, but I didn’t care. Their bullshit had been hell to deal with for years and they had no idea how much they stuck me in the middle. How much they used me and never even listened to me. How much they didn’t even know me and worse, didn’t even try. So fine. I took my shit and left my mom’s house. It couldn’t be any worse at Dad’s.

I was wrong. He had rules, strict curfews, and a big fist. He hit me once and I hit him back, made him remember I was as big as him now and I wasn’t Mom. I could have called someone, maybe, but CPS likes to skip past our neighborhood. So we handle things our own way.

17
Dec

Tantantara! Tzing! Boom!

Posted by | Categories Bang*Bang no. 40, Text | Tagged ,

There were three windows open on Freddie’s computer screen. He would classify them as unsatisfactory, terrifying, and baffling, respectively. The first was the spreadsheet where he recorded all the finances of the Woodcross Gilbert and Sullivan Society. The second was an email from his father’s colleague Dudley Baxter, which he had flagged and banished to the depths of his email inbox some days previous. The third was another email, from the Honourable Robin Lionel Coffrey Montgomery-Wells, asking if there was a time when Freddie would be free to have lunch.

Robin Montgomery-Wells. It had been a long time since that name had popped up in his inbox. He clicked the window and dragged it around the screen before dropping it back roughly where it started. The email had been sent to the generic inbox Freddie used for matters relating to the Woodcross Gilbert and Sullivan Society. Well, it had been six years since they last spoke. How was Robin to know Freddie still checked his old Hotmail account?

17
Dec

The White Palace

Posted by | Categories Bang*Bang no. 40, Text | Tagged ,

Fard walked in the house, hung up his cloak and scarf by the door, and flopped face-down on the couch with such dramatic force that he felt a cord or two pop under his weight. Daanil didn’t even look up from his paper. “Went well, hm.” It was only a question by the most technical of definitions.

“I hate everything,” said Fard, though the sentiment was muffled through couch cushions that smelled like they’d had all manner of horrors spilled on them, which they had. They tasted even worse. He sat up. “I hate damned everything,” he said again, just in case it hadn’t come across the first time.

“Is that so,” said Daanil. Once upon a time Fard had mistaken Daanil’s unflappable tone for serenity, before he’d learned to recognize sarcasm for what it really was.

Fard blew a raspberry at the ceiling, then stopped when he saw the little drops of spittle fall back and dot his glasses; he tugged them off and wiped them with the tail of his shirt, shutting his eyes against the blurry world for the duration of the cleaning. “If I hear ‘don’t call us, we’ll call you’ one more time, I may scream and set the place on fire with my mind.”

17
Dec

Forever Closing

Posted by | Categories Bang*Bang no. 40, Text | Tagged

In retrospect, I guess it would be kind of hard to get it on when your grandmother’s ghost is watching.