Notes from Haiti, Days 10 & 18

Day 10

I've had a bit more rest today and yesterday, as the three American visitors have left and we are no longer whirling through our learning-about-Haiti together. Instead I am drowsing, reading the most excellent novel* about the Haitian revolution, All Souls Rising, by Madison Smartt Bell, and having low-key conversations with kitty cats and five year olds. (*I skipped over the most horrible parts. Impossible to write about those times honestly without including them.)

The cat I talk with most is, like all Haitian cats, slender and attenuated, but she is also the size of a two to three month old kitten. I thought she was a kitten, until I learned she'd had two or three litters. I have never seen an adult cat so small in my life. She's very affectionate, and her claws are like the thinnest of needles. The child I talk with most is slender and attenuated, too, but has had no kittens, and is as full of piss, vinegar, and affectionate depths as a child can want to have. The cat is nameless (I call her Mama) and the child is Mari-Ka.

A highlight this week was sitting in a thatched enclosure with Ari, Carla and my American co-visitors and asking Ari many questions about how he came to think the way he does about Haiti and to do the work he does. This involved his telling not only about his own life but about the mass movement that led to Aristide's election years ago, and the suppression and violence people faced after the coup against Aristide. In the telling we also came to learn how he and Carla had met and begun working together.

Ari was the son of a middle class man and a poor market woman. His father did not legally recognize him, although he did have a relationship with Ari. Later in his life his father's family did, and he was given their last name and told he now stood to inherit. As a child learning about the revolution in school, he wished that he had been born at that time and been able to fight slavery. As he grew older he became involved in the student movement that helped topple Baby Doc Duvalier. When Baby Doc fled, the church, which had encouraged and helped organize the movement, wanted it to stop, but the youth wanted to press on, stay out of school for the rest of the year (the schools had been shut down during the unrest) and mount a full-scale movement for literacy. A rift developed then between the church and the students.

Not long later, the Tonton Macoutes were parading down the streets of Cap Haitien . Some youths standing near Ari heckled the Macoutes under their breath; they were overheard and chased. They ran off but Ari was grabbed and arrested. The treatment he received served to open his eyes to the political realities of his country, and he began to work in earnest against the regime. When he was finally in danger of losing his life, he was smuggled by a volunteer with a development organization, along with two other fugitives, to a house in Port au Prince where Carla and her husband Ron were living.

For many years now Carla and Ari have worked together. Their days of active political struggle are over, and the work they do now—educating foreigners and Haitians alike in the realities of colonialism and racism, constructing a Memory Village where people can learn in a deeply felt way about those issues, mounting a campaign to return to supporting local industry and agriculture and rely less on the subsidized American products that undermine the Haitian economy—are born out of love and a sense of working together, rather than vying against another. This work is what brings him the joy of feeling he truly has something of value to give to the world.

Ari is a great story teller, and a wise and beautiful man. The respect and affection with which he greets the world is contagious and inspiring. I am very grateful to have this opportunity to be with him and Carla and their entourage of co-conspirators for a better world.

Much love.

p.s. Oh, I forgot. Dé, Amanda, Stephanie and I (the Guests), were interviewed for tv the other day. They shot for an hour, asking us what we had heard about Haiti before we got here, what our impressions were now that we are here, why we have come, and so on. It was great.

Day 18

All quiet on the Caribbean front. The constant influx (and outflux) of visitors hasn't abated. Twenty-four teens from a church in Chapel Hill , North Carolina (along with three pastors: 2 American and 1 Haitian) came on Monday. It was quite the event.

There are two households here at Kan Kilonbo (Camp Quilombo, "Freedom Camp", in memory of Africans in Brazil who escaped slavery and set up independent villages)—one house on top of another, separated by maybe forty cement stairs, on a relatively precipitous slope. Any flat horizontal spaces were constructed by the residents and where possible the flat vertical spaces are contained by the ropey roots of weeping figs.

Ari's house, below, is painted yellow, trimmed in pink and white, and shuttered in green, with an overlapping corrugated iron roof. There is a cement yard where Mme. Bertine (a local mambo) placed a large oak pilon (mortar and pestle) and cauldron, and began assembling the elements of a makeshift brick hearth. Across the cement yard Amalia, who sells cigarettes, candy and other necessities from a small shack up the road, shook blackened lumps of branch and woodstem into a recho (charcoal brazier) and prepared peanuts for roasting.

Up four or five stairs and around the side of the house, against a wall of fig roots, Ketja filled a smoothing iron with hot charcoal and set up an ironing board. A few steps further up, at the back of the house, Fernand sat next to a pedal-driven Finger sewing machine (yes, Finger) and across from her Ginia and Ti Karin sat on a cement curb next to two basins of breadfruit, hefty, wide-bladed knives in their hands and more set out on the curb.

Several steps further along and down a longer set of stairs, Marie Flo filled another plastic basin with water from the cistern. Beside her lay two long bars of washing soap and a knife with which she would cut the soap before forming it into a ball for sudsing. In the kitchen Ti Kan finished preparing the feast begun by the entire female population of the lower house.

Carla had risen early that morning (though doubtless no earlier than those young women) and driven into Port au Prince to lead the two buses of visitors to the base of the mountain where she lives. The teens had been instructed to bring nothing with them but water and a fresh t-shirt.

When they arrived at the mountain's foot, the buses pulled over and the team piled out. They began the rocky, dusty trek up that winding, eroded slope. They passed countless unpainted, unfinished cement walls and houses, passersby sauntering up and down the path, clusters of children and laundering women watching the teens' progress in silence, and eye-tickling festoons of pink bougainvilleas and vibrant, scarlet-flowering flamboyant trees. The hot sun obligingly baked the teens to a fine red hue as they climbed. And all the while, following the example of Carla, Pastors Leon and Clark, and Miriam, the American who organized the group, the teens greeted those they passed with, "Bonswa! Bonswa! Bonswa!"

Arriving at Kay Ari (Ari's house), the 27 visitors filed through the multi-levelled jumble of brilliantly painted rooms, greeting the women working there and a smattering of children slumped around the dining room, watching television. They observed the cement water filter in the tiny kitchen, through which the mountain stream is cleansed, the wicker lounge chair and living room furniture built by local craftsmen (rather than, as in most middle and upper class households, furniture imported from the United States), the Haitian paintings and crafts decorating the walls and tables, and the large framed picture of Haiti's many presidents. Ari himself greeted them in his brightly patterned (and locally made!) clothing, his great warm grin in place.

Shortly afterward the group was hustled up the forty-odd stairs to Carla and Ron's house and trooped up more stairs to the big, airy room where the play would later be held. They looked out over the forest canopy and the far-off riverbed and farmlands, Port au Prince itself mostly out of sight from this vantage point.

At last, already tired from the trek up the hill, and the previous day travelling from Chapel Hill and Miami , the teens descended below once more and were introduced to the women who would be their teachers for the afternoon. At each station they were joined by interpreters—Kenson, a young man who has been studying in the States and was home for a too-brief visit, Gana, just back from two years in Mexico with her father, Carla herself, and the pastors.

Mme. Bertine began the long process of making coffee. Each group assisted her in a different stage of the work—or at least shared the experience, eliciting much laughter at their attempts. They gathered firewood, washed the beans in the cauldron, lay them out in a flat basket and shook and flipped them into the air (or onto the ground) to sort beans from debris. Mme. Bertine poured them into the now waterless pot; she and her assistants stirred them over a low fire for a very long time until they were a rich noir. The roasted beans were emptied into the tall pilon and Mme. Bertine set to work caramelizing tasty Colombian sugar over the fire (the Haitian sugar industry having been destroyed). When the sugar was ready, she poured the beans into the pot, stirred the gluey black mass together, and spread it out on a piece of toll . When it had cooled, it was placed in the pilon again and pounded for a good long while (by many different persons, young and old, serious and silly) until the sweet, smooth, delicious drink was ready to be brewed.

This process took all day. While the groups moved from station to station, stirring roasting peanuts, sewing seams on bed coverings, ironing Ari's household's clothes, peeling and chopping breadfruit, and studiously attempting to emulate Marie Flo's squeaky, scrub-on-the-wrist clothes washing technique, Mme. Bertine worked on in the bright sun. When we stopped our work and filed around the table filled with pressed, deep-fried breadfruit (SO GOOD!), spicy coleslaw, pig knuckles and Haitian rice and beans, washed down with sugar-sweetened passionfruit juice, she stood at her post, smiling languidly at whoever stopped to talk, tending her coffee, eating the plate of food that one of the children brought her.

At last, the group circled around near the rooted slope and discussed their experiences. A young woman from Chapel Hill who had begun the morning's work with the remark that chores were all so much more fun in Haiti commented, through her fatigue, that she was suddenly very grateful for the advantages she enjoys. Leon, the Haitian pastor in the group, said he was aware for the first time just how hard Haitian women's work was, and determined that he, busy as he was, would from now on spend at least one day a month helping his wife with her chores. Two farmers from Hinche described their commitment to organic, local foods, co-operatively grown and marketed, and the spirit with which such foods connect us to each other. A lively discussion arose when Carla asked if people had read the story in U.S. papers about Haitians eating mud cakes because food was scarce—a story which moved readers to shock and pity.

It is a not unusual instance of misinformed reporting. The truth is that Haitians have always had access in the markets to cakes of clay. They are eaten medicinally, especially by pregnant women, and as a sort of candy by children. They cost money—they may be cheaper than other things, but they are not a famine food. The background truth is that food prices have soared as a result of foreign economic fluctuations, and gasoline is astronomically high, adding to food prices by increasing the cost of transport. People who were already very poor are now even poorer. There have been food riots. But there is not famine.

When the discussion was finished and the other teachers and interpreters thanked, we returned to Mme. Bertine and received a cup of rich, dark, astonishingly sweet black coffee, which we carried to Carla and Ron's house and the upstairs meeting room. There we sipped this low-caffeine, delicious drink while volunteers from among the teens got up and, guided by Carla, did an impromptu version of the play "Three Innocents and a Spirit". This mime was written by Carla and Ari and their former associate, Djaloki, for their organization DOA/BN, to use as a teaching tool about conquest, slavery, liberation, and reconciliation. They have twice toured the U.S. and will be visiting Ottawa , Toronto and Winnipeg this September to perform the play and raise funds for their work.

As in the teens' earlier experiences, climbing the long hill in the hot sun or gathering wood, scrubbing t-shirts till their wrists were red or grappling with ideas and preconceptions about Haiti, they were game to follow Carla's lead, and didn't miss a beat when she pointed to the Church as one of the culprits in the genocide of the Taino native population and brutal enslavement of African people. Then they were whisked out the door and down the mountain again, to meet with their returning buses and go back to their billet for the night.

DOA/BN works with a variety of different groups, individuals, and government departments, so they have diverse approaches to how and what they teach. This was an experiment and because of the enthusiastic participation of the Kon Kilonbo residents and their friends and neighbours and the group from Chapel Hill , it was a success.

As I write this installment of Haiti , Day 18, I can hear the sound of an American Indian flute upstairs, interrupted by the sound of medieval clerical chants, and the barking Spanish proclamation of Ayiti's first conquerors. Carla, Ari, and Ginia are practicing "Three Innocents and a Spirit". A wonderful, lively household.

If you are interested in seeing their play, let me know and I'll keep you posted about dates and venues. If you'd like to contribute to their funds (a most welcome endeavour—they are very much hand to mouth, yet energetically pursue their educational and cultural-healing goals) you can either send them directly to Carla or to me (see bottom). For those who would prefer to contribute to the community in La Vale that I wrote you about last time I was here, I am still sending them regular cheques as well, and can let you know how to do that if you write me. Thanks, Jean, for reminding me to ask for donations.

This evening when all the film-making and play-practicing and writing were done, a few of us settled down to watch Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North. It follows filmmaker Katrina Browne after her discovery that her New England ancestors were the largest slave-trading family in U.S. history. She and nine cousins embark on a trip that encompasses the Triangle Trade—between Rhode Island , Ghana and Cuba . The film reveals the extent and impact of the slave trade in the northern state of Rhode Island , which continued long after the practice was made illegal, and examines their reactions to their developing awareness of slavery and racism. The film will be aired for the first time in three days. I highly recommend this thoughtful and inspiring work.

POV (Point of View) PBS, June 24th 10PM EASTERN TIME. http://www.tracesofthetrade.org/ http://inheritingthetrade.com/blog/?p=106

Love to you all. I am having a wonderful time, and I am soooooooo glad I came.

If someone could print these messages out for Mom and Dad, that'd be great. Howard—could you tape the show for me?

Hugs.

contact info

--DOA/BN--

Carla Bluntschlii & Ari Nicolas • Ph 011 (509) 2511-5580

• web http://www.haititravels.org/welcome

• email doabnhaiti@gmail.com

CHECKS (US$) c/o Lynx Air, P.O. Box 407139 , Ft. Lauderdale , FL 33340-7139

DOA/BN specializes in sharing an independent and authentic Haitian perspective on history, politics, spirituality, and culture with groups, visitors, volunteers -- in other words, anyone who wishes to discover and learn more.

We offer interactive presentations and seminars as well as full- or half- day experiences with the Haitian people: in their communities, homes, and lives.

One very special specialty we have created is a unique experience called "The Road to Memory" (inspired by our long-term vision, "N a Sonje").

---

• Presentations and Seminars: Highly recommended, whatever your plans
• 'Bonjou Ayiti': A 1-3 hr. introductory tour of Port-au-Prince
• 'Gwo Jan': Half-day/Full-day visit to a small mountain village
• Historical Visits: 3-5 hr. tour of slavery/historic sites around Port-au-Prince
• 'A Day With the People': Full-day City/Country cultural experience
• 'The Road To Memory': For the most curious and brave of hearts (and a desire for healing)!

(see the website for more details.)

to view the Memory Village blog and see the vision, click here.

to learn more about the 2008 North American tour of Three Innocents and a Spirit, or to invite the play to your town, please contact Carla & Ari at the DOA/BN address above.

blessings on us all.

Final Notes from Port au Prince

well, kids, my time here is pretty well up. i leave the mountain tomorrow morning at 6 (gulp) to get to the airport by 7. a dozen plus hours later i will have gruelled my way home, if god wills it, as the saying goes. if on the other hand it is a normal cross-u.s. trip i will miss at least one connection and be back in a few days, ragged and worn but none the worse for wear.

the first week i was here, a few of us wandered down to visit bertine and some other people. as we scrambled down the hill to cross the stream we spied immanuel, a serene-looking man, father of the boys who started the youth intellectual and cultural development group, and mentor to that organization. he was standing patiently on the bank while his great black hog lay passionately happy in the cooling water, snurfling and lapping at it, grunting softly, flipping occasionally from side to side or rubbing his back against the bank, twitching his pleasured toes in the running stream.

a lot of people in this world, and more usually here than at home in canada, have not much interest in the contentment of animals. it was lovely to see his affectionate smile as he regarded his pig--and of course to see the self-absorbed grin of the hog himself as he lolled.

i had thought in my final missive i would talk to you about restavèks, the children who are kept as unpaid and often badly treated domestics, a relic of the slave trade that is still extremely common in haiti.

or about the professors from a highly esteemed university and a well respected seminary who came to plan an exciting immersion program for seminary students with carla and ari next summer. (the program includes a face to face with youthful gang members from cite soleil, conversations with women victims of the last coup, discussion of the implications and repercussions of international adoptions, a visit with haitian seminarians, etc.. these on top of creole language classes and possible homestays, discussions of haitian history, foreign impacts on haiti, and local production vs the current import-based economy, as well as visits to the eighth wonder of the world--the Citadel of Henri Christophe, a beach hotel for downtime, and travels through the countryside to get a feel for haiti outside of the urban centers.)

or maybe, i thought, i would discuss some of the small, daily, local events of the last couple of weeks, or my trip to croix-des-bouquets to visit a world famous metal sculptor and be blown away by his work. (that sounds more violent than the actual experience was for me. there were no explosions that i noticed.)

but i am feeling kind of quiet and peaceful today, a little sad because i am leaving, a little happy because i've once again had the amazing privilege of being here, and a little anxious about stepping back into the rough, running river of events that will tow me back to vancouver and a stressful home situation, and a lot of work to be done in a short time. i am looking forward to the work itself, though, even if i am slightly daunted.

so today i think i will just tell you about a butterfly, a few books and films, and a pig, and be done with it till next time i come to haiti.

the pig i've already told you about. the books and films have helped shape my thinking while i've been here, giving me grist for the mill and laughs for the belly,

the books: All Souls Rising, by madison smartt bell, previously mentioned, about the revolution in haiti. excellent. Lydia Bailey, by kenneth roberts, from an american perspective, post-revolution, before the french betrayal of toussaint louverture. fascinating but marred by racism. Morality for Beautiful Girls, by alexander mccall smith, a blithe departure from sombre themes, set in Gabarone. Their Eyes Were on God, moving and beautiful writing by zora neal hurston, about the flowering of the spirit of a poor black woman in the jim crow era, usa.

the films: Life & Debt, about the economic destruction of jamaica at the hands of the world bank and imf. Tales of the Deep North, about the consciousness raising of descendants of the biggest slave-trading family in u.s. history. the Simpsons Movie, about uh, um... Zonbi, a greek documentary about the zonbi cult in haiti. Juno, a funny and serious movie (filmed in vancouver) about a pregnant teenage girl. Favela, a film about AfroReggae, the AMAZING group in rio who made it their mission to restore hope to their violent neighbourhood through music. and last but not least, John Safran VS GOD. an exceedingly daring and hilarious venture into world religion, straight to us from australia. (chris and jen, you guys would LOVE this.) (JS vs G is a tv mini-series.)

finally, the butterfly.

i stood on the gallery of the guest house one afternoon looking over the choukoun, the thatch-roofed seating area downslope, and the grove of pines, figs, kashima and other trees that provide shade and beauty and a home for zandolits and parrots and six-legged friends.

the butterfly flitted by just below me, its impossible straight wings unusually shaped, like diffuse isoceles triangles joined at the base, black and yellow horizontal stripes like a football jersey. just one moment of that butterfly, juxtaposed against clusters of oval compound leaves and the frowning drip-tipped foliage of the weeping fig, tracing a languid, indirect, apparently purposeless path before disappearing from sight.

i love this land. i love looking up at the pale edge of the galaxy at night, the sparks of stars and the still blackness between them. i love the breezes that wind through the hills, lifting the sweat off my skin and raising a few hairs gently, and letting them rest again. i love the people i meet on the path whose solemn troubled faces mellow into wide, kind smiles seven times out of ten, and i love the ones whose faces do not soften when they look at me, and never will. i love the old woman washing her breasts beside the stream, her neighbour dancing jokingly with friends beneath a giant fig-tree. i love the donkey who was so offended when someone tried to mount him that he screamed and lay down on his side, the children who came to sing me happy birthday, the man who laughed when i bought a Toro drink from him because it is known to make men more powerful in bed.

i don't know what will become of haiti. a missionary in limbe was known to say that haiti is not a backward country--it's ahead of the rest of the world. whatever is going wrong here now will be happening everywhere in times to come. and he is right. in the meantime people are suffering in ways many of us can't even imagine, and creating in ways most first world people have long forgotten, and working with patience and diligence that wipes me out just watching it.

i'm offering no great conclusions here. just a postcard from a pocket of our world that is so different from, and so exactly the same as, every other part.

sweet blessings, and thanks for being with me on the journey.

A Small Treat

It occurs to me to mention a pleasant piece of information I received the night before I left Vancouver.

I was talking with my friend Rhea Rose, beside whom I sat at VCon in 2004 and wrote the first draft of my story "The Coin", about a boy living on the streets of Cap Haitien, in northern Haiti.

Rhea, apart from being a talented writer of speculative fiction and a stunning beauty, is a teacher. She told me that when from time to time she has a particularly subtle and intelligent student, she assigns that story to her or him and asks them to write an essay about it.

I was delighted. I can't think of a greater compliment or a better use for a story.

Thanks, Rhea!

(to read the story, click here!)

Storyteller Times Two, Old Bones, Lonely Genes & Current Projects

Naughty, Lazy, or Thoroughly Distracted? Or perhaps all of the above...

Since typing my last post in November 2007, I have experienced six weeks of housing chaos due to a flood, two eviction attempts by a disgruntled building manager (the second involved my suing for damages due to ongoing harassment), and one major surgery which put me out of commission for longer than expected. That's the less fun news.

The more fun news is that although all of this has slowed me down considerably, it hasn't stopped me. I have had two more stories published in Storyteller Magazine, "Mr. Cowmeadow's Sky" in the Spring 2008 (Vol.14, Issue 4) and "Aggie's Game" in the previous issue (V.14,I.3).

In addition, SF Waxes Philosophical, ed. by Ahmed Khan and published by ZC Books, arrived at the post office this week. It contains stories by Michael Bishop, Matt Hughes, Steven Utley--and of course yours truly--as well as ten others.

Ahmed's anthologies have intriguing aims. Of this one he says, "SF is a literature of ideas...Philosophy is a subject of ideas. So what better theme could there be for an anthology?" (from the Introduction.) Each author provides a note to expand (or contract) upon the philosophy examined in her or his story. It's a nice little book and I look forward to reading it.

A fourth story, "Miss Lonelygenes' Secret", will be included in Ahmed's upcoming anthology (with Mohammad Aurangzeb Ahmad) A Mosque Among the Stars (ZC Books), as mentioned in an earlier post.

See below for brief snippets from each of these stories.

So what am I working on now?

Two projects mainly. I am polishing up a collection and writing a long story (what some call a "novel") set in Haiti. (Working title: Làkansyèl )

I will be going to Haiti soon to spend a month with friends there, and will use that time away from the mundane stresses of angry building managers and unfed cats to learn what is happening in that fair land, brush up on my weak and gnarly Creole, and work on Làkansyèl. I am in no hurry to finish this long story, but it does somewhat keep me away from my first love: short fiction. So I may need to quicken the pace at some point, in order to leap back into saddle number one.

In the meantime, I will see you at VCon in October (Vancouver, B.C.), perhaps at World Fantasy Con in September (Calgary), and maybe even at Potlatch in the spring (Seattle? Portland??).

Cheers to all.

Snippets:

Mr. Cowmeadow's Sky

"Mr. Cowmeadow straightened slowly with the bottle of milk in his crabbed hand and pulled the mask closer to his mouth. The air was acid in his throat.

"Day was a slow proceeding, at this stage in his life. After waking, Mr. Cowmeadow had passed a good hour or so of creeping and resting and creeping and resting before he’d come to the edge of his bed and been able to swing incrementally the nether half of himself till his feet touched the floor. All the while he’d been pressing his hands against the bed to steady himself, gathering the pillow in under his side to prop him upright while he crept. Finally, he was up, and had to sit thus for fifteen minutes till he caught his breath and his heart stopped hammering. Then the teeth, and then the specs, all installed as requisite each a.m.."

Aggie's Game

"She'd find the place where the action would begin and stand quite still. Taking a slow breath, she'd look down at the grass, letting her gaze drift elsewhere as she searched inside herself for the germ of her story. That interior, what I saw of it, was amazing to behold. In her lived passionate women and dazzling men. Storm-swept heroines and heroes flung about by the cruelties of life—staunchly fighting back, even when they had no idea how, and knew they had to lose. Endless barren hills and moors, dark woodlands, castle keeps, the rare, haunted human in a desolate land. And jealousies, furies, pain so deep I bled to witness it.

"When Aggie conjured up her worlds, the parched fringe of Winnipeg on which we lived, the not-yet-paid-for houses and hot, tarred street, the soapy water running along the gutter from cars being washed, the grasshoppers and mosquitoes and ticks and dry warm grass…all faded back, fell silent, lay forgotten in some lost realm. The far more real and poignant land of heartbreak, courage and drama filled my sight.

"That was how I met Feynit and her lover—her foster-brother, Gilbrigde."

These Old Bones

"When she tired of watching, Andrea left the museum. She drove along the empty secondary highway to her favourite walking place, parked the car and started up the long, sun-baked trail into the hills. The earth crumbled under her runners, and she worked a bit harder than she was used to, moving up the steep path. Volatile herbs and grasses gave off sweet spicy scents on the warm air as she climbed.

"She stayed as close to the trail as possible, alert for splinters of stony bone and pocked, petrified eggshell—Cretaceous litter uplifting through the weathered earth. Soft clay interspersed among the sandier soil—kaolinite, if she remembered rightly. Used in toothpaste. Glancing up at the dolmen-shaped hoodoos, she took a great soft breath. The badlands were magical. The museum, too. Thanh Sullivan might be a twit, but God, this place!

"Andrea turned at the table-flat trailhead and looked down. Below lay the shrubby desert, shaped by erosion and tinted with age. Here, all around her, spread bald prairie, an immensity of sky beyond it. Prairie and sky together were a vast tableau, and she stood solitary there, while hidden beneath her—that incomprehensible land. A place where enormous bones were every day shrugging from the soil. Where the first people might have run bison to their deaths, necks broken at the bases of these cliffs. Where time has wound so slowly that what happens there now is out of step with all the rest of the world."

Miss Lonelygenes' Secret

"Rosaleen stirred herself, as if waking. Her jaw muscles were bunched; she loosened them deliberately. Took a long draught of the amber, aromatic liquid in her glass, and gazed out the window at the jungle growing on her balcony.

"Here she was, Miss Lonelygenes, helping to build a middle class as stolid and self-referent as Her Mother The Famous Geneticist’s worst nightmare, and, for an exorbitant fee, an upper class yet more dire.

"For the rich, the pipettes were at the ready, sucking out unwanted differences in their intended’s DNA, streamlining his or her phenotype to the desired fit. That done, the less wealthy fiancé/es’ were regrown. And while their bodies were being thus perfected, they were saved in live-holo format, to be blended into their new forms when the work was done. The couples joined thereby countless other Islands of Indifference—those Mother had warned against—oases of certainty in a suspicious world of chance.

"Rosaleen hated them all. But luckily, she hated her mother, too. Thus avoiding any huge conflict of interest in betraying that woman’s ideals."

"Miss Lonelygenes" Finds a Home

Ahmed Khan is at it again! SF Waxes Philosophical will be hitting the stands this month, but he is already hard at work editing a new anthology, this one commissioned by Mohammad Aurangzeb Ahmad. In Ahmed's words:

Mohammad Aurangzeb Ahmad is a freelance writer and doctoral student in Computer Science. He created and maintains what is probably the most extensive resource on the subject of "Islam and SF" - Muslims Writing Science Fiction.

He has asked me to co-edit an anthology of SF stories that feature Islam or at least one Muslim character in a positive light. He feels that at these times when Islam and Muslims are being negatively stereotyped, an anthology of this kind would be a good idea. And I agree.

I agree, as well, and as luck would have it, had available a story which fit into the market, and which Ahmed has purchased for the collection. The story is entitled "Miss Lonelygenes' Secret". In this story you will find a scientist who matches—and sometimes improves upon—potential spouses based on their genotypes. But her own life isn't going so terribly well...

If you have something to submit, the deadline is January 31, 2008, and all the info is on Ahmed's Writer's Blog at http://ahmedakhan.journalspace.com/

Cheers!
Casey

Claude Makes the Cover!

Bit of an egoboo to have Claude the featured story in this month's issue of Storyteller magazine. The magazine is beautifully laid out and generous with well-wrought illustrations. It is cross-genre, so be ready for scary stories in addition to the high-flying Claude tale.
Unfortunately, they haven't changed their website yet, so this issue isn't shown there. A few copies are left if you want to grab one--or grab a year's subscription for about $30.
http://www.storytellermagazine.com/

Storyteller Buys "Claude and the Henry Moores"

I'm pleased to announce that "Claude and the Henry Moores" will be appearing in either the fall or winter issue of Storyteller magazine. Here is a snippet from their website:

Back in the late eighties, Terry Tyo, publisher of Storyteller, asked himself why, whenever he wanted to read short stories, he was turning to American magazines and books to find them. And what he was finding was magazines and books devoted to only one type of story. Where was the variety? Although Canada has a reputation for great writers and a wide and literate audience, he couldn't find a Canadian magazine devoted to the short story that published mystery, or adventure, or even comedy. Thus was born the concept of Storyteller.

Story: After Hours at the Black Hole

This story was published in the Summer 2006 issue of OnSpec.

The first story I posted on this site, "The Coin", is a serious fantastic story about a street kid in Haiti.

"After Hours at the Black Hole" is more sardonic. You need not worry that anything like this will ever happen. Certainly not to you.

After Hours at the Black Hole
C. June Wolf

The thing about a black hole, Jude thought, was that once you threw something in there, that was it. No more coming back on you, no more problems, no more complications. It was good and tidy that way. Of course, there was always the chance, though he'd never known it to happen—that not everything that slipped across the event horizon remained uneventful for the rest of time—or timelessness, whatever.

And that was just what he was worrying about.

Working at all this crap for so long, Jude was nearly unfazeable. He had tugged so much across this vicinity of space he couldn't count the lightness of the years anymore, and had no idea how much of what he'd volleyed in that time he might at one, more ethical period of his life, have had regrets about. Business was business, after all, and a black hole trasher had work to do like anybody else. Never mind the delicacies of ethics or right. He would have thrown away his own mother (he liked to joke) if she hadn't thrown him away first, for a price, of course, and a handsome one. He had towed space dirt of every kind, from the rubble of abandoned colonies to the floating jetsam of war—living or very, very dead—to the entrails of planets that had somehow gotten tangled up in somebody's personal space. Any old thing you'd pay him for—he didn't mind. But today's cargo was a whole nother thing, and it worried him.

So, okay. Maybe those trusty black holes had swallowed everything so far without a burp. But he thought he'd spotted some energy shimmering where it ought not to last time he was circling Old Guzzler here, not just harmless vacuum fluctuations, but something else. It was nothing he could pin down instrumentally and he let it go and puttered back for his next "desperately urgent" something that needed to be lugged away.

Now here he was, moving in slowly, a handful of lightyears from Old G, with a long trailer of ruinous lives in his wake, and he was getting nervous.

He hadn't meant to ask the fellow what it was. But the guy was all white suit and glowing smile and intruded his philosophy into everything, so it was no surprise that he took Jude's grunt to mean, "Tell me in exhaustive detail what it is I am hauling out to wing down into Old Guzzler because I am just so interested in everything you think and do." Which the guy proceeded to do, to the increasing discomfort of one long-haul space trucker with no taste for the unliving, or the unlived or badly lived or—whatever.

"It's a procedure," the guy said all Prince of Lightness-y, spinning slowly in his chair with one white-clad leg propped regally across the other, "known as Soul-Stripping. Ha, ha, ha!"—his laugh sounded rehearsed—"We don't strip out the souls, of course, but strip off all the clutter and junk that makes them, and the lives they live, so untasteful and wicked and dull." That too-bright smile again. Bring down the eye-shades.

"People's lives, you see, are made up of a series of infinitely tiny and infinitely large decisions, endlessly made and yet barely attended to in the person's mind, and each has consequences in not only the outward but the inward parts of that individual's life. Eventually, the whole is so clogged up it isn't possible to make a single clear decision—because we are so mucked up with the crud of the years that we are no longer basing anything at all on the moment at hand, but all of it on the sticky goo that is now leading, if not in any way living, our lives.

"It's really very yukky—" that laugh again, like a soft solar drill, thutting against Jude's head. "You can see what I mean." Jude tried real hard not to seem to be listening. That was enough for Glow-Boy. He lunged on. "So we strip it off. Strip off the crud accrued one gungey layer at a time and fling it—thip! Thip! Thwap! into a thing we call the Black Hole."

Now this got Jude's attention. Eh?

Glowy smiled again. "Of course it isn't really a black hole. Our clients see this iccky substance stripped off of their thoughts, their memories, their impulses, their loves, and it is an incredible liberation. They lighten immeasurably. They straighten out strangled muscles, strangled lives. It is a wonderful thing to see, every time. But the goo is still in there, in the Black Hole, and there is nothing we have found to do with it, or to it, that either turns it into something useful, or gets it utterly and permanently beyond their reach.

"You see," he uncrossed his legs and leaned forward intensely, elbows digging into smooth knees, "there is a connection, a strand of energy so infinitesimally small that no one but us has even discovered it yet, that links each person to each bit of yik that we pull out of them. As long as the scrubbings are in the Black Hole, there is no real problem. There may be barely detectable tremours along the strands sometimes but no customer has felt it yet. They are able to go on and live their lives in wondrous new ways. But we are concerned. What would happen if one day--!poof!—one of those strands got strong enough that it smuckked its attendant yik back out from the Black Hole and splatted it right up against the poor unsuspecting customer again—maybe in the middle of a critical business deal, or in the process of making love? The consequences could be disastrous. We could be sued."

He sat back, looking vaguely real for the first time. This guy was really worried. Maybe he oughtta have a soul-stripping. But, he recovered. The smile: "And that is why, my friend, we have come to you. To put a truly toxic, galaxy-grade weapon out of commission for all time—our customers' combined millenia of bad and stupid living—and keep our company safely afloat and at the top of our wondrous game."

A creep. But in this limited sphere of criminalia, an honest one. Because of course, trucking anything at all—even energy, even bad decisions—that could logically be argued to be part of a living human being, was no, no, no on the black hole blacklist, and that was simply that.

Ugh. What a freak show. And here he was hauling it right up to the gaping mouth of Old Guzzler itself. Never mind Glowy, and never mind the planetloads of customers. What would happen to him if any of that spewed back out and caught him in the backside out in space? Better hope Old Guzzler doesn't take a leak on Jude today.

Here he goes then. Jude is circling in to the vicinity of Old Guzzler, tucked deep in the island universe, el Tetratis. The wash of stars in soft bright spirals spanned out unimaginably vast as he hurtled toward them, all but motionless in sensation, yet gaining on the galaxy at stunning speed. Clusters of young blue stars, reddish gatherings of stars in the making, and a vast density of white light in the centre, Tetratis was a beauty that even Jude could still appreciate. For a moment, the apprehension about his cargo took a backseat to that familiar feeling of wow. She sure was a stunner.

Somewhere in her centre, fuelling all that wonderful star production, was a supermassive black hole. No black hole trasher with the slightest grey matter still in the hold would ever try trucking into one of those. But over there, off to one side of the densest region of stars in Tetratis, was a nice little "binary twin" black hole he had shimmied up to more than once in his lifetime. And now, his first shipment of crappy lives was about to strike Old Guzzler right in the b.h. kisser.

Once he flung a cargo close enough Old G did the rest, sucking it in with all the power of the collapsed star it was. Jude snorted to himself at the old joke. They seem all-powerful when they're dazzling their audience as stars, but watch 'em collapse on themselves and they turn all sucky and whiney till the day they die. No matter how hard they suck, ain't nobody's gonna fawn over them anymore. But don't worry. Ignore them for a few billion years and eventually they'll go away.

And there it was. Jude slowed The Tug slightly as Old Guzzler came square into view. In amongst the spilled jewels of stars, next to its buddy star (Bootleg Pete) was a modest-size shiny black orb just hovering in nothing, and he was sailing right for it. Cargo forgotten, he threw himself into the routine. Couplers were set ready for detachment, target selected, The Tug's stabilizers and cargo placement rockets simultaneously fired. Like a harpoon destined for a blubbery side, the container was set in motion, gathering more speed as rockets continued to fire, sailing toward the black hole in fluid precision. Soon, the fuel would all be gone. But it wouldn't matter anymore. Crap and container, it would coast on until Old Guzzler was licking its shiny lips and giving a nice polite smile of thanks. Not that he would actually see that. The stuff would just kind of fade away, long after he'd left for the next run. But it was fun to imagine.

Jude's shoulders perceptibly relaxed. The crap of lives trailing behind him was gone.

He got ready to buzz away. He triple-checked the shot. Trajectory and velocity were good; he'd nailed it, right on course. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that this wasn't a place he really wanted to be anymore. He turned tail and got the hell out of there.

Jude was just flickering back into regular space when he felt the tug on The Tug. Everything in him set to tingling in alarm. It was just a gentle tug but he knew without a doubt where it had come from. He looked down at his controls, and if God had been in existence just then He would have been mighty surprised to see Jude pray.

Back at el Tetratis, things were getting pretty weird. In the vicinity of Guzzler and Bootleg Pete, they were even weirder than normal around the old event horizon. A container of foolish and freaky, angry and lost, desperate and astonishing, inspired and blessed, amazed and horrified, impulsive and long over-thought decisions was being stretched and splintered and set free, yet frozen on the horizon above Old Guzzler's mighty maw, and a billion dark strands of unbreakable filaments of energy were vibrating faster and faster even as everything else held heart-stoppingly still. Unbelievably, had anyone been there to watch and believe or not, they reached far across space through nonexistent wormholes, bisected garlands of strings, pierced planets and plunged through suns of monstrous size, unharmed, unaltered, unalterable. Old Guzzler was getting a massive ache in the gut.

Jude felt The Tug slowing frighteningly, felt the thrill of a billion cold wires of questing energy find their way into him, curling tight around each peptide and grain of self, anchoring in every breath and crackling synapse. Tighter and tighter to him they wrapped themselves, hitch-hikers, hijackers, little German children left to wander and die in the wicked woods by evil parents, clutching at the only thing that connects them still to the lives they left behind, and through Jude they shot forward, strangling him from the inside out, shot through space with unheard of urgency and plunged toward the earth, the colonies, the satellites, the stars, everywhere in the hundred light year radius that was Soul Strip territory. And plunged on through to the ones who'd tried to rid themselves of them.

Old Guzzler heaved. The sucker who wouldn't exhale, the drinker who never puked, the swallower of all heaved hell-bent for mercy and out they spewed. Everything it had ever gulped came, too. Radiation, planets, ships, time. Blowing out like a firehose on speed, splattering the island universe, and through it, and beyond. With them went everything that Guzzler was, radiating off every quantum of its mass, till the one who had once dramatically collapsed now fizzled suddenly out, and Old Pete had no one left to slurp up all his booty.
But Old Pete beamed numbly on, and el Tetratis continued, unimpressed, in its making and extinguishing of stars.

Glowy Boy looked up from his desk, a strange sensation entering his consciousness. It was the pop of a billion accounts, he was sure. He frowned terribly, jerking his head around, jumping up to react but having nowhere, nowhere to go. Inside, he felt the downward slide into confusion, the bliss-less collision of a million furious thoughts, discarded on the road in a dirty little cardboard box, come back home after all this travelling, not run over, not dead, not going away, no how. And mightily pissed off.

He slumped into his chair again, and sobbed.

EL EXTREMO

copyright 2006

Self Portrait

Definitely Maybe

I just read the novel Definitely Maybe by the Soviet SF authors Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. (See also.) I will suppress my urge to gush and describe and just say, if you like thoughtful, beautifully written, seedy and itchy prose, this is a very worthwhile read.

Maybe a snippet? Taken at random, cause I gotta get to bed:

Malianov was flabberghasted. He had known Val Weingarten for twenty-five years and Weingartedn had never expressed an iota of interest in Malianov's work. Weingarten had never been interested in anything but Weingarten himself with the exception of two mysterious objects: the 1934 two-penny and the "consul's half-ruble," which was not a half-ruble at all but some special postage stamp. The bum has nothing to do, Malianov decided. Just killing time. Or maybe he needs a roof over his head, and he's just building up to the question?

"What am I working on?" he asked with gleeful malice. "I can tell you in great detail if you like. You'll be fascinated by it all, I'm sure, being a biologist and all. Yesterday morning I finally broke through. It turns out that in the most general assumptions regarding the potential function, my equations of motion have one more integral besides the integral of energy and the integrals of momenta. If the equations of motion are given in vector form and then the Hartwig transformation is applied, then the integration is performed for the entire volume, and the whole problem is reduced to integro-differential equations of the Kolmogorov-Feller type."

To his vast amazement, Weingarten was not interrupting him. For a second, Malianov thought that they had been disconnected.

"Are you listening to me?"

"Yes, very attentively."

"Perhaps you even understand what I'm saying?"

"I'm getting some of it," Weingarten said heartily. Malianov suddenly realized how strange his voice was. He was frightened by it.

"Val, is something wrong?"

"What do you mean?" Weingarten asked, stalling.

"What do I mean? With you, of course! You sound a little funny. Can't you talk right now?"

"No, no, pal. That's nonsense. I'm all right. It's just the heat. Do you know the one about the two roosters?"

Well, that gives the slightest taste of a few of the elements of this story. It's a wonderful example of writing in which essentially nothing happens but the reader is pulled marvellously along to a satisfying and unusual ending. I found myself tapping tables in anticipation of getting back to Definitely Maybe whenever life got in the way.

Definitely Maybe, Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. Translated from the Russian by Antonina W. Bouis, Introduction by Theodore Sturgeon. Collier Books, NY NY, 1978. Published in Russian as За миллиард лет до конца света in 1977.

Story: 'The Coin'

Well, I think I've held off long enough. Here is "The Coin", published in Tesseracts 9, New Canadian Speculative Fiction, edited by Nalo Hopkinson and Geoff Ryman. (This is a slightly revised version.)

The first short story I had written in years, "The Coin" dropped out of my pocket while I sat with Rhea Rose in the hotel lobby at VCon in 2003. It arose in homage to a little boy I had befriended in Haiti not so long before.

The Coin

Likner walked away from the girl who had brought the message from his mother. They hadn't talked long, but she had carefully taken the red cuvette of mangoes from her head and
given him two, then lifted the heavy load back onto the curl of cloth that rested on her braided hair.

The message said that his baby sister had died. He had seen her only once—she’d been so tiny. She had lived with their mother and Likner's other sisters on the steep mountainside
on the road to Vertierres. It might be a good idea, he thought, to visit his mother soon. Maybe he could find a coconut for her. But the idea made him feel leaden. He pushed it out of his mind, and headed for the boulevard, nipping the top of the first mango and peeling it with his teeth.

Likner followed the narrow street to the boulevard by the sea where the sun, hot since rising, climbed above the barely moving water of the bay. Here the sea bumped gently against a long concrete wall instead of washing over a beach, and the road that followed the wall was surprisingly smooth. The occasional rusted taxis and big 4x4s could race on it unhindered by potholes and cracks, by market stalls or crowds of people.

He started off toward downtown. His gaze shifted from the sea and low mountains to the tiny makeshift fishing boats, and back to the road he travelled. Here and there, small groups of people sat on broken benches or dangled their legs over the seawall, talking low among themselves. On the other side of the road were the houses of the people who owned the 4x4s. He scanned the tall palms in their yards for their great pale fruit.

He passed a littered beach, the empty tourist market, and then the docks. As he came abreast with a pair of rusted freighters standing in the oily water of the bay, he could see a little clutch of boys down the street by the bakery. He had expected to find them there. It was nearly Karnaval and they were dressing up as zenglendoes to “rob" the patrons at Bagay La. He watched as they huddled around the door, waiting for customers to come back out.

At seven, Likner was the youngest of these boys living on the streets of Okap, but he had been with them for more than a year and they accepted him without question. Like him, they wore shorts and dirty T-shirts that hung like dresses, and nothing on their feet. But they had also smeared their skin with motor oil, and cobbled together fake knives and guns.

In other places in the city, grown men dressed as soldiers walked with the musicians who carried the noisy homemade instruments of the rara band. They were stopping traffic at busy corners and demanding coins to let the vehicles pass. The boys knew the methods well. They crowded around a handful of blans who were coming out of the door, those wealthy foreigners come to save their souls and tell them how to live.

Likner hung back watching as the others brandished their weapons menacingly, smiling beneath the ferocity of their scowls. Two missionaries brushed past them with wry grins and flip remarks in Creole. A third, a pale white woman, followed. The boys closed ranks around her and held out oily hands. She shook her head and said something incomprehensible that wasn’t Creole, didn’t sound like French, might have been English. Bouki grinned and made as if to smear her clothes with oil if she didn’t hand something over. She winked and moved forward. They let her by.

The blan was sitting on the low wall beside the sea. The water made impatient little pushes at the concrete, urging bits of garbage back toward the shore. Down the block the beach rose up from the silky ocean waters. It was littered with plastic bags and old, rough-made chairs, well-stripped car frames and a blend of mango pits, coconut husks, and shreds of sugar cane fibre that gave off all together a thick dank smell of rot. Bouki and Benji were already with the blan, working her. Likner walked up slowly. She was shaking her head. Turning her pockets inside out. Benji snorted. Sure she had no money. His closed face locked and he turned away. Bouki shrugged and moved off, unconcerned.

He grinned at Likner and bent to scoop a little rock. Knowing Bouki’s games, Likner ducked as it sailed toward him, grabbed a bigger one and rushed forward for a revenge throw. The woman grabbed his wrist as he went hurtling by. Bouki smacked him hard and skipped away. The woman held Likner until his struggling ceased, then set him down and waited. He turned and stared.

Likner never really expected much. Half the time he didn't even ask for money. He never pushed the blans like the other boys. He didn't dream someone would take him home, to Canada or the States or France, give him money to go to school or buy a house for his mama. But even he couldn't escape a little skipping in his heart, a little difficulty with his breath when she looked at him and smiled. Because you never know, do you? You never really know.

Yesterday he'd thought that she was white-blonde, with gem-blue eyes and skin like shaved ice. Today he saw her hair was a light brown, and the blue eyes were tinged with green. She looked at him for a long time, steadily. He decided to try.

"Ba m senk goud," he told her. She cocked her head. "Give me one dolla," he said in English. She understood.

Bouki and Benji were gone. She reached into her pocket, one she had turned inside out earlier, and pulled out a large, dull coin. She put it in his hand, closed his fingers around it, looked into his eyes. She pointed to the coin, pointed to his pocket, closed her fist. "Don't lose it," she was telling him. Then she stood up, gave him a little pinch on the nose, and walked away.

He stared at the coin, empty of feeling. It wasn't Haitian. Or American. He squinted. He couldn't read, but he knew them all. It wasn't Canadian or Belgian or French. He could barely make out the shape of a woman—an American, he thought, by her face and hair—and on the other side … perhaps a fish.

He heard a shout and looked in the direction she had gone. Ezo and Bouki and Ti Patrik, sparring and yelling as they wandered up the street. The blan was nowhere to be seen.

The coin was a disappointment. He looked at it numbly. He surprised himself with what he did next, without even thinking. He tossed it over the wall and into the muttering sea. The water swallowed it and it left his thoughts. Bending, he scooped up a nicely weighted stone. Straightened and aimed at Bouki's shaved head.

Likner sat on the darkened stoop across from the Merci Jesu Bar and Grill. People stood lined up waiting for manyòk juice and white bread with spicy peanut butter. A couple of the boys stood by the doorway, available for handouts. Likner felt a presence at his elbow and turned. It was the blan. Her dark hair was pulled back from her face in a tight bun. How could he not have noticed before that she was a grimèl? Though her skin was not dark, the Haitian features were unmistakeable. She smiled at him, as if he had been very naughty. She held out the coin.

"Pa perdi li," she said in Creole. Don't lose it. She nodded sharply and he stuffed it in his pocket without a word. One of the boys noticed her there and came over to talk. She winked at Likner, smiled at him, and walked away listening to the other boy.

That night, when Likner was alone, he looked at the coin again. The woman's features were a little clearer. She had her eyes raised and her hands as well, her head twisted a little to one side, as if she was dancing. He turned it over. The fish was very long. It arced as though diving into the sea.

He walked along the boulevard, considering. What could he buy with this? Nothing. What could he trade it for? Not much. His business sense said to trade it. His gut said to hell with it. To hell with the big shot blans and their money. To hell with their promises. He took it out again, glanced up the long, dark street. Three men laughed and talked loudly a few steps away. One lone man leaned against the seawall half a block in front of him. The man filled up his lungs and sang horridly into the gentle breeze that came in off the sea. Likner thought of offering him the coin. But no. Instead, he turned to the sea again. He aimed it far out in the water, where it was deep, where the woman would not see it and fetch it back. And he threw it in.

Likner woke to the sound of gentle breathing. He lay on the sidewalk in a little cluster of boys. Jean Denis' long arm was resting on his face. The moon had left the sky. He sat up, let his legs dangle over the wall that faced the water, and stuffed his hands into his pockets. Something hard was in there. He pulled it out. The coin. Only now the woman was changed. He stiffened. She was the mambo dancing before they poisoned the owners and burned the plantations and started the revolution. He knew that it was her. He turned it over and there was La Sirene, rising in all her scaled majesty from her element, the sea.

Don't lose it, she had said. It wasn't a Visa. It wasn't a schoolbag. It wasn't even a hunk of bread. But anyone would know it was a wanga, though whose, or why he had it, or what magic it was meant to do, he didn't know. He leapt up and hurled it as far, as far as it would go and turned to race away from the sea.

He stopped. For a second he thought the moon had fallen from the sky and hovered in front of his face. He blinked. It was her, holding the coin up in her dark brown hand, a little smile playing on her face. Her black hair stood stiffly out on every side.

"It was an orphanage," she said in perfect Creole. Where was she getting these words? "With a school and uniforms and a library that actually has books." He stepped to one side, hoping to get around her. "It was a boat. Forty people and high seas and nothing to eat, nothing to drink. Do you think they'll reach America? Do you think they'll let them land? Do you think that they'll be welcome if they manage to sneak ashore?" He made a break. She nabbed him easily and held him while he wriggled.

"Good," she said. She pinned him down. Some of the other boys were starting to rouse. The ocean slapped the wall and spattered them with spray. "It was a marine. He strafed the fighters in the hills and made their families build the roads. He killed their pigs." Her teeth clicked together as she sank against the curb, her black fingers tight around him still. "It was an houngan, a strong one. What do you think an houngan can do? Draw vevers of flour on the dirt for the spirits and dance possessed all night? Anything else? Can he do anything? Is he worshipping devils like the missionaries say? Is he always drunk? "

Her legs twined around each other and fused into a long, scaled tail. She released his arm and bellied over the waking boys, paused for a second on the wall and blinked great green eyes at him. "It was a poet. He sketched his words in Creole, dipped his pen in his blood, wrote with the loops of his intestines. Did you hear him scream? Did you hear him laugh with joy?

"It was a wish, Likner. Would you like to learn to see with eyes like mine? Would you like to find your own?" She blinked her great green eyes at him. So green, they were nearly coal. "It was a dream. Do you dream, Likner? Would you like to give that up?"

She dove over the side and disappeared in the inky water with a hearty splash. “Come on," he heard in his mind. "Follow and see. See if your arm can bend this wave."

One by one, the boys sat up stiffly, looking confusedly around them. Likner watched the water shifting where she had disappeared, heard it tapping at the wall. Tentatively, he put his hand back in his pocket. Met something small, round, hard. Just for now, he decided not to look.

Pen nan boutèy, diven nan panye

Bread in the bottle, wine in the basket

copyright June 2005

"These Old Bones" Sells to SF Waxes Philosophical

well, i have indeed been absent from this blog.

not that i stopped writing--far from it. it's been a bumper year. i've written several short stories and the first draught of a novel, and am enjoying great rewards in those directions. as i wrote to Alette Willis (whose fine story "Thought and Memory" in Tesseracts 9 is what got us acquainted in the first place) this morning:

writing is going well; publishing has been going HORRIFICally.

luckily, the writing is more important to me than the publishing, but still, it's discouraging sometimes.

most of the time, i'm not thinking about that. i'm enjoying the reading and researching and writing and chewing my thumbs and wondering and stretching my brain and all of that fun stuff.

i like how many interesting things i get to ponder more deeply than when i am just reading about them, and how connected i feel to them and the world as a result. and when i write something i particularly like, i feel this pleased sense of well-being, which is very cool.

and this morning, after over a year of no thank yous, Ahmed Khan let me know he wants my story "These Old Bones" for his new anthology. i'm really happy about that, even more so because i really like what he is doing as an editor.

so there you have it. Ahmed Khan's new anthology has the working title SF Waxes Philosophical, and it is open to submissions till 15 august, so go have a look and see what this intriguing Canadian writer and editor is up to now.

click on this link and search SF Waxes Philosophical. for a look at his most unusual anthology Fall and Rise, click here, and for a list of his own works, click here.

and thanks, Ahmed. it's fun playing in the sandbox all day long. but it's a relief to have someone come by and say, "wow, i love your sandcastles!" now and then.

At Last, Something to Report!

well, i have indeed been absent from this blog.

not that i stopped writing--far from it. it's been a bumper year. i've written several short stories and the first draught of a novel, and am enjoying great rewards in those directions. as i wrote to Alette Willis (whose fine story "Thought and Memory" in Tesseracts 9 is what got us acquainted in the first place) this morning:

writing is going well; publishing has been going HORRIFICally.

luckily, the writing is more important to me than the publishing, but still, it's discouraging sometimes.

most of the time, i'm not thinking about that. i'm enjoying the reading and researching and writing and chewing my thumbs and wondering and stretching my brain and all of that fun stuff.

i like how many interesting things i get to ponder more deeply than when i am just reading about them, and how connected i feel to them and the world as a result. and when i write something i particularly like, i feel this pleased sense of well-being, which is very cool.

and this morning, after about 18 months of no thank yous, Ahmed Khan let me know he wants a story of mine for his new anthology. i'm really happy about that, even more so because i really like what he is doing as an editor.

so there you have it. Ahmed Khan's new anthology has the working title SF Waxes Philosophical, and it is open to submissions till 15 august, so go have a look and see what this intriguing Canadian writer and editor is up to now.

click on this link and search SF Waxes Philosophical. for a look at his most unusual anthology Fall and Rise, click here, and for a list of his own works, click here.

and thanks, Ahmed. it's fun playing in the sandbox all day long. but it's a relief to have someone come by and say, "wow, i love your sandcastles!" now and then.

VCon & More New Stories

Tut, tut. Been lax lately in keeping this blog. But not in writing, critiquing, reading and generally celebrating writing and writers.

VCon 31 was lovely--kudos and thanks to the organizers and volunteers for putting together an A1 convention. There was more good panelling than I could possibly attend, and I enjoyed everything I did see. For details on who was there and what they were up to, see the con website and Ahmed Khan's lovely and detailed report. (Rather alarming, though, is that when I commented on his blog I found my name called up a link to a high-priced "model" in New York. Oh, dear!)

Highlights of the con for me were:

• Hanging out with my nephews, who are all SF fans and avid readers of nonfiction, too. They are getting interested in the programming now, so we actually see each other a lot more than in earlier years. (I'm not much of a gamer, which used to be what most interested them at the con.)
• the Turkey Readings--what a hoot! We read lurid passages from old pulp novels and the audience gets to come up and act them out. An auction runs to get us to read--or stop!
• Visiting with a number of people--Brian and Anita Hades of Edge/Tesseracts Books, Bruce Taylor, Jennifer Taylor (no known relationship), Ahmed Khan, Randy Barnhart, Linda DeMeulemeester and many more.
• Readings--given and attended. Particularly liked Barbara Hambly's reading. Very personable GoH, and a wonderful writer.
• Singing with the Filkers (my convention singing debut). Sang NaCl (McGarrigle Sisters) and The Last Unicorn (Jimmy Webb).
• The video room, with it's stock of old movies and teevee, presided over by the inimitable R. Graeme Cameron.
• A gallant young man I walked down the hall with who offered me a back rub when I mentioned I was in pain. Naturally, I accepted. Thank you, kind sir!

Stories Update

I have written several stories lately, despite the long break in my routine caused by travel. I am just finishing an "idealistic youth" type story set in 1965 in Winnipeg: "The MagniCharisma Machine", and have sent off "The Ziz", a biblical, well, story, really, and "These Old Bones", set in the dinosaur bonebeads of Alberta. I have been so focussed on writing, though, that I have once again let the marketting slide. Oopsies. Honest, Ma. I'll get to it...

Here is a small taste from "These Old Bones":

Andrea walked out into the hills. The earth crumbled under her running shoes.

She stayed as close to the path as possible, alert for splinters of stony bone and petrified, pebbled eggshell, Cretaceous litter uplifting through the weathered earth. Soft clay interspersed among the sandier soil—kaolinite, if she remembered, used in toothpaste. Glancing up at the dolmen-shaped hoodoos, she took a great soft breath. The desert was magical. The museum, too. Thanh Sullivan was a twit, but God, this place!

Andrea turned at the crest of the hill and looked down. Below lay the shrubby desert, shaped by erosion and tinted with age. Above, all around her, spread bald prairie, and an immensity of sky beyond it. Prairie and sky together were a vast tableau, and she stood solitary upon it, while hidden beneath her—that incomprehensible land. A place where enormous bones were even now shrugging from the soil. Where the first people might have run bison to their deaths, necks broken at the bases of these cliffs. Where time has wound so slowly that what happens there now is out of step with all the rest of the world.

The sky contracted and folded and streaked itself with paint. Stretching out wide and flat it hungered for night. Andrea felt it, the dimming of the heat and slow resurrection of the wild. She sank down onto the ground and placed her palms against it, feeling the fine grains of clay against her skin, lifting them and rubbing them softly on her face.

Andrea stayed there a moment, smelling the earth and the grasses, feeling the cooling air as it played about her. She began her slow descent from the prairie to the badlands before the sky drew its shade to a sudden close.