Jupiter XXXIX : Hegemone
January 2013
Jupiter is edited by: Ian Redman
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Editorial
We have moved! Any postal communications must be done using our new address shown on the previous page. Whilst we have set up a redirect, I would hate to lose any correspondence.
So, what have we got lined up this issue? Another good one I think, Daniel has provided a fantastic colour cover image and we welcome Alessio back with some more poems.
There are six great stories for you, from future (and past) earths to far flung new worlds. These stories are full of strange objects, space ships and future cities, and yet at their core they’re all about people, their reactions to the world and the things life throws at them.
Enjoy!
Ian
editor - Jupiter
Blocked
Simon Fay
She tosses her rucksack onto the ground in front of these two strangers as though they’re old friends waiting for her arrival. “I’ll be back with a drink.”
She hadn’t asked to sit down.
“Blondes aren’t your type.”
“Americans aren’t yours.”
“I’ve been meaning to expand my horizons.”
The Yank’s greeting doesn’t so much ignite the competition between the men as much as it douses a can of petrol on the crackling fire they call their friendship. Boys will be boys. The taller one pushes a low barstool out from the table with his foot by way of welcoming the woman to her seat. “You’ll have to excuse my friend, he doesn’t like Americans.”
“Nobody does,” the two ends of her mouth perched on her cheeks.
“Maybe you can win me over,” the smaller man says.
“Who says I want to?” As she leans forward to open a pouch on her rucksack the smaller man notices the cube shaped pendant dangling on a chain over the dip between her milky breasts.
“Never mind,” he says dramatically, “She’s a Blockhead.”
By way of confirming this she slides a beer mat decorated with a picture of The Block off the table, and slips it into the open pouch of her bag.
The bigger one laughs, feeling this marathon against his friend turn into a sprint in which he’s darting ahead.
“I find that term offensive,” her smile not flickering, her eyes not dulled.
“He hates Blockheads more than he hates Americans.”
“Man, I thought Irish guys were supposed to have charm.”
“I should have guessed by the rucksack. A pilgrim for The Block,” the smaller man shakes his head.
“You guys don’t appreciate what you got.”
“Sure we do.”
“This one doesn’t.”
“My name’s Phil.”
“Sarah.”
“Rupert.”
Hands are shook, everyone making a conscious effort to grip hard.
“A Blockhead,” Phil mourns the loss of his respect for the woman – Sarah – with a long sup of his beer.
“An alien object, the size of a shopping mall, of unknown origin, a perfectly shaped cube, moved from god only knows where in the universe and floated – not fell, floated – down from space and landed in Dublin city – your home – an enormous block of perfectly shaped granite landed like a feather in Phoenix Park, and you’re not the least bit impressed by that?”
“Yeah? What’s it done lately?” Phil knows well that The Block hasn’t done anything for twenty-seven years, eleven months and thirty days.
“Phil’s not easily impressed,” Rupert explains, then shifts the conversation away from his friend, “personally, I think it’s stunning. There’s not a country in the world that didn’t claim a shot at understanding the damn thing, how the hell it floated and where the hell it came from. Thirty years of poking and prodding it and no explanation other than – yep – it’s made out of granite and it sure as hell is a cube.”
Phil bites his tongue through Ruperts monologue, fully aware that he’s waffling and happy to lie to get into the girl’s pants. Codes of friendship sometimes serve as elaborate guidelines on how to torture each other. Rupert had taken his position, to love The Block, Phil was still resigned to smashing the thing, Yank or no Yank.
“It’s comforting for you,” Phil rolls his eyes, “That there’s something you don’t understand. You think people were scared when The Block first showed up? Imagine how scared they’d be if we knew everything. I don’t blame you for taking comfort.”
Sarah’s eyes do not leave Phil and her smile does not fade, though her manner becomes cautious and detached, like she’s looking at him through a sheet of glass.
“Phil’s a deathbed Catholic,” Rupert, kicking himself for redirecting the conversation back to Phil.
“Is that right Phil? Sin, sin, sin all the way till a priest shows up for the last rights then apologise for being rude to so many tourists?”
“I’ll go to hell before apologising for that.”
They all sit quietly for a moment till Sarah startles them with a burst of laughter. “You two really hate each other.”
“Only all the time,” Rupert says.
“We’re going to need more drinks,” Phil stands, patting pockets for his wallet.
“Stop pretending to look for it,” Rupert hands him a twenty
Phil takes the money bashfully and mentally notes that Rupert has scored another point, Cheeky, he thinks, and makes his way to the bar, feeling every second he’s away from the girl whom he’s left with the competition, his friend.
“Feckin’ Blockheads,” a drunk at the bar giggles to his buddy.
He sees the drunk fling a beer mat at the girl which buzzes by her ear like a fly – she scratches the ear – and the missile goes unnoticed.
“You with her?” they ask. “Looper pilgrims.”
Phil thinks, She is a looper pilgrim, a blockhead, travelling all the way from The States on her own just to see a big lump of granite.
And then he thinks it again, She travelled all the way from The States on her own to see a big lump of granite.
Anyway, he shrugs off their comment with a diplomatic, “Blockheads’ gotta drink too.” With that sentence, he feels a line drawn down himself splitting him in two. He doesn’t like that she’s into the lump of granite, but he’s protective of her. He decides, I’m the only one who’s going to slag her about The Block, not some drunks at the bar. As he’s thinking this, they fling another beer mat, this time hitting the target on her cheek. As Phil thinks, Rupert stands. Rupert’s broad frame expands to make him a bull, his size more intimidating than anything he could say. The drunks at the bar turn away from him in a sulk. Another point to Rupert, Phil notes. As he seats himself across from Sarah he feels small sat beside his friend. “That Irish charm again,” he rolls his eyes to the drunks. Sarah, she’s still smiling, though her eyes have lost a spark.
“Rupert says you’ve never been to The Block.”
“Rupert’s very generous with information.”
“Rupert says you’re never going to The Block.”
“Rupert’s smile is starting to
piss me off.”
“We’re going to The Block.”
“Have a nice time.”
“You’re coming with us.”
“Over my dead body.”
She laughs that laugh again, no less startling this time.
Phil’s hand tightens on the square shaped pint glass – he knows that Rupert senses his opportunity to steal her away once and for all.
“We’re getting a bottle of wine. If Phil’s coming I’ll make it two. We’re hopping the fence tonight,” Rupert talks knowing she won’t say no, “You don’t want to be lining up with a bunch of picture taking tourists. You’ve come all the way from America to see the feckin’ thing, we should make it special. The fence is about yay-high, I’ll get you over with a boost. Then it’s just us, the stars and The Block. Sound?”
“Sound?” she asks.
“Sound,” he says, and goes to the bar to buy a bottle of wine.
“You’ve never been,” she huffs at Phil, “Right on your doorstep, the most amazing thing on the planet, and you’ve never been, never want to go, refuse to go. You’re one stubborn piece of crap, you know that?”
“Don’t admire a man who stands by his principles?”
She leans forward and places her hand on his, looking deep into his eyes, drawing him out of himself and says, “It’ll be fun.”
As it happens, that’s all it takes for Phil to betray his principles, her hand and those words. “Rupert,” He shouts to the bar, “Better make that two bottles,” and knocks back the rest of his drink.
The two men, waiting in the back of a Taxi now, Sarah has popped into a shop for some smokes.
“She’s too fat for you.”
“I was about to say she’s too skinny for you.”
“You don’t like Blockheads.”
Phil doesn’t have a retort to that. He doesn’t like Blockheads. He was never going to visit The Block. He planned on spending the rest of his life in Dublin never having stood by the useless thing and here he is now, in the back of a taxi, hoping Sarah opens the door to the back seat so she’s sat beside him.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she says as she slides into the front of the car, “I mean I know, it’s what I came here for, but it’s only hitting me now. I’m going to see it. I’m really going to see it.”
Phil finds her enthusiasm infectious despite himself. Rupert nudges him. Whether Phil gets the girl or not, Rupert’s got one up on him, he’s made him pay the price. As they glide along the quays, city lights flickering on the river at high tide, The Block bares down on them from the distance. Spotlights hold it up for the city to see, it would otherwise be a black shadow at night, parked in amongst the trees of Phoenix park, invisible. Soon concrete paths become stretches of grass and the cube in the distance becomes an imposing wall outside the taxi. Rupert pays the driver. “Be careful if yis are hoppin’ the fence, lotta scumbags round this time a night.” They don’t hear him, the silent block is far too loud. When the taxi is gone it’s just them and The Block. Sarah is awe struck, Phil is agitated, Rupert is indifferent.
The three of them are walking around the main entrance, following the fence into a wooded area where it’s easier to hop. “Walk-through entrance is closed up at night, you and your camera will have to come back tomorrow with the other tourists for that.”
“If we were meant to walk through it we wouldn’t have had to drill a hole in it ourselves,” simply put, “And I didn’t bring a camera. So come on guys, give me the tour.”
“You probably know more about it than we do,” Rupert suggests.
She inhales deeply, “Two hundred feet high,” she pauses, “two hundred feet wide,” pauses again, “perfect corners,” pauses between each fact, savouring them, “estimated to be nineteen thousand tons. With no foundation for it to rest on, it is sinking into the earth at a rate of zero point seven inches a year.” It looms over everything Sarah is saying, “Made of a common igneous rock – granite – it is composed mainly of magnesium,” pause, “Iron,” pause and a smirk, “silicon, sodium, calcium, potassium,” she pokes Rupert in the ribs, “and aluminum,” then pinches Phil’s cheek. “Nothing remarkable about it, only for its size, the fact that it’s polished down to a perfect cube, by who knows what, and the fact that it floated down to our little speck of a planet for no apparent reason other than to sit here for twenty seven-years.”
“Twenty-eight years tomorrow,” says Phil, swigging the bottle of wine.
Rupert boosts Phil over first, then Sarah, who falls over the wire fence and stumbles to the ground, tossed into Phil’s arms by the weight of her rucksack. Looking up into his eyes, she asks suspiciously, “What age are you?”
Phil fixes the bag onto her back and ignores the question while Rupert Jackie-Chans himself over the fence in one bound. “Showoff,” Phil accuses, then turning to the wall, “Look at this,” He means the graffiti. The Block is scarred with new and old graffiti and the stains of older paint washed off again and again.
“This city’s gone to shreds,” Rupert chimes.
“I’m more impressed with the can control on that guys tag than I am with this hunk of nothing. You know how much practice it takes to get that smooth a line?”
“You’re more impressed with, Stanto iz a FAG, than you are with The Block?” Sarah asks, pretending to be offended.
“Too right I am.”
They stand quietly then, having no reply for the statement before them. After all, what’s a person supposed to say to a two hundred foot high piece of stone?
“Phil’s twenty-eight tomorrow,” another chime from Rupert.
“I knew it!” Sarah laughs victoriously, “You’re a Blockbaby!”
“I find that term offensive,” another swig of wine.
“What time were you born at?”
“Sarah,” Rupert, relishing the torture he’s putting Phil through, “you’re not talking to just any Blockbaby. You’re talking to the Blockbaby. This big chunk of granite floated down from space and touched our wet green grass at exactly 3:44pm.”
“54,” Phil corrects.
“3.54pm and so far as my friend here is concerned the only thing impressive that came into Ireland at that time on that day was his grumpy little self.”
“I knew it. Oh my god you are such a loser! You’re just pissed off with The Block because people have been on your case about it since-”
“The day I was born.”
“We’re coming back to this in a minute,” she warns, and at that, turns around and takes slow steps toward the granite face pushing down on them. Her head is titled back as she focuses on the top of the monument, night clouds obscured by spotlights shining up the flat surface of rock. Phil follows her slowly and realizes that Rupert is not behind him, he’s leaning against the fence with his arms folded, his eyebrows arched expectantly as he nods Phil forward. Phil sighs. She’s at the wall as he steps through the strip of gravel within two marble curbs, touching the spotlight – it’s hot – with the tip of his finger as he passes it. Then he’s beside her, The Block in front of him. Her hand is raised and her eyes open, no smile on her face, for the first time tonight, no smile.
Phil opens his mouth to speak, but she cuts him off, “Don’t ruin this moment for me,” she doesn’t look at him, “Just… let me have this.”
Closing her eyes she reaches forward and places fingers onto The Block, then after three quick beats of her heart, presses the entire palm of her hand against it. For twenty more beats she stands this way with Phil watching her, then lets her hand slide back down to her side and opens her eyes, satisfied with whatever she just experienced. Now, without saying a word she turns around and walks back toward the fence, Phil following along behind her, not having touched The Block, or even realizing it was there for all the focus he had on this woman, this Blockhead – I’d give my right hand for her not to be a Blockhead.
“A fuckin
g Blockbaby,” she says.
“The fucking Blockbaby,” Rupert confirms.
“Utterly fucked by The Block,” Phil curses.
“You’ve been giving The Block shit all night,” Sarah challenges, “What’s your problem with the thing? You’re a smart guy, you know how crazy it is that the it’s even here, that it touched down on the planet the exact minute, maybe even the exact moment you were born. You can’t deny its mind blowing.”
“Yeah? And what else happened the moment I was born? Some guy was taking a messy crap because he had a chicken vindaloo the night before. Some other guy was getting laid with the best looking tramp of his life. Some woman was on her mobile when she was driving and smashed some kids brains up because she just found out her husband was cheating on her. I’m supposed to be impressed with the fact that a hunk of nothing dropped down from space the same time all of that was going on?”
“You’re supposed to be impressed with the idea that maybe, yes, there’s a connection. That this block came from somewhere or maybe even nowhere, dropped down here for reasons or no reason whatsoever, but that in any event it’s here, and it’s changed everything, and you of all people could be directly connected to it!”
Phil had thought about this. He agreed there were connections. This block had dropped down onto the planet and landed in his country, changing everything from the day to day lives of the cities people, to the political and economical landscape of Europe, even further, with America pushing their way into Irish interests for the right to prod the thing to boredom – discovering nothing – and in the end only drilling a hole in it with the biggest phallic symbol they could find. He agreed that there were connections between The Block and Ireland’s ongoing subservient relationship to the States, ever thankful to them for doing nothing and to Europe for forgiving them and bringing them back into the fold when old Uncle Sam pulled out leaving the place with nothing gained but for a hole in The Block. He agreed that the people who’d met and didn’t meet would have had completely different lives – some better, some worse – if not for the lifeless thing landing here, because they were either too afraid to live near it or too afraid to live away from it. Everything that happened in this city and throughout the world was a web that could lead back to this oblivious rock… and many other things, so tangled were the impenetrable layers of taut silk. And Phil was completely unimpressed with The Block because the web was there, with or without The Block, tangled to knots, and he was supposed to be impressed that there was one giant arrow pointing towards just one of these intersections, at which he happened to be stuck in the centre, listening to every idiot who thought that the idea he was born at 3.54pm was impressive. Yes, there were connections, but any meaning put onto them were the creation of human minds, without that projection from people, Phil opined, the whole world and everything that happened in the universe was just a long line of coincidences and whether they were beautiful or shitty was entirely in the mind of a man. Yep, as far as Phil was concerned, connecting himself to a giant alien block was about as an inspired connection as the one between himself and the old sponge caked hard in his bathtub.
Now, if he could only string it all together like that in words, Phil might have won her over, however crudely explained, it wasn’t such an offensive idea to hear – she might even be a little inspired. But Phil being Phil, well, he’s rather drunk at this stage, and before he can mount a wall between his brain and his lips he says, “Listen, Blockhead, the only connection that thing has to me, you, or Rupert here, is the fact that one of us are going to get in your pants tonight, and it might just be thanks to that thing you’ve travelled so far to see.”
At that moment, you could have heard every animal and insect in the park going about their animal and insect business, only there’s nothing to hear, because all of them have stopped with their mouths gawked open, until, somewhere out there, a squirrel slaps its forehead at Phil’s stupidity. “Fuck you,” Sarah says plainly, hurt but not showing it. “I’m out of here. Seeya later, Rupert. Ditch your friend next time.”
“You sure are a tossbag, Phil”
“She’s the Blockhead,’ he says weakly.
“All that trouble I went to, bringing the wine, getting you out here, setting her up for you. Bud, you must really hate getting laid.”
Phil is about to act outraged at the idea that Rupert had his friend’s interest in mind all night long, but realizes that he’s already made an idiot out of himself once. No point doing it again.
“And you liked her.”
“Who says?”
“You really liked her.”
Phil remembers that she didn’t bring a camera and he thinks, I really liked her, she didn’t bring a stupid camera.
“So go get her,” Rupert shouts, “Use that smart-ass mouth of yours to help yourself out for once. Go!”
Phil finds her around the corner, strolling forward in her own world. He stops to watch her for a second, then calls to her.
“Go away!” She shouts back.
“I’m an idiot,” he hollers as he runs to her, hearing his confession echo off The Block.
“I’m supposed to like an idiot?”
He stops in front of her, “I don’t know who you’re supposed to like.”
She stands expectantly, arms by her side, the rucksack heavy on her back. Phil doesn’t know what to say, “I’m not trying to get in your pants. I mean… I don’t know what I mean.”
“You’re an idiot,” she laughs, he doesn’t know if it’s with him or at him.
“I’m an idiot,” he laughs anyway. “You’re smiling again.”
Sarah radiates contentment now, like a glowing fire place, Phil feels drawn to sit in the warmth. His hands held out to her, he’s not sure if she’ll take them or lower them to his side. Before he can find out he hears the jeering of a group of teenagers hopping the fence.
“She’s a ride!” One shouts.
“Get in there ya bollocks!”
One throws an empty beer can at their feet, turning the jeers to violence. They make a circle around the pair, at once cutting them off from the idea of a safe world. “We’re just leaving,” Phil takes Sarah by the hand and walks through the wall they’ve made. He sees Rupert turning the corner and is both relieved and surprised that they get through the wall without any trouble. Only then, as the boys turn round and are walking the opposite direction, one of them tosses a half can of beer over his head. It knocks Sarah and she grunts, more in surprise than pain. Rupert sees this and charges forward at the crowd of scumbags, fists flying at the one who threw the can, the bull in him flinging one into the air with his horns and bucking his feet with all the power of a train to send a lad flying five feet, ten feet, hitting the ground at twenty feet. Yeah well, he’s holding his own anyway. Phil and Sarah are shouting to break it up.
For once, Phil doesn’t think, his mind unblocked of doubts, he charges into the middle, getting between his friend and scumbags with arms outstretched to break things apart. There’s a pause and heavy breathing from all around. “Just leave it!” He shouts. In response he feels one of the kids jump at his back and he’s tossed forward into another of their arms, only to be pushed backwards again to feel his feet get knotted in each other.
He thinks he hears Sarah shout something but then he’s on the ground, and time must pass, because Sarah and Rupert are knelt over him without being hassled. She looks worried, Why does she look worried? His head starts to feel light, and he thinks, There must be blood leaking, it’s making me light as a feather. Rupert and Sarah are saying words to me. I can’t be bothered understanding. He can feel himself floating away. There are two things he notices before closing his eyes. His hand is in Sarah’s and she’s holding it close to her heart. The other thing, behind them, The Block is floating upwards, gently and slow, like a hot air balloon puffed up by a warm fire. It mustn’t be making any noise as it departs, because Rupert and Sarah don??
?t notice it disappearing from the planet as it drifts upwards behind them.
Phil sees it. Phil tries to laugh. What a shitty coincidence, he thinks. His laugh must sound contorted, because it doesn’t seem to be comforting his two friends. What a shitty coincidence, he thinks again. It’s the last thing he thinks as The Block floats away, the spotlights on its surfaces being pulled like threads as it rises, then finally they let it go.
Rendezvous
Alessio Zanelli
Fly steady – moony, gloomy jibenaut –
you’re excused for not saying goodbye.
No matter you’d long gone off course,
now you’ve rejoined your Mothership.
Yes – you’re finally back in full control,
and we copy you distinctly – old mate.
Fly and reconnoiter out there for us all.
Without Doubt
J. Rohr