The Ironic Fantastic #1

  I am not in trouble at all because nothing happened today.

  SPACE OPERA

  David Rix

  Kotox adjusted the dials of the control console and peered through the porthole at the backdrop of stars. He turned to Dr Goble with an anxious frown and said, “I've got some serious stuff to tell you over a croissant and an espresso...”

  “Why not just tell me now?” she asked wearily, rubbing her eyes.

  “Because,” Kotox said, I have no desire to be spanked by He Who is in Charge of Us All for boggling up narrative causality.”

  The Doctor regarded him for a moment while Kotox fiddled with his cowboy hat, then she wearily stamped off to the kitchen area, returning a moment later with a loaded tray.

  “No thanks, I couldn’t,” she muttered when Kotox waved a croissant under her nose.

  Kotox looked embarrassed. “Um – you do understand, right?” he said. “I just . . . have to eat this croissant. He Who is in Charge of Us All says so . . .”

  “Yeah yeah– just please, tell me what you found out.”

  Kotox glanced back at the instrument panel that occupied most of the front wall of the room. Inside it wheels turned, indicator lights flashed – letters and words on what looked parchment spun and scrolled in curious overlapping combinations, just a little faster than intelligible and scanned by cobwebs of lasers. But Kotox ignored all that. He brushed croissant crumbs off the main LCD screen, where a small point of light blipped among strange diagrams.

  “Well?” the Doctor demanded.

  “It’s just this,” Kotox said. “I don’t think we are on the first page.”

  There was a silence while Dr Goble considered this.

  “You sure?” shesaid, scratching her ear. Kotox nodded.

  “Yeah – I think we missed some fundamental parts. It was supposed to start right in with a gunfight, look. . . some aggressive female beauty in an impractical space suit somewhere back there,” he said waving vaguely at outer space. “I didn’t enjoy it much apparently and it was all rather embarrassing. But . . . do you remember anything about that?”

  The Doctor shook her head.

  “Me neither.”

  “The first thing I remember is going to get your bloody croissants.”

  “Not even these bits about the huge space monkeys or the hot sex with a Martian slave girl in zero-G on page 4?”

  The Doctor glanced into the middle distance for a moment and considered that, then shrugged. “Something would appear to be very wrong here. Have you any idea of our trajectory?”

  “Currently proceeding at about 385 wpm,” Kotox muttered, cautiously turning a large dial. “Through page 10. Hard for many readers to even keep up at this speed. And we seem to have skimmed through massive chunks . . .”

  “Massive chunks?” Dr Goble muttered suddenly. “And yet we are still going on? Oh no . . .”

  She smoothed down her long red hair with agitated fingers. “I have a theory . . .”

  “What?” Kotox demanded.

  Dr Goble cleared her throat. “I think . . .”

  “Wait,” he murmured, looking at the LCD. “Something’s coming.”

  “Huh?”

  “Hang on – scene change. I think breakfast is over . . .”

  He broke off and glanced out of the window as the room gave a slight shudder. Things outside moved aggressively and went WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO through a vista of the magnificence of space and the epic ecstatic poetry of human technology. Dr Goble peered out, trying to work out why she could hear anything at all in the supposed vacuum, but such thoughts were probably rather miss-timed given the long rods of yellow light that seemed to be aimed at them both personally. Kotox screamed and scrabbled at the controls.

  “They’ve gone,” Dr Goble gasped.

  “Huh?”

  Kotox picked himself up, dusted off his shabby jeans and studied the instruments.

  “Oh no,” he wailed. “We’ve skipped another 7 pages.”

  A small twitch caught the Doctors cheek.”Do you know what this means?”

  “According to this, the end is not far away,” Kotox cried, ignoring her, sweat starting to gleam his forehead.”And yet nothing has happened yet. We’ve missed the best bit. The thinly veiled attack on modern capitalism and my powerful speech on tolerance and justice on page 11. Oh gawd – the author is really going to blow his stack . . .”

  The Doctor grabbed his arm, dragging him out of his seat. “Listen to me,” she cried. “Do you know what this means? Do you know who’s reading this?”

  Kotox stared at her.

  “Ummmmmm – you don’t mean . . .”

  She mouthed something, barely able to utter the word. Kotox sat back down in his cockpit chair, his face blank.

  “He Who is in Charge of Us Allis really going to blow his stack,” he repeated in a whisper.

  “Never mind the fucking author,” she said. “What about us?”

  There was a silence. Outside the window there was nothing but blackness. Not even any stars any more.

  “Shall I get the vodka?” she whispered.

  He shook his head. “There must be a chance. There must be something we can do?”

  He studied the digital readouts. “We’re on the last page now. I think he gave up at the croissant actually.”

  “It’s your stupid name that did it,” Dr Goble snapped. “Didn’t need to get beyond the first line!”

  They exchanged glances, then she hugged him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it,” she said. Together they stared out of the window at nothing – then they both began to chant. One last desperate prayer.

  “Ed-i-tor, ed-i-tor,” they both whispered. “Our father, who art at his desk, hallowed be . . .”

  And then nothing but darkness and screaming.

  The manuscript falls into the bin. Rhys Hughes wearily knows that he will have to dig it out again eventually and mail it off with a reasonably polite rejection slip. But for now, the bin feels obscurely satisfying . . .

  THE DOPPELGANGER’S NEMESIS

  Terry Grimwood

  Of course he is trying to kill me, that figure who lurches out the fog, that featureless silhouette whose face I know so well. I try to run, but it is a heavy-footed stagger through the zigzag streets, a clumsy stumble from shadow-splash to shadow-splash, the animal need for flight, overridden by my nature, the essence of what I am.

  I can no more run away than he can end his relentless pursuit.

  “Stop” I yell. My voice bounces from the crooked walls, from the twists of crumbling brick, bounced, then smothered by the smoke-stained mist.

  “Given up eh Veidt?” the figure shouts back. He sounds as breathless as me.

  “You can’t do this Veidt,” I say.

  “Of course I can. I’m your nemesis and a nemesis must nemesise.”

  “And I’m your doppelganger, and a doppelganger must confront.”

  “Damn you Veidt!”

  A shot rings out and I feel the hot snap of a bullet all-but graze my cheek. I fall back, recover, then spin about and resume my retreat. I force my unwilling body into a shambolic jog. The canted, cobbled road is uneven. Any hazards are obscured by fog. The cold air sears my throat, brings a half-cough, half-sob from my chest

  Another shot, another, loud in the quiet streets, smashing fragments from the walls, scattering shadows that scuttle and slither into the dark between the twisted buildings. This place is bleak but inevitable, more expression than city, formed by, and about, the rotten black kernel of our struggle.

  I dart to one side and find myself in a dead-ended alley. There is a wall, against which I fall, clawing for breath now, cheek against the wet cold masonry. The wall is crooked. There is no vertical here, no right-angle or curve.

  He appears in the mouth of the alley, a hulking shape, weapon at his side.”Veidt!” I say. “We have to talk. I must show you what you’ve done. I am what you have done.” r />
  “My conscience is that it? My crime?”

  “You killed your wife.”

  “I was her nemesis. She was a whore. Dear God, I thought I knew lust, and passion before I met her, they were nothing compared to…but she trampled my love into the dirt. My love. She mocked me.”

  “And nobody mocks you, do they Veidt.”

  “Nobody.”

  “I was there, I was formed by it. My heartbeat matches the rhythm of those blows you rained down on her skull. Can you hear it? Can you Veidt? My breath is the gurgling of mud-filled lungs. She wasn’t dead when you buried her, out there in the night rain, but you knew that didn’t you.” I gasp for breath, wetly, croaking and sucking at scant air.

  “That’s why you have to die,” Veidt grinds out. “That’s why you have to pay.” He is walking towards me now, carefully, arm ascending, revolver arcing upwards -

  I claw at the wall, find handholds in the rotten brickwork. I wait for the explosion, the white hot pain. Nothing, only shouted oaths. I twist my head, clinging fly-like. I see Veidt fling the jammed weapon to the ground and leap at the wall.

  I wrestle myself onto the narrow summit and kneel, fighting for breath. I peer at the drop on the far side. It dizzies me.

  “She had to die.”Veidt is hauling himself onto the wall, less than a metre from where I kneel.

  “You could have walked away -”

  He is up, on his feet, I see a broken brick in his right fist. “No Veidt, I never walk away.”

  I surge towards him, head low. He grunts in shock as my head slams into his stomach, and staggers backwards. In that last moment I try to save him, my efforts fruitless and suicidal. His wrist, his hand, slide through mine and he falls. I watch, watch it all, to the last moment.

  Oddly desolate, I turn to begin my own treacherous descent.

  But, suddenly, can no longer feel the wall beneath my feet. I am fading, swirling into mist. I have no purpose now, no reason for being. And I realise, as my last thought splinters into shadow and light, that he truly was my nemesis.

  THE WOMEN WHO POINT AT MEN’S HEARTS

  Steven Pirie

  Constable Bates removed his helmet and scratched at his bald patch. As far as he could remember, dealing with strange men standing silently in the middle of roadways was not a part of his police training. And it was no good saying: “Come quietly, now”, because the man in question could hardly be any quieter.

  “Oscar, Charlie, Tango, What's-it,” said the constable into his radio.

  “Go ahead, Bates.”

  “There's a weird one on the bridge. There's a bloke standing in the road pointing skyward and refusing to talk to me.”

  “What's he pointing at, Constable?”

  The constable replaced his helmet. “I don't know—the sun, I think.”

  “The sergeant says move him on, Frank.”

  “Yes, well, I tried that,” said Constable Bates. “But when I spun him around the sun in the sky went with him.”

  There was a road block. The police like a good road block, and they came in force with their sirens blaring and lights flashing. They came on horses and with dogs. The Chief Inspector arrived with his golf clubs. And there was Mr Keating in a bowler hat and pin-striped suit.

  “Stay Calm,” said Mr Keating, “And don't move him or you'll upset the International Date Line.”

  The constable nodded, though in truth any kind of Date Line was not his forte. “And you are, Sir?”

  “I'm Keating from the Royal Astronomical Society Heavenly Alignment Corps.” Keating reached forward and lifted the lapel on the pointing man's jacket. “It's as I thought—Number 20403—this one's escaped before; it's what caused the mini ice age 1600 to 1850. And before then the three millennia of no-dawns that did for the dinosaurs.”

  “I don't know about that, Sir,” said the constable, “But if you can get him off the road without the sun flopping about the sky, I'm sure Queen and Country would be most grateful.”

  Keating stroked his chin. “We'll need mirrors, and a big drum of fibre optic cable; and a troupe of travelling acrobats to distract the crowd while we move him.”

  “Couldn't we do it at night when the sun's gone?”

  Constable bates preened himself. It was the occasional original thought like this which convinced him he was sergeant material, despite what Police Commissioner Peterson might think.

  “No,” said Keating, “Because there'll be an international incident with Australia. We did that when the Man Who Points at the Moon escaped, and all the Dodos upped and left.”

  It was a delicate operation. The mirrors had to be placed just so, otherwise the sun would dip and the night shift start early. To the Chief Inspector's chagrin, Keating propped the mirrors with his best number five iron. To the side, acrobats tumbled and spun with acrobats' abandon.

  “Are we ready to lift?” said Keating. “When we drive him off, we must keep him pointing into the mirrors at all times, understand?”

  “Right you are, Sir,” said the constable. “Where are we talking him?”

  “He needs to be back in his field as quickly as possible.”

  “You keep him on a farm, Sir?”

  “It's an electromagnetic field of super positional protons in quantum entanglement set in eleven-dimensional Calabi Yau Space.”

  “Ah.”

  “But yes, if it helps, you may think of it as a farm.”

  The farm hurt the Constable Bates' ears. It was big in a very small way, and if he turned right, right, right, and right again he always ended up as if he'd gone left, down, up, and around-and-back. Bits of it looked like the moon. But then other bits looked like Brighton Pier. The constable shivered; Brighton Pier was where WPC Peterson had spurned his romantic advances, back in the days when his truncheon was less drooped and his helmet shiny and new. Then, the sun shone that little bit brighter in the sky. And the field was full of men pointing—a bit like on Brighton Pier when he'd felt foolish down on one knee whilst WPC Peterson ran off with the Chief Inspector. Oh, how the Laughing Policeman machine had guffawed that day. Oh, how the clowns in the Circus had seemed like his brothers. And now she was Commissioner Peterson, and he was still a lowly constable. Cruel, is life, sometimes.

  “What are these men pointing at?” said the constable, as they ushered the Man Who Pointed at the Sun carefully back onto the grass. “They can't all be pointing at the sun.”

  Keating lifted a nearby lapel. “This one is moving Sagittarius, and this one's doing Pluto with Mercury Rising. And here's Jupiter in Retrograde. No doubt the moon will be nearby.”

  “It's funny,” said the constable, “Each time I'd read my horoscope I'd think the sun and stars control our lives, but really it's the other way around; we move them around the skies, because they're just things but we've got minds and souls and the intellect to invent them. And a blessed relief, I say, as I don't like the sound of life being pre ordained for us.”

  Keating shook his head. “Old superstitions and wives' tales. The stars don't control us.” He led the constable across the field to an old, wooden gate where beyond a billion women mulled like restless sheep. All pointed in different directions. All weaved in and out of each other in a merry dance. Some disappeared in a shower of blue-green sparks. Others snapped into being, with bloodied umbilical cords dissolving at their feet.

  “No, it's not the stars that control us.” Keating grinned, but without mirth, and for a moment the constable felt both of them to be languishing on life's Brighton Pier. “But don't get me started on the Women Who Point at Men's Hearts.”

  PUPPET ON A WIRE

  Tantra Bensko

  On the hillside the shadow you see in front of you as you walk along the grass too green becomes too complex, and footsteps behind you tell you why. When you turn around the scene has to slow down time to inform your brain. Apparently, Julian is his own marionette. The sun is going down behind his head and the head above his in the air.

  Yards away f
rom you, Julian stops following you, lifts his arms, muscles working hard to look limp. The long heavy wires attached to his wrists hold up the big black-haired mustachioed papier-mâché marionetteer’s hands above him. The marionetteer directs Julian's moments awkwardly, and bits of it slough off.

  Julian's daffodil hair and pug nose smile at you vacantly. His pupils frown. The marionetter is a reverse marionette. “It’s Opposites Day,” Julian says. He points at you, guiding the roughly painted orange shirted mâché arm jiggling above him on the other end of the thick wire. His high cheekbones go well with white greasepaint.

  You wish yours would go well with it, but they are flat and pasty. The marrionetteer above Julian blinks its eyes in concentration, conscientiously. It angles its head, gracefully, on its spring, which bounces, its eyes rolling sideways.

  You feel under-dressed. Not enough layers. You notice your breath smells like popcorn, but you haven’t eaten any. You bob your head around like it’s on a spring, but Julian's marionetteer doesn’t take that as a sign of camaraderie. In fact, it takes it as an insult. It crosses its arms, and thus Julian's arms underneath it. You should know better than to try to fit in.

  You back up. Julian and marionetteer team have the advantage. They are cool. But you know what happens to you if you don't get tough. It's what your mother tells you to do in a situation like that. Well, not that she has ever told you that you might make something made out of papier-mâché mad, but you can extrapolate. You bend your head forward, back up like a ram, and charge. The marionetteer falls to the grass. You grab it and run. You hear Julian behind you.

  You attach the wires to your arms as you run. The marionetteer flails into position above you. As you run, it appears to make you run. Though that wouldn't impress Julian who is the only one watching. The marionetteer is so cool, its power makes you run faster than you could have before.

  It turns you around. It makes you point at Julian. “It’s Opposites Day,” you say. You're no longer bad in gym. You’re called maybe 5th or 6th to be on someone’s basketball team. You aren’t called last any more. You are of Native American descent. Your cheekbones are proud and bold. You no longer have to feel stupid when the school shows those films about how students shouldn’t pick on you. You no longer are the person first on the school bus in the morning, and last off at night. You and your parents live in town and socialize. They drink highballs. You don’t know what those are, but you know they’re what adults are supposed to do. They are only one generation older than you instead of two. They let you stay out late.