Produkt

KlappentextFrom Trumpocalypse to Brexit Britain, brick by brick the walls are closing in. But don't despair. Bulldoze the borders. Conquer freedom not fear. EXIT EARTH explores all life - past, present, or future - on, or off - this beautiful, yet fragile, world of ours. Final embraces beneath a sky of flames. Tears of joy aboard a sinking ship. Laughter in a lonely land. Dystopian or utopian, realist or fantasy, horror or sci-fi, EXIT EARTH is yours to conquer.

EXIT EARTH includes the short fiction of all fourteen finalists from the STORGY EXIT EARTH Short Story Competition, as judged by critically acclaimed author Diane Cook (Man vs. Nature). EXIT EARTH EXTRA contains additional stories by award winning authors M R Cary (The Girl With All The Gifts), Toby Litt (Corpsing), James Miller (Lost Boys), Courttia Newland (A Book of Blues), and David James Poissant (The Heaven of Animals), in addition to stories by Tomek Dzido, Ross Jeffery, Alice Kouzmenko, Tabitha Potts, and Anthony Self. With exclusive artwork by Amie Dearlove, HarlotVonCharlotte, CrapPanther, and cover design by Rob Pearce.

Details

Weitere ISBN/GTIN9781999890711

ProduktartE-Book

EinbandartE-Book

FormatEPUB

Format Hinweis0 - No protection

FormatFormat mit automatischem Seitenumbruch (reflowable)

Verlag

STORGY Books

Erscheinungsjahr2017

Erscheinungsdatum28.12.2017

SpracheEnglisch

Artikel-Nr.5078670

Rubriken

Genre9201

Inhalt/Kritik

Leseprobe

DON T GO TO THE FLEA CIRCUS
by Duncan Abel

The Flea Circus used to be an old flourmill before the river that ran through here grew to a trickle and then to a puddle and then to nothing at all. The wheels and gears of the grain mill were rusted together and the wooden structure had rotted to a sagging skeleton, but the stone structure remained mostly intact.

Candlelight wobbled as Mr Henry and I stepped inside; the shadows took a moment to settle back into the sunken eyes of the men and women who hunched in silence. The place reminded me of the opium dens I once read about in Victorian stories of London, Bangkok and Burma. In the corner, a lady was quietly shushing a baby, the tired hint of a lullaby on her breath. She pulled from her cardigans a breast, floppy and empty. She put it to the child s lips and tried to wring out the last drips of milk. No one spoke. Mr Henry patted the seat next to him.

Before The Starve, Jonah and I used to go to the Flea Circus after school. We d save our lunch money to buy the Madame s honeycomb and chocolate covered raisins. Some people said she used dead flies instead of raisins, but I could never tell. She would wind up an ancient pipe organ and, on the millstone-stage, command her fleas to perform their tricks. They would walk across a tight rope, score goals with tiny footballs, pull chariots through a maze. Once, I saw a flea pedalling a tiny Penny-farthing. I had once tried painting what I had witnessed at the Flea Circus, but I always found it difficult to draw from memory, and Mumma never liked those paintings. She said there was something sinister in the fleas that scared her. Mr Henry said he liked the way I pulled a darkness out of primary colours. I gave one of my paintings to the Madame once, hoping she would display it in the auditorium. I never saw it again.

A dust sheet lay over the pipe organ now, silence the only accompaniment.

Soon, a curtain swung open, and the Madame entered.

I thought your family was too good for us, she said.

I went to speak, but she didn t care for it.

Everyone ends up at the Flea Circus one way or another, she said. Did anyone follow you?

It s just me and Ely, here, Mr Henry said.

How much have you got?

Mr Henry held out his hand to show her a few coins. She sighed.

Is it for both of you?

Ely s starving, Madame.

Everyone s starving, she said, and pocketed the money before disappearing behind the curtain. Mr Henry and I sat together on a small bench that was church pew cold. I couldn t stop myself from looking at him. Funny how teachers looked so different out of school. He was almost like a real person. Sad. And tired. His eyes stayed forwards, and his nerves made me nervous.

The Madame returned with two steaming bowls of soup.

Are you sure no one followed you? Not the police? None of those border-guardsâ¦

Quite sure, Madame, Mr Henry said.

She handed us the bowls and pulled two spoons from her apron. The lady who was nursing the baby looked up, but when our eyes met, we both looked away.

I balanced the bowl on my knees and stared into the soup. When I brought a spoonful to my lips, a thought of Mumma made me hesitate.

Don t deny yourself, Ely, said Mr Henry. We have no choice.

But it was as if he were convincing himself as much as anyone else - his conscience made easier by spreading the immorality out among us all. There was no going back.

I had heard people say that human flesh tastes like chicken, but in the weak, thin soup it tasted of nothing at all. No sooner had we begun eating, it was nearly all gone. I slowed to make it last. Not just the food, but the damp warmth of the Flea Circus. The heat from the pot-stove. I could feel my body coming back to life as if it had been a deciduous tree, clenched against winter. Mr Henry stood to leave. The Madame appeared from behind her curtain.

See you again, she said.

I had never been inside Mr Henry s house, even though we were friends long before The Starve. He had always let me stay after school to use the art equipment, while he marked students papers or planned his lessons. My friends said it was weird that I wanted to spend time with him. Grandpa said it was weird that he wanted to spend time with me. I just thought he was friendly. Mumma said he was lonely.

His house was a jumble of bric-a-brac, and the damp air made the dust stick thickly to everything. The walls were covered with paintings.

Did you paint these, sir?

He hesitated. The look on his face was one I hadn t seen before. Embarrassment, I think.

Just that one, he said.

I positioned myself in front of the painting. Maybe even tilted my head. The colours were such an intense mix of greys and dirty whites that, at first, I thought it was a just a pattern, some expression of monotony or disillusionment. But a closer look revealed figures, people so faded that they were almost invisible within the heavy brushstrokes. It was very ugly, and I didn t know how to compliment him on it.

Can I see more of your paintings?

He didn t answer, just lit the fire and set a brass kettle over it. He dropped some nettle leaves in two mugs and added the water when the kettle boiled.

Let it absorb the nettles nutrients for a minute, he said.

I held the cup in my hands the way Mumma did when she was trying to warm herself. Mr Henry sat in a high-backed chair and spread a blanket over his legs. I stood with my back to the fire, the warmth crawling up my spine. It became so hot that it burned, but I wanted to somehow store the heat in my bones for later.

You won t tell my mumma that I ve been to the Flea Circus, sir?

He sipped his nettle water. I copied. It was nice. I wondered about asking Mr Henry if I could take some nettles home for Grandpa s next batch of broth.

How on earth is she sustaining you all, your mumma? he said.

Grandpa survived the last starve, I said. He finds calories in all sorts of things.

I don t know how they ve managed to keep such a tight grip on their morals. God knows, Ely, I tried not to go to the Flea Circus. I resisted for so long, but hunger - it s a kind of madness, isn t it?

I thought of Grandpa, eating postage stamps because he said there was nutritional value in the glue.

I thought I d go, just the once, Mr Henry said, just to get my head clear so I could make some kind of plan. But once you cross that line... God knows, I ve sat next to people down there, Ely, people I ve known all my life. They don t acknowledge you. They don t even look up. No one wants to admit to being there. Even to themselves.

Grandpa said it s illegal, what the Madame does down there?

Of course. But I ve seen police officers eating with the rest of us. The laws we make are only ever as robust as those who enforce them. No law will stop us trying to survive.

Mr Henry swirled the nettle leaves in his mug and slurped.

Have you ever wondered, sir, how long it will be before there s just one person left, having eaten everybody else? Just one huge person surrounded by bones and old clothes.

He thought for a moment, his hands together like a steeple. Perhaps that s the subject of your next painting. Here, have some more water.

What s the Bottleneck, sir?

He added a few nettle leaves to my cup.

A secret is what it is.

But what is it, actually?

Mr Henry s smile sagged in defeat.

There s a bridge. You know where the river used to bottleneck through the woods.

But the army fenced right around behind those woods. I went there on my bike when everyone was making a run for it.

Some of the guards who work that section, they smuggle one or two people out every night. Sold to the highest bidder.

So why have you not bought your passage, sir? You have money, don t you?

I ve tried. God knows I ve tried. I m outbid every time by one of the Madame s family, and the days when the bids are low, I ve been so mad with hunger that I ve spent my money at the Flea Circus. We all inch closer to death as the Madame and her family, one by one, find their way out.

We fell quiet then. A renewed futility crept in. If survival was bound to wealth, there was no hope for Mumma and Grandpa and me. We had sold anything of value, and we d even begun burning our furniture for warmth. We were the ones for whom the fences were built, that was clear.

Days passed. And then weeks. Each morning I made an excuse to go to

Mr Henry s house. I told Mumma that we were drawing, and that he was showing me his paintings. I d take my sketch pad and brushes, but each day we d go to the Flea Circus.

Back at Mr Henry s house, we did draw. Even though the energy used was a cost. He worked on a sculpture using dried twigs. He said they looked like bones and was the only medium he wanted to work in. I began composing sketches for my picture, The Last Survivor . We worked...

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EXIT EARTH

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The Girl on the Train

Queer Cinema in Europe

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