Restless: Issue two

Issue Two — October 2010

RESTLESS An Arts Anthology

passion. writing. art. inspiration. reviews. east valley.

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RESTLESS: An Arts Anthology RESTLESS is an arts anthology with the expressed goal of expanding and connecting the Arts community in and around the East Valley. The anthology encourages submissions of exceptional new material from the world over, with a strong emphasis on those located in the East Valley.

Original artwork, fiction, experimental fiction, non-fiction, reviews of artsy-doings, events, comics, well-written opinion, and other creative works that translate well to the printed form are welcome. Submissions can be sent to submissions@restlessanthology.com.

www.RestlessAnthology.com RESTLESS: Issue Two was produced by: Her Majesty the Pirate Queen, Amber Brosovich, Duchess of Pretty Things Lord Admiral David Crummey, Vizier of Asking Awkward Questions Special Agent Owen Stupka, Assistant to the Assistant Devil’s Advocate

In This Issue: The Goods Onwards - Upwards - Excelsior!

The RESTLESS Team

ii.

The Lion In The Axis Machine

T. Munk

1

Avarice

Obadiah Madsen

8

This Is Heavy: A Back To The

Russ Kazmierczak, Jr.

9

2 Days Early

David Wiersch

11

Eddie

Matt Mesnard

14

The Trenchman

Evan O’Connor

17

Karaoke

Russ Kazmierczak, Jr.

22

Future Retrospective

Official Business Index-O-Images

24

NaNoWriMo is:

24

National Novel Writing Month Contributors and Victims

25

Micro-Fiction Contest

29

Submission Guidelines

30

Individual works remain the sole-property of the author and are used by permission.

This issue is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution / Share Alike License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

i.

Onwards - Upwards - Excelsior!

The future is a hard thing to pin down. We throw an umbrella into our bag, we pack sunscreen, but in the end all we can do is plan as best as we know how, and hope for the best. More often than we'd like, the universe surprises us with something unexpected, unraveling all of our well intentioned schemes. That, however is the beauty of the experience, and those unexpected moments, good or bad, keep

us on our toes. When we are younger, we would pack swords in case a dragon attacks and dolls/action figures so we have coconspirators in case an adventure arises. As we get older, we plan for more practical things, things that are more likely to happen. As a society, this also seems to be the case. When we were younger, collectively, we planned for rocket packs on every doorstep, flying cars, and fabulous space adventures for every citizen.

As we've grown older, our fantasy has gotten more realistic, more science-grounded. We've lost, to some degree, the flights of fancy where everything was possible, just by the nature of knowing it really isn't. Retro-futurism is a unique way of adapting this peril of existence. When writing as a retro-futurist, we take all of these failed plans, all these hopes and dreams that changed as we grew up as a society, and we allow ourselves to follow them to their (un) natural destination. What if we did all get the jetpacks we were promised? What if steam power was the miracle of modern invention it had been promised to be? From our place in the present, combining the elegance of a bygone era with the technology that in some cases will never be realized, we can imagine that all things are possible. Imagine opening your presents on Christmas to find that you did get that toy gun, the erector set and the pony you always wanted.

As well as, you know, of course, a jetpack.

Come join us as we look back at looking forward.

ii.

-The RESTLESS Team

iii.

The Lion In The Axis Machine

By T. Munk

D

e c e m b e r A world slightly from our own.

1 9 4 0 different

The Industrial Age segued into the Electronic age in 1927. The Edison-Bell Company of America first perfected the transistor and then the microprocessor in 1930. The first Mainframe computers appeared when our world was reeling from the Great Depression.

Prosperous American companies were combining the rapidly expanding technologies of telephony and the greater power and smaller size of computers into a worldwide network of communications and data. By 1938, there was a data terminal and phone on every major city street, and in most businesses and homes. Americans who reveled in the Great Golden Age of the 20's and 30's mostly ignored the European Conflict and didn't take the German Chancellor Adolph Hitler seriously, even when he seized Poland, Czechoslovakia and most of France. The most resistance the Nazi's experienced from the Americans was the young crackers who constantly harassed Axis networks while sitting at home in New Jersey, listening to Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway‌ In North Africa, The Nazi occupation wasn't a large bother to a medium-scale smuggler like Josef Goldberg, it was just another bureaucracy to avoid. He was good at what he did, and today he relaxed in a bar he

1

mostly owned, unwinding after finishing a job that involved far too much violence and far less profit than he would have liked‌ Marrakech THEY came like roaches after cheese, two little men in white linen suits stained yellow by the sun.

As I stared at their approaching figures through a haze created by heat and bourbon, I imagined they might be cousins or brothers, and that they probably had matching little Italian .32 auto pistols. The same tailor, the same mother and the same guns, stamped from a mold common here in Morocco. I could breathe easy. Whoever had hired them either was a small player or didn't really want me all that badly- in any case, the Cockroaches had chosen their battlefield unwisely- for this was my territory, and before they'd lay eyes on me, they'd be dead men.

This grimy watering hole was called the "Nidaba", after some Sumerian grain goddess, and among the novelties it held were six little boys dressed as beggars who had stone-sharpened table knives stolen from the local Barritz Hotel. These boys loved their uncle Joe, or at least loved the vodka and porno slicks that their uncle Joe kept them supplied with, and were accomplished assassins. The boys had spotted and surrounded the Cockroaches as they entered the Nidaba's swinging saloon doors and within seconds it was all over. Little beggar boys are unnoticed

in this city, are literally everywhere, and their whiny, insistent voices tend to drone in your ears like a Mesmerists' voice, and you never see the knives until it's too late. Even when I knew what was going to happen, I didn't really see it happen- just a blur on each man that looked as if one beggar boy had reached up in supplication while the other two stayed bowed at waist level, one in front, the other to the rear. Minutes later, the boys and the Cockroaches were gone, hustled down into the basement, and I followed.

Upon examination in the basement, I saw the puncture marks on each man: one in the upper throat up into the brain, one to the heart, and one into the liver. I also found the personal effects from each man. (My boys are professionals, and I never worry about them pilfering from their victims. They know they'll get the goods, but they know I want all the information on them.) The pistols were Italian Berettas, as I'd guessed, and Nazi proof marked, which I hadn't expected. The identity cards were Moroccan, and each had ReichBank seals, which, in combination with the proof marks on the guns, led me to suspect that the occupational government had finally noticed me. That was unfortunate for me. Very unfortunate indeed. I gave the pistols to the boys and promised them a 50% take on what Yellowboy could milk the cards for, and then cleared out the back way and walked to Yellowboy's apartment, changing clothes twice along the way and forgoing my car out of fear that the Cockroaches might have had a backup to watch for me.

An hour later I was in the industrial sector, having shown one of my cover ID's to a Nazi checkpoint on the way. Nazi, but the only Aryan was sitting in the booth watching TV. The guy who checked my card was an Arab policeman, who fortunately did not know me. Yellowboy's apartment was one of about a thousand TekWurker's apartments on an industrial block next to a huge, red-bricked, smoke-belching semiconductor factory in central Marrakech, a soot-blackened cube that rose into the smog like a monolith. No windows at all. I don't know how they stand living there. I rang up Yellowboy and he buzzed down for the doorman to let me in. One of the elevators didn't work, and when the doors opened on the second to disgorge an incredible number of white-shirted tekwurkers, I hesitated before boarding for the trip up to the 12th floor. Claustrophobia, I guess.

Yellowboy's apartment is like nerve central at a crackers' wet dream. He's got enough pilfered storage and networking to rival many corporations' capabilities and he knows how to use it.

Yellowboy made his living by draining stolen bank cards and laundering the credit until it was untraceable, a service I needed now. Yellowboy was also smart. He never, ever played the spying game, either for profit or for patriotism, for which I was glad because he was Japanese. I showed him the ReichBank cards and he snatched them greedily and fed them into his reader without a word. The network took some minutes to return a reply from the central

2

bank in Hamburg, and when the credit readout came back, Yellowboy turned to another terminal and started cracking into the accounts, scheduling transfers from all over the world until the credit was drained. "Gestapo hired these guys two days ago. Paid them a lot. Too much." He said glancing at me with a look that told me that the money involved should've bought someone good enough to make me dead. "You better hide. Your cut is 40,000 marks. I put it in three of your unused accounts. Also drained your real account and dispersed it too. You've got about 90,000 marks to get you somewhere safe.". He pulled the cards out of the reader and put them in his shredder. "Please don't come here again. You in serious trouble.

I can feel it." He said as he hastily escorted me to the door and slammed it shut behind me.

It took me another hour and a half to get to one of my previously unused hidey-holes, an apartment above a grocer's in the market sector. I'd had a lot of time to think and lots to think about.

Yellowboy had made it plain that the Gestapo had been serious but clumsy. If they were serious, they'd try again, and this time they'd use a samurai, and I'd never dealt with a samurai before. I wired 20,000 marks to the boys and told them to get the hell out if they wanted to stay alive and then I got out my gun, loaded a couple magazines and shrugged on the tailored spring-clip shoulder holster, covering it with a plain brown workmans' jacket that hid the bulk. Hell, I didn't even know what I'd done to warrant the attention of

3

the Gestapo, but I'd better find out quick, at least so I could better assess what sort of danger I was in. At worst, I still had a network in Algeria I could retire to, but that would entail getting either plane passage or boat passage on the coast, as Marrakech would be too hot for me to use the out-country transportation. I would worry about that later. I went out again to find a street terminal where I could make safe inquiries, as I didn't have the network savvy to cover my tracks like Yellowboy could. I knew where I could find some unregistered terminals that used stolen street codes to get on the network, and that would do the trick nicely.

The Waters of Lethe. Niko the Greek had the Bard's sense of humour.

Lethe was the River of Forgetfulness in Hades to the Greeks. Maybe I could find a good cracker here. The odds were good. I talked to Niko, who was tending bar, and he pointed me to a dark corner booth where a thin, unkempt negro sat hunched over a terminal. He didn't look more than 15, but I nodded to Niko, who knew what he brokered better than I did. Niko then handed me a small vial of white powder. I nodded again and paid. I put the vial in my pocket and went to the booth. The negro kid ignored me, but it was concentration, not contempt. I waited for him to finish.

Minutes passed and my mind started to wander when he surprised me by snapping toward me and saying in a low voice; "You are in too much danger not to be awake, Mr. Goldberg.", and he

motioned for me to take a seat at the booth. "The net has been buzzing with what you started, and Niko rang me up when he figured you'd come here. I couldn't resist the challenge." he said, not making much sense to me, "The name's Jeff Franklin.". He paused a moment and then said "By the way, Yellowboy's dead. Sit down please.". I sat and slowly stuffed and lit my pipe to cover my confusion. Things had really gone out of my hands apparently. I've been around long enough to know better than to let confusion show, "It is better to stay silent and appear wise than to speak and appear the fool.", as my old uncle would have said. So, I said nothing and gave the boy the vial of powder that Niko had handed me.

"Hehh. Good, I'll be needing that." said Jeff, and produced a small mirror, a bone-handled straight-razor and a bit of brass piping about 3 inches long from

his satchel. Jeff cut a small amount of the powder from the vial onto the mirror, and chopped and crushed it finer using the razor, then he separated the powder into two lines and inhaled a line into each nostril using the brass pipe. I was fascinated, having never seen cocaine used in this manner. I had expected him to inject it. Jeff held his head back and snuffled heavily like a pig for nearly a minute and then he opened his eyes and I saw a gleam in them that I had once seen in the eyes of an angry Arab who had nearly managed to slit my throat once. I stifled an involuntary reflex to go for my gun and said simply: "Are you ready to find what I need?"

"Aheya! Let's go!" Jeff let out in a husky whisper, and then turned to the booth terminal. Even when I watch crackers at work, I never understand

4

what they do, all I know is that Jeff started by typing in about a half dozen ID numbers and pass-phrases from memory and then we were sneaking through the electronic equivalent of the back alleys of the network, underground servers, databases run by the English and the Free French, sneaking into Axis mainframes via mail and trace -software bugs and quickly scanning for pertinent information. Jeff even sent a fewdiscreet inquiries to contacts with Golden Chrysanthemum families that were less than totally loyal to the Emperor in Nippon. Worlds I was not at home in, languages that only crackers and tekwurkers understood fully.

"Yellowboy was good- better than most, but he was stationary; and that's a fatal mistake in this business. Stay mobile on the net and stay mobile in the physical world, that's the only way to stay alive in North Africa today with the war and all." Jeff paused. "Hell, they even tried to kill me in the States when I stayed put for two weeks. No place is safe anymore, even the neutral countries. As for Yellowboy, the Gestapo's had their eye on him for a month now, waiting for a series of transfers where at least one could be traced back to him. Yellowboy slipped- got greedy and cut himself a bigger slice of your pie than you realized, and failed to cover it adequetly. He died because of it."

He looked up at me with that glint again, making me flinch. "You, however, caught the Gestapo's attention rather abruptly.. You remember the job you did for that banker Yari in Casablanca?"

I nodded slowly. That was yet an-

5

other thing I had thought was between only me and the client. "Well," said Jeff, "You should've checked more carefully on who your victim was. You seriously maimed the nephew of a Nazi colonel named Gehring, and both you and Yari are Jews. You getting the picture yet?"

I was starting to "get the picture", as he'd put it, rather clearly. It meant I'd have to get lost and stay lost for a long while. Nazis in general and Gehring in particular had a nasty habit of putting Jewish civilians into prison camps and starving them to death in Europe. I'd even heard worse rumors that I disbelieved, but still, the reality was enough to make me very nervous.

It was time to get out of Morocco.

Jeff dumped the information he had gathered onto a battery-powered SRAM box, the kind that I doubted anyone but very successful crackers could afford. Less storage capacity than the tape reels that Yellowboy had had in his apartment, but far more than you could get on the cassette tapes that most people used for storage. An added bonus was the fact that if you got caught with the data, all you had to do is pull the battery to wipe the evidence.

Jeff's stock rose a bit in my estimation as he stashed the SRAM box in his hat and led me out of Niko's place.

"I gotta go back to my place and clean up before I leave Marrakech" I said, "I can take you along if you want a job, you've impressed the hell out of me, and like you said; staying mobile is staying alive." He nodded assent as if he'd expected to go along anyway, and

said nothing. Cool as a dead Eskimo. I led us to a safe house where we changed clothes and went underground into the catacombs that would bring us beneath the Nidaba's secret entrance in the floor of the kitchen. Lit by the oil lanterns we carried, the catacomb walls set horrible demons to dancing, something I've never gotten used to. I decided that I needed information more than I needed to be cool. "Why are you my friend all of a sudden?" I asked, "And who are you anyway?". Jeff shrugged and said dismissively, "I have good reasons. I've been looking for someone like you, and Niko said you were the one I needed. I trust Niko." I nodded at that, because I trusted Niko that way too.

The real answers would have to wait until later.

"Here. This is the Nidaba." I indicated a rusted ladder leading to a wood-

en door in the ceiling of the cavern. I climbed up and knocked on the door six times and heard one of the stockroom boys unlock the lock and lift open the heavy oak door.

It wasn't a stockroom boy who had unlocked the door. It was a husky Japanese man in a nondescript black uniform with no patches or decorations. I was in deep shit. The samurai broke my arm in two places before I could clear leather and my Colt .45 skittered across the floor into a pile of discarded potato sacks. Suddenly I was flying across the room into a wall, hard. I heard another bone snap and hot agony in my shoulder overwhelmed the pain of my broken arm. I opened my eyes to see the samurai pull Jeff out of the hole in the floor and throw him against the kitchen cutting table, sending pans and knife blocks crashing to the floor. I got up

6

and tried to jump the samurai from behind, a suicidal move for even an armed man, and the samurai turned swiftly and kicked me in the stomach, sending me sprawling again. He turned his attention to Jeff again, drawing a throttling cord from one of his sleeves with an evil grin. Laying there in the burlap sacks doubled up with pain, it took a second for me to realize what the hard lump in my ribs was. My body curled away from the samurai, I rummaged with my left hand in the burlap until my fingers met the grip of the Colt. I pulled the gun and swiped the safety off with my nose, flopped over and started pulling the trigger blindly, even as the samurai somehow sensed what was happening and whipped his garrotte at me. I got off four rounds before the cord wrapped around the slide of the gun and jammed it. A heavy shadow leapt at me and I passed out in a red haze.

"You hit him three times." said Jeff when I came to on a tramp steamer twelve hours later. "I thought I was

7

dead, and you got him. I couldn't believe it." I couldn't believe it myself, but here I was, on the Black Sea with my right arm and shoulder in a plaster cast and the ships' doctor changing the bandages on my broken ribs. I was alive. Jeff was in the corner of the room tapping at his keyboard, going over the data he'd collected on his SRAM. "I cleaned out your storage tapes at the Nidaba, you have a lot of interesting data here.." He had a huge smile on his face, like a kid at a drugstore fountain.

"You had friends who got us out and greased our way to your network in Algiers." he said. "I did some favors and it looks like we'll be ok for a week or so." So very confident, this young kid.

As confident as I was when the samurai surprised us at the Nidaba. Well, there wasn't much I could do in my condition except trust him for a week. In Algiers, we could be more cautious- I had a good network and the Nazi's didn't have much of a presence there. The doctor tapped a needle in the air, then injected it into my arm, and I fell asleep to beautiful morphine dreams...

Avarice

By Obadiah Madsen

b

lind woman Avarice

and hidden beneath the gold

gives gold indiscriminately

spikes to rip you apart

demons poor gold into her sack

the money is yours

so it is never empty

but what good is money to a dead man

at her feet toad swallows dirt and sand

archers

but never eating for fear

shoot arrows

of not having enough

tipped with money instead of points

the moneylender

at the suspended money bag

pawns to the poor

but when they miss

not caring

their arrows of money

that they will become

are gone

naked and homeless

line up

if unable to repay

line up

but moneylender beware of the thief

demons

by your money bag

with smiling faces will give you plates

in the barrel is gold

for the money buffet

you can have it all

but the cost

if you crawl in

your soul

but once inside

but isn’t a life of damnation

you unaware

worth a life of riches

of the demon

here upon this earth

who will roll the barrel

8

This Is Heavy: A Back to the Future Retrospective

By Russ Kazmierczak, Jr.

O

ctober 25, 2010 marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of when Dr. Emmett Brown unveiled his DeLorean time machine to '80s hipster Marty McFly, so I was ecstatic to catch the Back to the Future trilogy on television recently. My favorite trilogy of all time (pun intended), I vividly remember watching the first installment on HBO when I was five or six years old and feeling absolutely jarred by those final frantic moments, as Doc returns from 2015 and whisks Marty and Jennifer away on a new adventure, only to shove a “To Be Continued” in the audience's collective face. I wasn't an avid comic book reader yet, so I hadn't grasped this concept of “to be continued,” but I'm grateful that Doc introduced it to me. Who better to instill an appreciation for looking forward to the future than the guy that invented the Flux Capacitor?

However, watching Back to the Future II as an adult inspired thoughts that hadn't occurred to me previously, specifically about the nature of time travel. To recap, at the beginning of this second film, Doc takes Marty and Jennifer from 1985 to 2015, where their susceptible son takes the fall for a crime committed by the gruesome Griff Tannen, a singular event that spirals the McFly family into irreversible turmoil. Doc hatches a plan to change “future history” and keep the McFly family intact, a noble gesture of selfless friendship that now strikes me as inherently impossible in the context of the rest of the Back to the Future trilogy.

“Well, of course!” you retort. “Throughout the films, Doc is adamant about the dangers of time travel and messing with the natural course of events, lest one cause a rift in the space/time continuum that could destroy the universe!” To this I say, aw, who cares? What's a little chronological paradox between true friends like Doc and Marty? “Okay,” you continue, “so you must be referring to the fact that Marty, Jr. is the spitting image of his father, which is impossible genetically, and especially since Michael J. Fox looks nothing like Crispin Glover, either!” No, I can accept this, too, assuming genetic engineering exists in the future, and someone as vain as Marty wouldn't mind a little micro-biotic manipulation in his favor.

What I'm saying is, the 2015 that Doc, Marty, and Jennifer visit simply doesn't exist. Never mind that we live in 2010 and are nowhere near self-tying shoes, hoverboards, and flying cars yet. Rather, I insist that once Doc picked up Marty and Jennifer from 1985, he negated the 2015 he initially experienced with Griff and Marty, Jr., because while Marty and Jennifer travel to the future, time still 9 naturally progresses forward but now without them, or else a 2015 wouldn't

be there for them to see at all. So, the McFly family shouldn't exist when they arrive in future Hill Valley! The Fox television show Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles briefly explored this concept in its series finale, when young John Connor landed in the future and discovered a rebellion he didn't lead because he hadn't existed in history forward from the moment he disappeared in that time traveling portal. Ah, pretty heavy, Doc! In Back to the Future, I'd accept the concept of alternate realities, a domino effect from affecting the natural course of events, but the DeLorean is a time machine, not a Superboy Prime punch. Thus, the oversight must be a thematic one, since screenwriter Bob Gale and director Robert Zemeckis aren't idiots. See, I love these movies despite their inherent hypocrisies because they present genuinely engaging, realistically flawed characters, and their time-spanning journey is as much one of self discovery as it is chronological repair job. Marty is teenage hubris personified in his inability to resist the challenge of being called “chicken,” and Doc's brilliance makes him so socially awkward, he has to create a time machine to get in touch with his fellow man. (Take that, Mark Zuckerberg!) It's a perfect pairing of imperfection, and by maintaining a McFly-infested 2015 despite Marty's absence from time and consequential inability to make that family, Gale and Zemeckis show us that self-improvement must always be possible. It's the most timeless pursuit known to man.

Of course, Doc makes this clear at the end of Back to the Future III, when he shows up at Eastwood Ravine to tell Marty, “The future isn't written yet! The future is what you make it, so make it a good one.” When I was a kid watching these movies for the first time, I had no idea my future would be a better one because of the Back to the Future trilogy . . . not to mention that everyday would be a “to be continued” waiting to happen.

BONUS! Here's a fun Back to the Future II drinking game: Take a shot every time (1.) Biff looks behind him confusedly, and (2.) Doc says, “Great Scott!” You'll be the star of your own Enchantment Under the Sea Dance in no time!

Russ stands outside of Back to the Future: The Ride at Universal Studios in Hollywood, California 17 days, one hour, 51 minutes, and 52 seconds before it closes forever – or at least the foreseeable future.

10

2 days early

By David Wiersch

I

can remember the blur, the wet feeling‌

The pain from the lights as it was first laying its warm fingers to my flesh.

He breathed like a stalling biplane. His tears bathed me in their sorrow.

Even then I knew.

My mother had passed.

No fear I felt, but I do remember.

The smell of my mother, her breath heavy on my face.

I couldn't do a thing.

The tone and vibrations from her like if you were swallowed by a humming bird and content all the same.

He never touched me again.

Three days after, blurred faces and weathered hands gathered around me.

I could have stayed there for ever.

I could not predict my end. My fate, as the birds fluttered in the distance, was

She spoke to me as she would any other soul, new or old.

Decided with little clamor, little discussion.

It would be some time before I deciphered what she said.

That was the last day my young eyes would ever again try to make out The scope of my parent's little home.

In that tone, in that grasp, warm as fresh baked loaf, but not nearly as filling.

She would tell me this several times, my first day.

"In a hurry already. Impatient from birth"

Mother was dead, and I was dead to my father.

No one wanted to take care of the baby boy, too impatient.

I never thought, not for one moment‌

I watched the older boys in my new home.

That being early could cause so many problems.

I watched them wander and fall as though they fought off the plague.

Two days came and went. Marveling at my new surroundings, I would cry out just to express the beauty and wonderment of this.

Today was different. I found my self in the twitching, rough grip of my father.

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I watched as their teeth fell from their great gaping mouths to the floor.

I watched as their eyes like sea of silverfish rolled into their heads.

I watched how the nurses effortlessly filled their veins with Which ever psychotropic or sedative they were paid to try on us that

week.

I would watch this as I sat by the window, resting my bare legs on the splintered boards of the floor, moving my feet between the patterns of the wood worms.

The sun didn't like seeing this, perhaps even more than I. The haze of sleep walked a slow pace out of my eyes, wile the nurse showed a new couple around. I never paid much attention, if it was my fate to be handed to another pair of strangers and their sweat riddled hands that reeked of pine and mold, so be it.

This was not up to me.

Nothing ever is.

Soon enough, or not, I was taken home by 3 new strangers.

They all grinned. Worried about my teeth, I did not return.

They had a daughter, Lulu.

Lulu-bell as I would later call her. She had eyes untouched by any evil, a pair of perfect little gifts. I could stare at them for hours trying to recapture an innocence I lost.

My new father was a kind man, his skin was like a melon rind. His hair pulled back and secured by a strip of brown leather, but between those broken cheeks was a garden of cheer the stretched open like a bird's wing to flight every time he spoke. I do not believe that man had a bone burnt by the taint of evil in his being.

I never opened my eyes for his wife.

I refused to burn a visage of motherly love into my soul.

I couldn't, for fear of loosing the shape of my mother in the midst.

She, kind as the summer days are hot, smelled of spices and fruit all hours and seasons.

I never looked at her face. She would beg me to at times, the sound of confusion fluttered from her lips. I may never forgive myself for this trespass.

It was 7 years in the house, where love was felt and spoken and spread.

Nothing is forever.

The night broke open by the sound of thunder and every dark corner was lit by the lightning surrounding. My father was yelling as the window shutters slapped our poor home as if they were trying to escape. I sprung forth out of my bed to see what was occurring.

Perhaps I should have stayed in bed.

The water from the river crept in like thieves with out a care.

We tried to stop the intrusion with sand bags.

But it was doom knocking that night.

The sound that came next made my heart skip and my ears cried like wolves missing one of their pack. The house was too quickly engulfed in flames.

We had barricaded ourselves in our own crematorium.

By the time the water broke down our door, my family was cut in half.

Lulu and I ran in the dark night as

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if we could out run this truth together.

Through the flashes of light, I could barley make out her cornflower pajamas

Her body, a ghostly contrast to the barren, dark river, she just drifted motionless.

As she was fell into the mouth of the river.

As I caught up to her she rotated, as if her soul leapt out of her, turning her to the surface to gaze upon heaven.

The river would have its meal this night.

Her eyes as black as the river, the eyes I loved, where turned out.

I dove in the ink black water after her.

With my heart and chest burning from it all, I pulled the angel from the river.

The night sky attached it self to her like a beacon.

In the confusion she was swimming deeper in, though I struggled toward her I knew I was running out of breath.

Then she stopped.

13

I stared back as our home still a glow from the fire, then down at the porcelain doll In my arms.

I placed her on the soaking field, and went back to give the river its due.

Eddie

S

uccess comes most often on the back of failure. Three people converged; hoping to garner triumph on the coattails of shortcomings and folly from those defeated before. It was called a hoax, a malady of thought and known science...which was precisely the point of pursuing it.

No documented success came in the twentieth century. One man decided to look at the enigma from a more practical and patient vantage. He was best known as the Curator. He worked closely with the estate of Thomas Alva Edison, more an assistant rather than his moniker suggested. He came into contact with many history buffs and otherworldly enthusiasts who passed through at a steady trickle. Official policy was not to pay mind to any sort of paranormal questions or requests. “Nobody really knows” was the standard answer if someone felt staunch in their opinion. Secretly, the Curator knew what it felt like not to be heard or excluded from difference. He was muscled out from joining the clique of the Edison crew. Waiting and plotting, he finally had a plan to etch his name in the legacy of Thomas Alva Edison. All he needed was the right group.

Three was the decided number, but without a true reason. It just felt right. Common knowledge states a conspiracy is no less than three people; but the successful ones are with two of them dead. It took years of plotting and planning, but the “Coup Crew”

By Matt Mesnard assembled so to speak.

A young college student was selected first. He was on the Curator's radar for a long while; at least since middle school. An engineer handy with solder and tin snips who brought his self-built devices numerous times to seek out anything paranormal. The practice was frowned upon by most staffers there, but not wrong to do. This guy in the rounded black glasses and the barelynoticeable stubble investigated quietly and didn't care about winning popularity. Many times he politely offered the Curator money or graft to get a late night peek. The rapport was very slow and the eventual proposition was unexpected by the student who eventually went by the name Blue. He earned it from all the objects he constantly designed; whether of fantasy or reality; the blueprint solution often carelessly stained his hands.

Rounding things out was someone with far less technical expertise, but hobby of constantly reading Time-Life books compensated for academia smarts. The question was how much of being chosen for skill set was true, or if largely for being female. She wasn't a ditsy blonde, nor was she a student with accolades. Her flighty demeanor never hurt how much the others trusted her. Keeping with nicknames, the Curator called her Tobin - a movie reference. This free spirit knew a lot about the ethereal beyond without being a dedicated student of the occult or the goth persuasion. With a

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positive demeanor, Tobin became the moral compass as well as the objective one in the group. She also took on a variety of burden and tasks. If an errand was to be run or a brief spot of research done, it was happily fulfilled

by Tobin. A female was also the best asset to have when a wheel needed greased or a person was undecided on granting a favor. Each was respected and none was treated as an outsider; since each knew that feeling well and didn't wish it upon anyone else.

Seeds of this particular pursuit go back to hearsay and mysterious circumstance. At the time of Thomas Edison's death, all clocks in his house and workshop stopped. Lore states an apparatus was tinkered with until the day he died, yet no trace of it was ever recovered. According to the estate, it was only hoax., but many circles say the “dead machine” was more than hokum.. If one believes in the plausible rather than the impossible, here is where the road forks.

The first common theory was the machine actually existed, but never worked. Edison toiled with a specific assistant in secret; conscious of the device's workings, and instructed to establish communication from the other side. Perhaps it failed and all evidence was destroyed, thus a patent never filed. A magician named Joseph Dunniger claimed seeing a prototype. Working in the craft of deception dissipates hope for many..

One decade after Edison's death was a séance. The session was said to 15 reveal three assistants knew of the

device. Something was eventually cobbled together but never worked. The man who invented putty held his own séance and was said to be working on his own version. Death ended his pursuit...but no such device was ever found in the possession of J. Gilbert Wright.

These three dreamers knew there would only be one change to get things right. Rather than chasing smoke, a new tactic was employed – even if futile or an exercise in redundancy. Outsiders might have said such things, but this group was up for the challenge wholeheartedly. The Curator had more access that the usual person. Not only could they be in the actual workshop to test their machine, but they had Edison's inventions for use. Blue used patent information and extremely close

looks to fabricate their device. It all had to work the first time, but also couldn't harm the original inventions whatsoever.

M a ny w e nt w ro n g in t h e past. Some tried a variation of spirit writing with Edison typewriters. If they properly researched, it was only a name. However, Edison did invent the first electric typewriter; described as a printing wheel. This group used it, and also a stock ticker; borrowed from an avid collector under the impression his Edison Universal Stock Ticker was on loan to a museum. Those inventions connected between two “Edison keys” which made a two way telegraph which tied into the ticker to capture Morse Code.

This eccentric display were all

items Edison knew inside and out. This trio wasn't looking for instructions for the Dead Machine. They constructed their own – targeting none other than the icon himself. The very reason this endeavor was codenamed “Operation Eddie” respectfully..

With most every piece in place, they huddled on the floor of the oncegreat workshop under the amber color of nearby candles and lanterns. Blue attached the last bit with Tobin's smaller fingers reaching where he couldn't. A nondescript wooden box was the last piece connected, but the most important detail.

some phrases and various quotes from the inventor before Blue carefully sent out a string of dashes and dots from the group's side of the telegraph. All three waited in silence.

Mechanical noises reverberated, and something spooled. They looked on; watching the ticker fuss with itself beneath the century-old glass.

Clicka-clicka whir... Clacka-clack.

Bip-bip.

Bip-bee... Beep-beep.

Edison may be the father of electricity, but the everyday household's electricity comes from Nikola Tesla's Alternating Current (AC). Edison secretly contributed to inventing the electric chair in order to prove how dangerous his former assistant's electricity was versus the safer Direct Current (DC) of Edison. How could anyone assume modern electricity would be able to rouse the Wizard of Menlo Park?

Blue angled an Edison phonograph into position. Recording cylinders were created, with Tobin's expertise on getting the wax near-perfectly recreated, to try capturing anything the human ear couldn't register. Well after midnight, they were finally ready: Now or never.

Crouching low, they took in the hum from the DC electricity- transfixed by the surreal equipment and the feeling of standing between history and progress at the same time. Tobin spoke

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The Trenchman

1

—Rain. It had been raining around the muddy trenches for three days now. Such a relief from the usual hot baking sun. My boots were caked with mud, and my coat was splattered with dirt. This place used to be beautiful fields. Hell, I remember my pop taking me here as a young lad to play... there was a playground. Not anymore. The artillery of the Empire of the Sword's legions had made sure of that, transforming once beautiful fields and forests into a dry, desert wasteland. Making room for the damn war. The enemy had been at it too in the first weeks of the war.

Sometimes stray shots would hit villages, entire families killed. Murdered. Who were we fighting? Rebels. They called themselves the Blades of Revolution. Through the rain, I could see the dim, dim lights off Ultracity off in the distance. This was only one out of many cities and land that they have turned to rebel. Did I have a choice to fight in this war? Yeah. Why did I take it? Because they had killed my whole family. My village, with a stray incinerator round. Burnt everything. My parents, brother, sister.... dog... birds... Everything. Even my friends. I had no life to go back to. So I traveled by horse to the nearest city to sign up, and they sent me out here. With light armor, a rifle, helmet, gas-mask, and other gear that you would think a soldier grunt would carry.

When I had gotten here, the place was a desert, and Ultracity could be seen off in the distance. A big, blue spire made up of hundreds of buildings and billions of people.

The commander handed me a shovel, and I was sent to dig trenches as every other grunt was doing, even some convicts were sent in. It was hot those first few weeks, but now it was raining. We were given trench coats. It wasn't warm but hell, was better than roasting. Day in, day out,

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By Evan O'Connor the artillary guns, heavy, gigantic cannons on treads, rolled from the Empire's many factories across the country, and sent over to this hellhole. They made most of the noise. We barley saw any of the enemy, as they were constructing trenches as well.

Then it happened. Our commander blew a whistle. We instantly dropped out shovels and ran over, saluting by placing our fists over our hearts. The commander hadn't really fought a rebellion before. He was old and gray of hair with his share of scars and stories, and was around when the republic had first reformed into an empire. The artillery batteries fired again, thundering as lightning struck, illuminating the aged warrior.

"AT EASE!" He barked. Everyone put their hands down. "In one hour, we are going to be storming them. Our tanks are rolling in first. They'll punch a hole for you men to get into their trench defenses, and then our artillery batteries'll roll up and open a hole in the walls. You'll storm them.

And after a few reinforcements, we take that city. Reinforcements in the form of airships, warmeks, and a few more legions.

They wont see it coming." Everyone was still. Rain hammered upon us. "Well, gather your rifles, knives, swords, whatever, and pray. One hour. It might take a few days to take the entire city though. No mercy. No prisoners. Go." "FOR THE EMPIRE!" All the soldiers down the line shouted. There was one thousand of us in this legion. My regiment within the legion was fifty men, led by this brilliant aged commander. Four other legions would be making their way to these positions now. I thought of all this as I walked into my bunk underground beneath the

trenches. The chambers shook as I gathered my things, grabbing extra bullets, a knife, a sword. I sheathed both melee weapons and hooked them to my belt, loaded my rifle, and left. One half hour until the storm.

2—It was cold and wet out. Alas, I was sweaty, and no doubt the rest of the regiment was as well. I could hear the commanders of the other regiments in their areas of the trenches. We all stood before the wooden support systems that would be our ladders ascending to Heaven, or Hell, or Valhallla. A few explosions went off. They sounded near in front of us.

"By the gods..." A soldier said a few men down the line. He was shaking violently. "I CANNOT GO! I WILL NOT GO!" He began convulsing.

"He is having a panic attack..." The regiment's medic, Theodore Silver said. He grabbed the man. "Now look here, sir. You were the one that joined up. There was no draft. You chose this fate, and you will do it, and I pray to the gods that you will succeed and make it past that damned field of Hell safe and sound. I am going to give you..." He said, pulling a long needle from his wet bag, and pushing it into the man's arm. "An adrenaline boost. You just try and relax..." The medic fell back into line, ripping a pistol from a holster on his belt. A whistle blew in another area of the trench sounded. The waves were starting their advance. In five minutes time, the musician of their regiment blew a whistle, and began hitting his drums on his waist to lead the men into battle. The standard of the Sixteenth Regiment was soggy and flowed in the wind, whipping through the cold wet air. The men around me advanced as one, like mindless machines of war, grabbing onto the ladders and climbing into no-man's land. Above, the High Commander's airship, Titanicus, hovered. The man was inside the bridge, smoking a pipe and watching the

events fold out. We were nothing but miniature toys to him. All High Commanders of a legion were like that...

I grabbed a hold of the trench's lip, and pulled myself over into the muck. I was covered in mud. Half my face was pressed against the stuff until a man helped me up.

"Let's go, best o' luck to ya lad..." He said, and charged, rifle held out. I stood, a bit of hope in me, and I unslung my rifle as another enemy artillery barrage crashed a several feet in front of me, throwing tons of mud into the air, and the soldier. I ran over to him. His helmet lay cracked, and his left arm and right foot where gone. His face was covered in a burn. "G-go. For the Empi..." He died then and there. I swallowed hard, and began to charge. Nothing else would happen unless I got to the other side of Hell. I saw the tanks, and men taking cover. More artillery strikes sent up men.

One smashed two feet from where I was running, and I was flung onto the muddy earth. I picked up my gun and continued running. Just a few feet more, I told myself.

It was not a few feet, it was more like half a mile at this point. men were running and dying all around me. I closed my eyes, but opened them as I had to see where I was going. Rain blurred my vision so I slapped down the goggles on my helmet. And then I heard what sounded like an artillery strike, but it was louder. The whistle grew and grew and grew. I eventually made it to the tanks, where I panted, and puked my guts out. Another trooper by my side patted me on the back.

"Hey mate, ya okay?" He asked. I nodded.

"I'll... be okay... What's that noise??" I said. My first words in a few days. I was antisocial and really didn't want to make any friends that would die, would hurt.

"Some kind of artillery strike? I dunno..." He said as the Imperial artillery

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batteries were being rolled in, escorted by warmeks, small machines in the shape of a man but larger, piloted by a single man each. They were clad in armor. On one arm was a machine gun and giant bayonet, and on the other was a flamethrower, and covered in iron. The batteries rolled in. The whistling got louder and louder. Then silence. A few minutes later the silence exploded into the loudest noise ever. Bright white light blinded all of us hiding behind the tanks. A mushroom cloud was over our trenches. I couldn't even see the High Commander's airship. Smaller tinier mushroom clouds cracked around it, all over no-man's land. Headed for us.

"GASMASKS!!" Our commander bellowed as loud as he could, probably losing his voice in the process. I pulled down my mask. A great cloud of radiation and dust blew over us. A few men went flying as did several tanks. The people who didn't get their masks in time died instantly. My eyes went wide as I saw the artillery batteries and warmeks completely obliterated, nothing left but melted treads and legs.

"Damn..." I whispered to myself. Then it went eerily silent. The enemy's guns stopped firing. Everything just stopped. As I looked over the wet grounds of no-man's land I saw the hundreds of dead. We were at the enemy trench system now. Our tanks began rolling over, and our commander ordered us into their trenches. No men. No rebels. None. Just a few of our cadavers that had fallen when the blast washed them away. I hit the ground with a splash. The water here was up to my ankles. I saw our commander walk by me.

"They've got an entrance from the trench system into the city. How else would they be getting out here??" His voice was muffled over the radio within his mask. The men began piling down into the river. "Of course... The sewer system... GET

19

OUT OF THE TRENCH! THIS ISN'T A MILITARY INSTALLATION! IT'S A MOAT!!" Then water crashed down a corner and headed for us. I grabbed onto the wall and attempted to claw up but there was no matter, just slippery mud. The water crashed upon me. I was ripped from the wall, mud still clenched in my fist, and was taken away like the rest of the troopers who had decided to take out the enemies in here.

I could only think one thing.

"Damn... Damn damn damn damn..."

The word repeated itself over and over again. We were washed down into a large pit. The pit was dark. As I went over the edge, I could see a few men grabbing a hold of ladders and mechanisms along the walls, some slipping and falling into the unknown.

I grabbed a brass cable to my left, and squeezed, holding on for dear life as I pulled myself out of the waterfall. I slipped, and fell onto some grating. My rifle probably wouldn't work, but I did have a chance to test it when a wooden door opened and a rebel walked out. He wore the same gear as I, just with big red X's over the Imperial symbol of a sword and a giant I. The man had a machine gun, which he pointed at me.

I fired, and the bullet caught him in the face, and he struggled, shook, and fell from the ledge. Now I fell back and breathed for the first time in minutes. My mind was clearing. Where was I? I heard voices and looked around. Everyone else was climbing onto niches and what not, attempting to get to the many other grating systems that I was on. I heard the radio in my ear crackle. ++This is commander Darkan...++ So, that was his name. First I heard it. ++We have seemed to have reached a sewer system. Who is alive?++ Several other voices, both weak and strong, answered him. After a second of silence, he continued. ++Try to get to a door, and meet me in these chambers. Our numbers have greatly lessened.

And now, we know they have nuclear wea-

ponry. Unfortunately, my comm-operator has disappeared. Along with his equipment, so we cannot make the high commander aware, unless he is dead. Speed of the gods, men. And the Empire's blade be with you, and the Emperor's sight upon you. Speed of the gods... meet with you all soon...++ Another crackle. I didn't even bother reporting in. They'd seen me, or they will when we meet up... I see everyone else getting up and collecting themselves, some already up on their feet and leaving. Then I see a few rebels enter some of the grated areas only to be shot down by the Sixteenth. I collected myself, and walked into the door just as several rebel elite storm troopers rushed out onto a catwalk across the pit and opened fire

on any survivors they saw. I was in before they could.

Now, I just wanted to rest. I took off my gas mask, and breathed cool air of the long white corridor. No violent shaking from artillery. No, this was in a city. Gods, I'm thankful... However, my trenchcoat was drenched, but thankfully the water had washed away most of the mud... and blood, but I still had a few cuts and scrapes. I needed to make contact with Theodore, and I pray he is still alive. I began walking down the long, white corridor...

3—The corridor extended for miles, all white. It was cold, too (thankfully I had a coat for that). I got no chatter over my radio. Then, finally, I had found some stairs

20

leading upwards to the right. Went through some swinging doors, and got to a stairwell going up and down. I checked the ammunition in my rifle, and saw I had twenty shots left in the clip. After a minute, I decided to go up, as that would take me into the city, and I wanted to see what it was like, I haven't been near civilization in a long time. I could always find the guys later. Ultracity, back in its heyday, was one of the biggest capitols of commerce and entertainment in the Empire.

What I found was nothing what I thought. The city I had signed up in was a sparkling jewel. Ultracity was once the same, but not anymore. Decay was everywhere. Some strange fungus was overrunning the city street and every building within eyesight. At least the rain had stopped and dried up, and the sun was out, the heat returning. The sun was our number one enemy, I had been told in training. I stripped off my trench-coat, letting it fall to the ground. Under it I had a bulletproof vest covered in steel with large rubbery shoulder -pads. The bright sun automatically began to beat down upon me with its evil rays. I

21

slung my rifle and began to explore.

The narrow streets twisted and turned.

I never saw anybody. Then, I found a shop.

I entered. Nobody still. I decided to take some spoils of war, stealing a few bottles of rum and water. Then, a sound behind me. I dropped the bottle of rum in my hand, the liquor smashing upon the stone ground, throwing glass shards and rum everywhere.

The glass crunched under my combat boots as I turned, pulling up my rifle and priming it to fire. As I walked out onto the cobblestone street, a great wooden butt of a gun smashed into my face.

I awoke in a chair some hours later. In front of me was some gigantic window.

Below I could see the city expanding around me, making me feel like a bruised, bloodied up god. In the far-off distance, I could see the reinforcements. I could also see the remains of our old base camp. What was once a series of trenches was now just a great crater full of debris. It'd take a half hour at least for the reinforcements to get here. But, we had failed, we were supposed to unlock the gates and storm em, too bad it didn't work out.

Karaoke

By Russ Kazmierczak, Jr.

W

hen I was a child, while my friends spent their hours after school earning black belts in karate class,

I studied a different discipline, belting out songs at the foot of my record player, earning black vinyl records from my parents' collection whenever I'd mastered the one before.

Yet while my friends had tournament matches to exhibit their talents, I didn't find a forum for my skills...

Until I turned 21.

It was then, in all of its glory, that I discovered karaoke, and my life was changed.

More spiritual than kung-fu, more combative that karate, karaoke is the common man's discipline, a veritable lifestyle that with just a few bottles of beer can unleash everything you've kept bottled up inside.

If you don't think karaoke is a spiritual experience, consider its most popular songs: "The Devil Went Down to Georgia," "Livin' on a Prayer," "Don't Stop Believin'."

These are the hymns of a new generation.

Forget the prodigal son or the rich man squeezing through the eye of a needle.

Jesus wishes he thought of the parable of the Tiny Dancer, the little ditty about Jack and Diane, the beatitudes of the Singer in the Smokey Room and his miracle, turning water into the smell of wine and cheap perfume.

These protagonists, we remember, because their tales are universal to the human condition – black or white, Republican or Democrat, gay or straight, Jew or Muslim, blonde or non-blonde, at some point everybody asks, "What going on?"

These tales are ageless, because even time can never mend the careless whispers of conviction, the lyrical lessons that inspire us to tell their stories, too, like evangelists, our mission field the stage, or the choir leader, the piano man, preaching from a microphone that smells like a beer.

If you don't think that karaoke is an effective self-defense technique, you haven't been in the kind of combat that matters.

I mean, everybody's been kung-fu

22

fighting, but the man that remembers love is

a battlefield is in for the fight of his life.

I believe it was the existential philosopher Cher that said, "Even words can wound sometimes," and sometimes, you must never surrender.

Forget swords and nunchucks – I've seen the strongest men crumble at just a few plucks of guitar string, at just the opening tones of a love ballad, because those keys are sharp, and they cut like a knife.

The soundtrack of life is most effective when least expected, a secret weapon you didn't see coming – and we, the Karaoke Ninja, we are the champions.

Finally, perhaps most obviously and definitely most importantly, karate and karaoke are brothers in

23

linguistics.

They share a root word, "kara," Japanese for "open."

Karate translates "open hand," like the traditional chop, or do you have the chops to grab the pebble from my.

Those sensei with their demeaning curricula.

Karaoke is much more empowering, translating to "open orchestra," but its ancient teachers extend a hand, too.

They pour their voices out of the basin of their songs and ask that you fill it, in or out of tune; now you're the singer in that

smokey room, and for a smile you can share your soul for three and a half precious minutes.

The world your stage, when life takes its toll, those ancient songsmiths extend an open hand and ask you to take their rock and roll.

Index of Images Bearded Lady by Jenny Fontana

iii

Dali Pops by Jenny Fontana

6

Wrath by El Vaquero Muerto

8

Whispers Through The Trees by Jenny Fontana

13

Nom Ominas Chihuahua by Jenny Fontana

16

Untitled by Maynard Breese

20

Forest by Judy Wood

21

NaNoWriMo Logo, Courtesy of The Office of Letters and Light

24

Guadalupe by Shayne of the Dead

Front Cover

Mousefurautu by Gilead

Back Cover

November is National Novel Writing Month How many times have you said to yourself “I’ll write a novel, someday.”?

Well, today is the day. Actually, November 1st is the day.

Every year around this time, hundreds of writers around the Valley start gearing up for a month of shenanigans and insanity– and above all, fun.

My name is Amber, and I’m here to tell you about it.

November is National Novel Writing Month, and the premise is pretty simple. You write 50,000 words in 30 days. And I know you’re saying to yourself, “But that’s an awful lot of words!” It equals out to about 1,667 words a day, and it is a lot of work, but it’s absolutely worth every second of it. It also helps that there are events throughout the month where you can get out and meet the other people who are crazy enough to attempt it.

Here in the Valley, we have two regions with events– Phoenix and East Valley. I am the East Valley Co-ML, and this will be my ninth year doing NaNo. The friends I have met and the habits I have gained as a writer through NaNoWriMo are invaluable to me. We’d love to see you out at the events, but if nothing else, join in on the fun from the comfort of your own home. More info can be found at www.nanowrimo.org. Register today.

Write a novel. If not now, when?

And in the next RESTLESS issue: Did you partake in the goodness that is NaNoWriMo? We want to hear about it! Tell us your triumphs, your dark moments, and give us an excerpt from your novel– we’d love to see all the different stories that were crafted during November. As usual, submissions can be sent to submissions@restlessanthology.com.

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RESTLESS: Issue Two

M

aynard Breese

Maynard Breese is a Chandler based digital artist, with works showing throughout the Phoenix area, as well as Nevada & California.

"I call my style realistic surrealism. I strive to create an immediate visceral response with my work. Creepy cool sexy is the feeling I am going for."

A

mber Brosovich

Amber Brosovich wears many hats, despite the fact that she looks terrible in them. If she isn’t arguing with her fellow RESTLESS founders, she can be found wasting too much time on facebook or attempting to write a 50,000 word novel on a Smith Corona Corsair Deluxe. She can be contacted via bat-signal in most metropolitan areas or at amber@restlessanthology.com if you are feeling feisty.

D

avid Crummey

David Crummey is searching for the nexus of urbanism, culture, food and justice, and exploring our human character in terms of our physical geography. He is currently pursuing a Masters from ASU; he can otherwise be found working to bring Downtown Mesa to it’s fully awesome potential, or fighting with his RESTLESS co-founders. Inquiries can be sent to david@restlessanthology.com.

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E

l Vaquero Muerto

El Vaquero Muerto Leather Art is the rock n' roll brainchild of the artist El Vaquero Muerto, brought to life by the mad hustling of fellow artist Jose "El Guey" Salazar. It all started when the two met in "The Office" while at bad boy camp in 2002. Their mutual passion for bitchin' art brought them together as friends, and now, 6 years later, as business partners. Their work can be found at: www.elvaqueromuerto.com

Jenny Fontana

Miss Fontana was unable to get us a bio in the ridiculously short amount of time we gave her. Here’s her bio, shamelessly stolen from her Etsy page.

“I am a dark artist that loves all things macabre and gothic. I have a very dark sense of humor and I currently reside in Arizona with my family and a great assortment of spooky critters! “

G

ilead

Gilead is a fantasy and science fiction illustrator with 18 years of freelance art experience. He grew up in Prescott, AZ and is currently living in Gilbert with his wife Stellar and a cat named Mischief. He paints in acrylics and oils on recycled materials such as scrap wood, furniture parts, doors and metal. He has paintings in the Method Gallery in Scottsdale and Gallery 225 in Gilbert.

Contributors and Victims

R

uss Kazmierczak, Jr.

Russ Kazmierczak, Jr. is the local writer/illustrator responsible for "Amazing Arizona Comics," the cutting edge mini-comic book series that exposes Sheriff Joe Arpaio's secret superdeputy program. When he isn't exposing these conspiracies to the public via the graphic arts, Russ is either singing karaoke or writing and performing poetry around the Valley. He has recently published his first poetry chapbook, "For Whom the Recess Bell Tolls," which can be ordered from: http://karaokefanboypress.blogspot.com

O

badiah Madsen

Obadiah Madsen, a happily married man and father of two beautiful daughters. He is a person, not an illness or stereotype. Obadiah has been diagnosed with a serious mental illness. He often writes about his experience to promote hope and erase stigma.

M

att Mesnard

Chided for years by Chris Baty and National Public Radio, this Mesa writer broke away from his usual path of screenplays and movie production work to venture into the less structured and often uncivilized world of novels and short stories. Surviving as a writer of free-

lance: If you have a literary impasse, if nobody else will help; maybe you can find Mesnard.

T

. Munk

The Reverend Theodore Munk is an Arizona native, a natural desert rat and an aficionado of doing things the old-fashioned way. Take for instance, this little biography. Given the task of whiting a hundred or so words about himself, he heads straight to the most beat-up typewriter in his collecion, a 1957 Tower Portable, and sets to work hammering a page load of drivel in a format that will either need to be retyped by an editor or scanned in and printed as-is -- a glaring incongruity of typos among a bunch of neatly typeset entries. He's just that kind of guy, you know?

O

wen Stupka

Owen Stupka is a freelancer writer, part-time assassin, and is just happy to be nominated. As one of the editors of RESTLESS, Owen hopes to be able to immanentize the eschaton, or at least rock it like it's never been rocked before.

For contact, hate mail, or naked picture disposal, you can contact him at

owen@restlessanthology.com.

E

van O’Connor Was born March 15th, 1990.

Loves writing, and has too

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many hobbies to keep a record of all of them.

S

hayne of the Dead

I am an artist, promoter, producer, consultant, and gallery owner.

I'm working on many different projects all the time. I have a once a month event called SINge at the FireHouse, that focuses on fire performance and dancing. I also throw an event called Black Light Mass occasionally with a group known as the Family. I'm working on online endeavor called the Make Art Available project on Etsy and ArtFire.com. It is a project to make emerging artists art available to everyone whether they have a tight budget or are a collector. My partners and I have also recently acquired a new gallery space called Galeria de los Muertos at 905 N.5th street. It's right in the heart of the downtown Phoenix arts district, we will be featuring some of the best local and visiting artist working in the dark and lo brow art movement. His work can be found at:

www.shayneofthedead.com

D

avid Wiersch

I used to think I didn’t get anything out of church as a kid But now I know that its where my need to be on stage developed From the choir that could barley sing To the child molester and his organ playing

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The man on the cross didn’t mean a thing- when the beat rises and the melody swings I didn’t care what they where saying i only cared about the how and the what they where playing Music gave birth to my soul No devil, no angel

Just rock and roll

D

avid and Wood

Judy

David and Judy Wood live in Mesa, AZ and have been drawing, painting and writing for years. This year they have spent more time collaborating on art and poetry. "Forest" ~ a mixed media drawing was created during the summer of 2010 while celebrating their 36th wedding anniversary.

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150 Word Micro-Fiction Contest!

Tell us your best story in 150 words (exactly)!

All qualifying entries will be printed in an upcoming edition of RESTLESS. Each entry will be scored by popular vote (50%) and by our illustrious judge’s panel (50%).

Entries can be sent to

150words@restlessanthology.com.

Entries must be 150 words long.

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No shorter. No longer.

Coming Soon RESTLESS: Issue Three Request for Submissions RESTLESS, a new Arts Anthology, is calling all local writers and artists for submissions. RESTLESS is looking for all types of fiction and non-fiction written in experimental and traditional writing styles. RESTLESS is also accepting event suggestions, reviews, comics and visual-art that translates well into black and white print.

Guidelines for Submissions: Fiction / Creative Non-fiction / Experimental Fiction / Micro-fiction No word limit, though generally under 10,000 words. Please attach as a DOC, DOCX, RTF, TXT, ODT or whatever.

Poetry RESTLESS publishes a small amount of poetry per issue. Again, no word limit, but generally under 5,000 words. Please send as an attachment.

Local Restaurant Reviews - Alternatives to the Chain Review an awesome locally-owned restaurant with the view of giving us good alternatives to the standard chain restaurants. 50-400 words.

Comics & Other Visual Art Must translate well into grayscale/black & white. Images must be of high enough quality for translation to print. Raster or Vector images acceptable. JPG, PNG, SVG or AI are acceptable formats. PNG or JPG are preferred.

Unique Contributions Other contributions are considered as well. Stickers, Wood/linocut stamps, inserts of other kinds, etc. Please e-mail with a description / image of the proposed contribution for consideration.

Recipes & Cooking Stories Unique, delicious recipes—stand-alone or with a story attached.

Content: RESTLESS does not have specific content guidelines. In general, content should strive to be no more than a PG-13 or a soft-R. Explicit content is generally frowned upon, but is acceptable when appropriate within the story and handled maturely. We aim to include as many readers as possible, young and old.

We are always accepting submissions of all types of content. Deadlines for particular issues are generally two-weeks before the launch date.

Submissions should be sent to submissions@restlessanthology.com. Please include the type of submission (fiction, non-fiction, review, event, etc...) in the subject line of the e-mail, as well as a short 50-150 word bio. If it’s not included, we’re making it up. Seriously.

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RESTLESS: An Arts Anthology i n f o @ r e s t l e s s a n t h o l o g y . c o m

www.restlessanthology.com