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Article Name
BY FIRST LAST
Table of Contents
Editorial team
Katherine Back
Cover image
Frank Candiloro
Alison Evans
Poetry Editor
Tilly Houghton
find us concretequeers.tumblr.com twitter.com/concretequeers facebook.com/concreteqzine concretequeers@gmail.com
Design & Layout
Park Street
Editor's Note
P02
Submission Call
P03
Cecil Wilde
P04
Asunder By hester j. Rook
P06
Flora By Tegan Webb
P07
Low-Res Low Light High-Rise Highlights 1. Dawn 2. Day 3. Dusk 4. Night By Bejamin
P09 P10 P11 P12
The things she finds in the dark places By Hester j. Rook
P15
WaterPerson By Angus Dalton
P16
Jem B
P17
Orbits By Alison Evans
P18
Biographies
P20
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Strap boots tanks issue
Editor's note
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Submission Call
yourselves in, get your space on and make sure your oxygen are full for Concrete Queers 7: spec fic!
Benjamin's cityscapes set the mood and as you pass through the day from dawn to night, you'll find aliens who don't understand human gender, dreamy poetry, magic and hot city nights. Water, air, plants: they all feature here in some way and everything is rooted in the everyday world we experience, but of course there's that spec fic touch that makes it subtly other. We hope you enjoy the ride.
The theme for CQ8 is music!
Send us your stories, essays, poems, lyrics, your pictures, art, photos, your songs (we're going to put CDs in the back of every copy if we get musical submissions), anything you think would be welcome here. The limit for written pieces is 1000 words. We usually print in B&W so send us greyscale pictures, but if you think your piece might be suited to the cover, send us a colour version too! Any submissions, questions, thoughts please send to editors Kat and Alison by April 15 via email to concretequeers@gmail.com *All submissions remain copyright to their creators and get a token payment of $10.
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Zaarthox's log, stardate 401.56
Stardate 402.17
Landing pod still broken beyond repair. Human social customs are bizarre. There are insects on this planet that bite, and I appear to be allergic to them.
My new human friend also refuses to be given a gender, which I am still not clear on the purpose of in the first place. It is strange to be so far from home, on a planet barely clawing its way toward civilisation, and still find kinship among the inhabitants. My human friend has offered to introduce me to many other humans who they believe I would enjoy the company of.
Stardate 401.63 Communication efforts with my ship remain futile. Local wildlife seems friendly in the presence of food. I have been informed this is a 'cat' (image attached). Apparently, humans domesticate them and keep them in their homes.
Stardate 402.34 I have acquired a house plant. Human domestic companionship is apparently not limited to predatory fauna.
Stardate 401.75 Of all the human oddities, what they call gender is the most frustrating. I have had my access to several places limited based on this imaginary. Unfathomable concept. Humans report similar occurrences, but appear not to think this unusual.
Stardate 402.57 I have still not succeeded in repairing the landing pod, but I realise now that I would hesitate to leave if I did. A group of humans has accepted me as one of their own. For the first time in my life, I feel a sense of belonging. I have responsibilities on this planet.
Stardate 402.01 I now have two cats. A human agreed with me about gender being frustrating on their 'internet,' a planet-wide communication system still in its early stages. Another asked me what planet I originated on, but I could not trust that they wouldn't use this information against me.
Final log, stardate 403.00 This is Zaarthox's final log. Today, I am moving out of the landing pod and into a human dwelling. I have secured employment, and my cats (image attached) will be welcome. If anyone picks up this message, I will still be readily identifiable via DNA markers should a rescue party be sent.
Stardate 402.05 It seems I was too hasty to judge humans: many of them are as confused by much of their culture as I am. As a species, they are unpleasant. Individually, however, some of them are very entertaining.
However, if I am dead by the time it arrives, please be assured that I was happy.
BY Cecil Wilde
06
Asunder
Puzzle hearted and in pieces
07
Flora
Hello everyone. Thank you all for coming
you imagine what it would be like to live
to hear me speak to you today, I know we
in the open air for that long? To not be
are all overworked, and a lot of you are
able to touch a sky, even if you climbed
having a rough time at the minute. I want
the tallest trees? Wouldn’t that be the
to make this very clear before I start, that
coolest thing ever? And I’ve read, and it’s
even though I am a scientist-in-training,
been confirmed by Em’s Nan, that a clear
or SIT, as we’re more commonly known,
sky wasn’t always a dark swampy green, it
this isn’t going to be a scientific forum.
used to be a pale powder blue.
The information I’m going to share with
I am scattered and entangled.
you today is a little bit more personal.
Oh, and speaking of green, I should
I’ve often been told, as a SIT, and actually
mention that the colour of my lips is
They found my nose on a cathedral spire,
as a person in general, that I need to be
just some lipstick Em gave me, to make
my left arm on the back of a bus
less emotional, to clear my feelings out
myself feel better about, you know, my
in sky-sodden Dublin.
of the way to get what I need to do done.
other symptoms. I know you’ve all been
The outside world was an impressionist blur
I would argue that’s the kind of attitude
briefed on the current clinical symptoms
that got us into trouble in the first place.
of Flora, as everyone calls it now, and
What I have to offer is just another way of
that it is not at this stage contagious.
doing things.
But I could see some of you watching
through the rainwashed glass.
I was part-swallowed by a hapless fish
my mouth with suspicion; it’s okay, I
swimming silvered in the Hunter River.
I want to start by asking you all a
promise. I mean, it is possible that over
When they caught it and split its belly
question; did any of you know that we are
time the pigment in my lips might also go
my ear spilled out red and glistening among the guts.
not the first people to seek refuge in a
green, but if they do I don’t think it will
The pelicans swooped and fought.
garden after an onslaught of devastating
be this nice a colour. And definitely not
natural disasters? In the September of
so shiny. The lipstick belonged to Em’s
1923, so almost 300 years ago, there
grandmother, actually, and she gave it to
was an earthquake, in the Japanese
Em, along with most of her other relics
city of Tokyo. Many people died in this
and artefacts after she died. So Em’s
earthquake, and the tsunami, and the fire
now got a whole collection of different
tornado that followed, but a lot of them
coloured lipsticks, and get this, they’re
A heron fetched my index fingers both
lived, and almost 30,000 people sought
all named after flowering plants! Some of
from where they swept softly on the surface of the ocean
refuge the same way we did, by fleeing
them I’d never heard of before, and had
(somewhere near New Zealand, I think?)
to their Botanica. With all their homes
to look up in my encyclopedia set. Who
destroyed, these people built new homes
would have thought that a passionflower
beneath the trees, in the Tokyo Botanica,
was actually a real plant? Or a gazania?
or the Koishikawa Botanical Gardens, as
I’m not sure if a nightshade is though,
reforged me a body of windswept, wandering parts
it is called there. And what they did was
because I’m missing the N volume. I would
and finally
even more risky back then, because they
have brought them in to show you, but
I appeared whole (on the surface)
lived in the open air, and it was almost
they’re in Em’s room, and I can’t go in
missing only a tiny piece of my puzzled heart.
two years before they could leave. Can
there anymore.
My elbow was caught in a quandong tree in the deep desert. Carried back in a basket full of plump red fruits destined for jam it swung on the life-creased arm of a dusk-scented woman.
They stitched and welded and carved and hammered,
BY Hester J. Rook
08
Flora
Actually, that leads me onto another
centre of the earth, and thought there
question I wanted to ask, do you know
would be no consequences. I reckon they
how flowering plants came to be? They
knew there would be, but those Scientists
were algae once, like the stuff that’s been
were paid enough to close their eyes and
growing in our water supply. This algae
hope for the best anyway.
evolved and became the green plants, and then eventually the world just burst open
Anyway. I’m getting slightly off track.
with colour, of hundreds of the thousands
An important piece of information to
of species. They did all of this before us,
consider is that there were no recorded
before the animals had even left the sea,
instances of people contracting Flora,
before legs were without roots and could
the ones who lived in the forest after the
move about freely. This brief period in
earthquake in Tokyo. So something is
history was their time, their time to spread
different. A small but vocal minority of us
out, to take root, and spill spores, and
SITs, including myself, think it’s something
be the dominant life forms. But then the
we’ve done, that there was nothing
animals followed from water to land and
‘natural’ about the events that have led
the plants started getting eaten again.
us here. I asked Em about it, just before things started to look bad for me, and just
How do I know all this? Oh, Em and I
after she got infected.
pieced it together from my books and the stories her grandmother told her. She
“Does it kind of feel like we’re being
was a Scientist, with a capital S. When
punished. Like the earth is taking back
Em was younger, they would sit on the
over because we’ve fucked everything up
floor of her grandmother ’s tent and listen
so badly?”
to her stories about how things began. Em said that looking back on it, some of
“I don’t think that’s a very scientific way
Nan’s tales sounded a bit like bullshit, but
of looking at it,” Em said. “You’re not
then I showed up with my encyclopedia
going to find any kind of cure by thinking
set and she found that a lot of it also
about it that way. But yeah, it does feel
appeared in the books, written down. “It
like that some days.”
must be true then,” Em had mused, “if it’s written in books from before,” but then
Em was top of my class, before she got
we found out some of what’s in there also
infected, and the smartest SIT I know,
turned out to be bullshit too, like some
but there’s something else about her
of the stuff about human anatomy. One
that I like. I remember, we were sitting
of the first things we learned as SITs was
by the river, me working on my botany
that you can’t just make nice, well-shaped
notes, her her physics ones, both of us
plugs for the holes in your knowledge.
thinking of touching toes. I was too shy,
Like when they sent that probe down to
and Em could tell, she told me later. I
Continued on page 13
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10
11
12
13
Flora
was trying really hard to organise all my
t h a t yo u co u l d n ’ t p o ss i b l y k n ow f ro m
botanical diagrams but I couldn’t get my
re a d i n g t h e n o te s o r a t te n d i n g t h e
head straight with Em so close and no
s c i e n t i f i c f o r u m s . E m h a d a l re a d y b e e n
one else around. To make things worse, I
p l a ce d i n to q u a ra n t i n e by t h e n , s o I
was working on getting the reproductive
wa s s i t t i n g n ex t to h e r, b u t i n ste a d o f
organs right. For one of the diagrams
s o m e r u n n i n g wa te r a n d a n i m a g i n a r y
I was supposed to write stamen, but
s p a ce, t h e re wa s a t h i c k p a n e o f g l a ss
instead I started writing Em’s name, which
s e p a ra t i n g u s . We s a t to g e t h e r s i l e n t
made me blush, and Em must have been
f o r a l o n g w h i l e, a n d t h e n E m st a r te d
watching me because they asked almost
l a u g h i n g f o r n o re a s o n , a n d I a s ke d h e r
immediately, “Hey, what’s up with you?” I
w h a t t h e h e l l s h e t h o u g h t wa s s o f u n ny.
started scribbling out what I had written but this just made her shift her gaze
Em said, “Oh you know, it’s just like what
from my red face to my green pencil, and
are the chances that we both catch two
I know she saw because she started to
completely different things? At least if
grin, so wide, and it annoyed me so much
we got the same thing we could still hang
I pulled out a dandelion to stick between
out.” She kept laughing until I frowned.
the gap in her two front teeth. But I never got the stem end close to her mouth. Em
“We could still hangout. There’s nothing
told me later, in vivid detail, what she
really stopping us. If I wanted to, I
saw; she said she saw my whole body
could just come in and see you. I have
shiver and snap, like a sharp wind had cut
clearance.”
through me, and I let out a cry that was almost entirely pain. She said she didn’t
This made Em stop laughing, and say
know what to do, so she just sat there,
“Don’t you fucken dare, there’s still
and that it wasn’t until she looked down
a chance you guys could figure out a
and saw me sunk knee deep into the river
treatment for yours.”
bed that she realised it that it wasn’t her causing me pain, and that she had to find
I told her, “Yeah, but that’s much less
a way to pull me out. A l l I fe l t s ome t hi ng
likely without you. And if we don’t, then
pierce t he bot tom of my foot , a nd a
I would have wasted so much time not
shar p, pin-like pa i n, a nd t he n i t wa s ove r.
being near you.”
A nd, well, you a l l k now t he ba s i c i ns - a ndout s of what h a ppe ns next , s o I’m not
And then Em rolled her eyes at me, but
going to go into t hat .
it also made her grin again as she said, “you’re such a dork I can’t stand it.”
B u t I a m g o i n g to te l l yo u a b o u t t h e
BY Benjamin
m o st re ce n t co nve r s a t i o n I h a d w i t h E m ,
I ignored her and said “did I tell you
co s t h a t ’s f u l l o f i m p o r t a n t i n f o r m a t i o n
though, that I found something in my
14
Flora
encyclopedia set that sounds just like
There is a point to me telling you all
what you’ve got? Heaps of people caught
of this. The earthquake, and the algae,
it, in Tokyo, the people who lost their
and the flower lipsticks, and even Em. I
homes in the earthquake, and had to live
know we’re told not to look to the past
in the Koishikawa Botanical Gardens. The
too much, that we shouldn’t dwell on
shortness of breath, the coughing up
everything we’ve lost, and focus instead
blood, it being airborne contagious, it’s
on what we can rebuild. But I think I’ll
all there. But as time went on they were
be looking to the past a lot from now
able to treat it, they even found a cure for
on, because that’s where I think the
it! Maybe we can find it again!”
answers are, but also because Em’s going to be there soon, too, and without Em
But she just shook you head and said,
I’d be sunk neck deep in a river bed,
“No one’s looking for a cure for me, love.
another flowering plant returning to the
They’re all needed to find out what’s
swamp. I hope you understand what I’ve
happening to you and the others.”
been trying to tell you. And if you do understand, and you happen to see Em,
“But I could look for it. They’d never know.
could you please tell her too? I’ve been
And you could help me. We’re both SITs,
having some trouble.
we could figure this out together,” I said, and I saw her fight to roll her eyes again.
15
The things she finds in the dark places
Swamp bound, webbed fingers deep in the mud the mangroves rear about him. One wrist speared on a root, green blood pearls and washes down oystered skin. One lick; his blood tastes of ocean and sand. Cut free, his wail is a battle cry. His claws run rivets down my cheek, red salt mixed with green. And my laughter thrills with joy. I carry him bundled like a child, like a lost seathing, like driftwood and shell shards. I c a r r y h im through bushrock and paperbark, moon flooded. T h e p a t h is bright with banksia - explosions of red in the gloom. Enthroned far from ocean, his voice fades.
“That’s very romantic, but we both know that neither of us are good enough yet.
I bring pippis from the seaside, licked clean of salt. slide them down his throat and his voice hollows.
Even with your encyclopedia set.”
I
By the roaring campfire lick his skin shrivels, tightens, grows stretched and translucent.
For that last part her voice was gentler, and it made me want to cry, but instead I asked “But aren’t you mad?” and slapped
I can see the soft thrum of his heart under his ribs. voice shatters,
my open palm against the glass in frustration.
His
falls from roar to Echo's whisper, cracked and broken. She pressed her own hand up to mine
But when the moon is bright - bright and full like werewolf moons
and pushed, and we pushed like we were trying to turn the glass back into sand and she said, “So mad, love.” And then we
(a moon for lunacy) I shuck oysters into the dirt and he sings
had to stop talking because Em started coughing up blood and the medical SIT
like wildfire.
told me that I had to go.
BY Tegan Webb
BY Hester J. Rook
16
Waterperson
17
I first spotted you in an orb of spit Flung out of my mouth and flecked with blood By a backhand from a shadow that became a hood that became a squat man with a backpack and a snarl and a 'where's your wallet fag cunt'. Vodka-bile and rage at the back of my throat M y n a i l s r a k e d h i s face, leaving chunks of cheap glitter lodged in h i s s k i n . You were watching anxiously in the gutter, slick with streetlight, waiting for a cab to come zooming pastoh god please stop and helThe wheel hit; you
leapt up onto the backpack man, biting into his
leg, freezing teeth forcing a flinch, and with the stolen second I ran while you began to rain to cover the sound of my wet Converse slapping the road tar. I collapsed in the park beside the bowling club. Every muscle squeezed like a fist around a hot ache. Tongue arid. Lips split. You clinging on to my arm hairs in quaking moonlit droplets. I watched you slide from my hair, off my eyelashes; running in rivulets down my wrists and collected in cupped hands. I looked into the reflection of the pool you made in my palms and saw myself — eyes running black, teeth smeared with lipstick or blood? Glitter and sweat through my stubble. But then my hair grew long and turned the colour of the ocean at night. Eyes became like sea-glass. And you smiled, your face always morphing, jawbones rearranging under shadow-strewn skin, hair receding, eyebrows growing thick then disappearing, freckles smattering your face in constellations before winking out and reappearing elsewhere, strong cheekbones and a beard and then a clean, round face with full lips. I bent down, kissed the surface of you, And drank you in. I lay back on the grass as a bruise burned itself into my cheek, waiting for sunrise, when you'd evaporate out of my skin and fly back up to the sky from which you came Taking pinpricks of my body's heat with you. BY Angus Dalton
BY Jem B
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Orbits
This city is always humming. Not like back
where we could see the stars. The infor-
home, that place was blaring loud through
mation centre there said that there used
the day and so quiet at night. I like it
to be millions of them, bright and burning.
here, the millions of glittering lights, the
But now they are pinpricks, dulled even
pinpricks of the life further above, the
out there, five hours away.
rhythmic clack of the trains that travel past every three minutes. The city is alive and its heart beat thrums through the roads. My balcony is small, but I’m lucky to have a balcony at all. It’s maybe a metre and a bit long, with almost a metre taken up by the air conditioner. It’s off now and the hot air is pouring inside through my open windows, which isn’t advisable because the smog is going to be level 5 tomorrow, and it’s already probably starting to be a bit toxic. But I love the breeze, and my air con is slowly failing, and the landlords aren’t fixing anything in this building anytime soon. I sit on the air con unit, there isn’t room to have a chair out here, and light my cigarette. That’s bad too, I know, but the air is so polluted here it barely makes a difference.
There are no stars here, but the winking lights all around me make up for it plenty.
four hours a day. They just legalised hover cars a few months and so the richer people have started buying the high apartments, so the lower-level ones are available and cheaper. The news has been saying soon we’ll be having children who have never touched the ground, who will never see soil. Everyone wants to be a sky-person now, it’s the cool thing. I used to love the sky, back home we sometimes took a rural bus that meant
here, we watch movies sometimes. There is
free tonight. Wanna do something?
nothing exciting about our relationship ex-
We live near each other, though we very rarely see each other in person. Our lives mostly go on without the other, we’re in
burn as they fall and wink out before they
skin, a smile seen in person instead of on a
hit the concrete. I’m only a few storeys up
phone screen.
so I can hear everything that goes on being down the path. They weave through the parked cars, almost get hit by a passing taxi, and giggle across to the other side of the road. They’re holding hands. They kiss. I very rarely feel alone in this giant city. There are so many people, everything is so cramped and close. I see so many kinds of relationships, friends, lovers, parents and children, coworkers out for drinks. It’s
She comes over, the door ’s unlocked. She locks it once she comes inside and joins me
actly, there are no moments of wild passion or intense, fiery emotions. There is just us, and we’re here. Being present together, and the longing subsides for the minutes, hours we spend together and is replaced by this quiet warmth. ‘Are you gonna stay?’ I ask when the sun is finally eclipsed by the lowest buildings. ‘Sure.’
on the air con unit and lights up. ‘I have to get up early for work, just so you ‘Bad habit,’ she says, before kissing my
know.’
cheek. ‘I should probably get out early anyway. Her skin is cool from being in the air conditioning of her own apartment, she’s not quite heated up yet. ‘How was work?’
impossible not to get caught up eavesdropShe shrugs. ‘It was fine. Business slowing down I think, everyone wants to go higher And though I rarely feel alone, I feel a
When we come together, nothing special happens really. We eat together, we sit
intersect and there is the soft touch of
low. Right now there are two people walk-
Orbits
She responds almost immediately, Yeah,
I drop some ashes onto the balcony, they
This city will kill me one day, but it’s the ing here, almost every shop is open twenty
You around? I message her.
our own orbits, but sometimes our routes
ping when everyone lets you do it. only place I can live now. Time means noth-
19
for their food.’
longing for her. I’ve never felt this par-
Level 5 tomorrow.’ She grins at me as she hops down from the unit. ‘Come on, we should close your windows.’ Inside, we close the windows and turn on the air con. We eat, breathe, and it’s time for sleep. I slip under my sheets and she follows. The lights are off inside, but they stream through from the outside. I could
ticular longing before, from deep in my
‘Did you see the news today? Apparently
close the curtains, but I can’t let that heart-
chest. I can feel it there, in my lungs and
they want to build a new layer. Have two
beat go.
it strengthens whenever I breathe in. It’s
grounds, the upper city and the lower city.’
not painful, it’s kind of comforting, in its own way. There have been other lovers, but never this … it’s almost like a sweetness, a constant connection with them to say yes, I want you. There isn’t need, there has never been any need. Only want. Need is too much, and more than I could ask of any person.
She scoffs. ‘Why do they want more ground?’ She flicks some ash off the end. ‘They want sky babies, don’t they? I
She takes my hand and our fingers wrap around one others’. The city hums.
thought that was the point.’ ‘They won’t do it anyway, it’ll cost the government too much.’ ‘Mm.’
we could travel for five hours to the town BY Alison Evans
20
Biographies
Jem B she/her/hers Amazonian warrior meets delicate snowflake.
Benjamin he/him & they/them Actor, warehouse worker, multidisciplinary nerd. Mad about puns.
Frank Candiloro xe/xem/xyr Franklin is a comic artist and rad hip-hop DJ currently residing in Melbourne. Xe is also on the hunt for the perfect HSP, and invites others to join xem on xyr journey. http://www.frankcandiloro.com
Angus Dalton Angus Dalton is a writer from Sydney with a love of deep water and a chronic fear of umbrellas. Catch his caffeinated tweets at @angus_dalton.
Alison Evans they, she & he Alison is co-editor of Concrete Queers and loves it with the fiery passion of a thousand million burning suns. They also wrote a book called Ida which is a queer YA spec fic genre mash up. You can find her on twitter @budgie.
Hester J. Rook she/her/hers Hester J Rook is an Australian poet and co-editor of Twisted Moon (twistedmoonmag.com). She's on Twittter @kitemonster and her work is on her site hesterjrook.wordpress.com
Tegan Elizabeth Webb she/her/hers Tegan Elizabeth Webb is a writer, editor, and zinemaker. She likes to write strange creatures with human feelings. Contact her at teganelizabeth.com / on twitter @toriholic23
Cecil Wilde they/them/theirs Cecil is definitely a human from Earth. They grew this skin themself. On their body. You can follow them on twitter @softestpunk.
Concrete Queers issue no.7
Content Š 2017 original artists