Earth isHuge andWe AreAll onIt th e n ew Ph o to gr aph y Th e M alb r o ach Plagu e Th e Wh isper er In Clo th Aver y Su n set
> Su n r ises
Vo l. 3 J u ly/ Au gu st 2 0 14 " Su n ligh t"
" Welco m e b ack m y f r ien d s to th e sh o w th at n ever en d s we'r e so glad yo u co u ld atten d co m e in sid e! co m e in sid e!" - Kar n Evil 9, Em er so n , Lake an d Palm er
Admittedly, while the third issue may be a bit early to declare this a show that never ends, I am bolstered by both the exposure increase of Issue 2, and the volume of incredible submissions received for this issue. In continuing the tradition of firsts, this is the first issue where we have a story over 3,000 words, the first containing poetry. And in another doubleshot of firstness, we have both an art piece and a poem which were in keeping with the creative prompt dropped at the end of Issue 2: Sunshine. Neither one comes out terribly pro-sunshine. (Maybe this is more of a Lou Reed crowd?) Truth be told though I can relish the myriad wonders of the powers of sunlight to give life to plants, grant us electricity, and keep the planet warm and bright, I can deeply relate to dodging the sun. I burn pretty easily, and I wear glasses for nearsightedness that magnify sunlight to sometimes painful degrees. It's sort of interesting to think about how the light from the sun, a massive series of explosions far, far away from our little orb, will never shine on two different people in the exact same way. We may see or feel similar experiences, but the variances in that burning ball, our atmosphere, our bodies, and even our sartorial choices ensure that it's really the ultimate river you can never step foot in twice. Anyway, on with the show! Surfing in the sun, GHN 07/28/14
Contents Ed ito r Giania
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th e n ew kewagi
Layo u t marlin
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Ph o to gr aph y Ian Parker
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Th e M alb r o ach Plagu e Ross Menzies
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Th e Wh isper er in Clo th Thorin Sorensen
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Aver y Amy K
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Su n set Patricia P
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Co n tr ib u to r s
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Af ter wo r d
Co ver
" In to Th e Ligh t." by Chris Baird
> Su n r ises
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th e n ew by kewagi (Previously published)
a fanfare for those who are still alive. we drift from block to block, from city to city, traversing continents and timezones. we live in cheap hostels, tiny flats and abandoned structures, scavenging the left-overs of a fallen industrial society. we speak many tongues, but one language. we smell riots long before they happen, and sense wireless hotspots. we distrust all that claim to lead us, and fear those who pretend to protect us. we inhabit new worlds inside and outside our heads our ancestors didn’t dare to dream about. we are leaving their dreams of material wealth behind and spin new ones of liberty and life and happiness. we hate those who demand respect without earning it. we phase in and out of different realities and change our personae like underwear. we are digital conquistadors, exploring the strange new plane that produced us. we consider gender, skin color and spiritual alignment as accessoires we can wear, not as defining aspects of ourselves. we disregard nations, for we are children of the city and the river. we are born as the slaves of a dying time, struggling to get free. we are the chosen ones, for we have chosen ourselves. we are the new.
(Opposite page) Photo by Ian Parker 02
Ph o to gr aph y by Ian Parker 03
Th e M alb r o ach Plagu e by Ross Menzies
Looking down she counted about fourteen quid in pure change just jangling about on the passenger floor while Morag's grotty car scuttled long and low under the Lady Hills, its taped-on wing mirrors resembling shite antenna. 'It's pish,' Morag said, just out loud to the car in general. She was driving and fiddling with the radio, marching straight on through the BBC stuff and into the wasteland frequencies, and then back round again. 'It's all pish.' Saffron tried the dial herself, and she found something: it faded in all crackling and cavernous, the two of them sat and listened to this weird warbling fucker yodelling in Gaelic. Saffron turned to her and said, 'Well, this isn't pish,' and then didn't say anything. After she read all of the backs of all Morag's CDs she stuck my head out the window, up at the moon, begging the fucking galaxy or something to give her ANYTHING to talk about. Despite everything Saffron could still feel pride that Morag had kept the coat, even though it barely looked the same. So many scratches, tears, patches – ‘battle-worn’ becoming the operative word. She stared at Morag staring down the road, watching the driver’s left arm snaked down to her side, fingers clawing at her pocket, drawing a phone out with more care than she ever seemed to give anything else. ‘Morag,’ said Saffron, ‘C’mon, don’t do that…’ ‘Whit?’ said Morag, glancing down, up, back down, up, down. ‘Just, please… It, like, freaks me out.’ ‘Oh, right. I forgot.’ The drive was either a guilt trip or a ghost walk but Saffron was still figuring out which. In a sudden moment she could see out past the trees and out over the fields and out over the fences the faint outline of their old gravel-pit, a pockmarked crater forever burnt into the midnight landscape. The dilapidated tower lumbered out
from the middle of the gravel, as it always had, stuck in the twilight of eternally impending collapse. She saw echoes of summers past: her ghostly figure clambering up the tower with one hand clutched tight to the bar and the other to a bottle. Their old empties were all there, probably – spirits drunk long ago. The apparition of their black, makeshift fire trailed up to the stars. It was fenced off now. There was nothing worth fencing off but it was. Even as she sunk deeper into the chair the yearning in her throat still stung. She had to talk now, forcing out whatever she could muster. ‘So how was your Christmas?’ ‘I was working,’ said Morag, driving with her seat pulled right up to the front. ‘You were here for it, weren’t you?’ Saffron smiled politely and then mumbled through, ‘Yeah – aye.’ ‘So you didn’t get my text then.’ ‘No. What text?’ ‘Nuhin,’ said Morag. ‘I meant to come and see you, but, like, you know, and I only had the two weeks off and I had family stuff and I wasn’t even here for all of it and – where are you working now, Morag?’ ‘Nah, it’s awrite.’ ‘Not the Grange anymore?’ ‘Not since like fuckin over a year ago, naw.’ ‘Oh right.’ Morag turned the music up loud. ‘It’s awrite.’ Saffron stared at her fingernails. Nobody said anything for three and a half songs, by which time the weirdo on the radio had brought the accordions out . She thought about the Lady Hills and about the woods. She thought about the winding roads. She thought about the Grange 04
Hotel and Morag’s house. She thought about the gravel pit, and the tower, and those camping nights. She thought about that door right at the back of the gravel pit which was bolted shut and how neither of them could ever find out what was behind it no matter how hard they tried. Saffron glanced down at her boots, chucked with mud and scratched to all hell and steeped in pennies. ‘Did you, uh, did you know people still get the plague?’ ‘Whit?’ said Morag loudly over a pretty aggressive drum solo. Saffron glanced over at her for silent permission, and then she turned down the volume. ‘Oh, well, uh, I was saying,’ she said again, ‘Did you know that folk still get the plague? As in it’s still here and, like, it never actually left – it’s just been, like, cutting about in dungeons and sewers and caves on the backs of rats and aw those wee kinds of things, and folk must wander into them, the caverns, y’know, and then they get the plague, they catch the plague and the doctor’s like, Okay, You Have Got The Plague, You Are Plague-Ridden – and I would totally be up for catching the plague, I’d be up for that – cos then you get to join like the Falkirk Pantheon of the Elite, like there’ll be Big Wardy MacInnes, that dog that broke into the school, the girl with the plague, and Sammy Miller after that time he got angry and exploded a capri-sun in primary three,’ she said. ‘Actually - do you mind that?’ ‘Naw,’ said Morag, ‘I dinny.’ ‘Wait, really, you don't?’ She forced out just a little bit of polite laughter. ‘It was really funny.’ ‘I bet it was.’ ‘He was all weird anyway. There was that one time when Lisa Forrester started talking to him and—‘ ‘Aye. I mind that now.’ ‘Oh. Well – uh – well, Davie was telling me – oh, you don’t know about Davie! Davie is my pal from—‘ 05
‘Saffron, just… just stop it, okay? Just give it up.’ ‘What?’ ‘Trying. Stop trying. It’s fucked. Maybe that’s okay, but it’s fucked, just accept it. You left and you fucked it.’ ‘I didn’t.’ ‘You did,’ said Morag, turning around to properly face her for the first time and looking right through her with her big, big eyes, ‘And then you’re gonna fuck off again in a month or two.’ ‘I’m not going to fuck off again, Morag. I’m back. Back back.’ ‘Whit?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘How, what happened?’ Saffron said nothing. ‘What are you doing now then,’ Morag asked. Saffron looked at that icy girl next to her in the massive jacket gunning down the road, through the nights and into the silence once more. About ten minutes later they pulled up under the ESSO’s artificial dawn. Saffron rolled down the window to make room for Morag, her jacket filling a massive dark outline around her head. Morag leaned in and said, ‘How much change is down there, do you think? ‘Like a tenner? I dunno,’ said Saffron, ‘Well, more like fifteen quid. I counted, actually.’ ‘Right,’ Morag said, nodding. ‘Cool. Gather it up. We need a full tank.’
T h e Wh isper er in Clo th by Thorin Sorensen (Triggers: Misgendering)
The window looked out onto acres of wheelbarrow grooves, tire swing trees, and vineripened shadows. It was set high in a white farmhouse, framed red, and shuttered in green. From the small bedroom on the second story it could only be reached via toybox. Every facet of the room was pink. The double bed hammered together to look like a four-poster, the plastic vanity stand in the corner, the simple heart-patterned drywall. There were red stuffed kittens and blue-haired dolls but they sat on pink dressers and spilled from a pink toybox. On top of the toybox was a boy. He wasn't particularly tall, which is why he was on the toybox, nor particularly stout. However, he maintained that he
was unusually old for a boy which was no doubt the reason his parents were unable to understand him. They were unable to accept that he was growing up. Over the past few weeks he'd tried to take on more responsibilities around the house, and received only grief. When he cut his own hair to save his mother the trouble he'd been sent to the corner for “ruining� his curls. After trying to start his father's grill one night he had been given a spanking. He was currently banished to his room because his father had the sort of political sensibilities that insisted a man should stand while peeing, and he'd tried to abide by that himself. He'd become a big boy and they didn't realize it.
The boy gazed out into the yard, nose pressed against the glass to get as close to the view as possible. He liked his pink room, the color of spilled blood had greeted aspiring knights for centuries, but he loved the outdoors. Less a yard than it was the overgrown echoes of a farm, the plot of land held a hundred hiding places and a hundred more lost places, decaying ruins of times prior to even his parents. The earth here had been turned over for untold generations and made rich and fertile. Everything grew tall and dark, calling to the curious: climb me, explore me, come away and hide where no one can find you. One spot called to the boy louder than any of the rest. At the very edge of his parent's property, where the road ran by, 06
was a large storm drain of sorts. His father had once explained it was meant to drain excess rainwater from yard to yard, gradually downhill, since municipal sewers didn't run so far into the country. He'd considered this to be a very sage system, if not a particularly understandable one, and taken to investigating it when his parents were otherwise occupied. The drain itself was just a long pipe, but one large enough for him to enter if he chose. It stretched under the road and curved enough that he could only see a sliver of light from the other side, and only if he bent and held his head just right. Otherwise it was just a pipe sticking out of the side of a raised county road, caressed but not covered by vines. All of this examination happened during the day, of course. The tall trees and deep furrows were fun play with the noonday sun overhead but as the evening shadows deepened they revealed the nature of broken limbs. He knew that he could handle it, but his parents had been more difficult to convince. Even before he had been grounded he'd been forbidden from going outside at night. From as early as he could remember his parents told him the night was too dangerous for a young girl, and, perhaps because he was also young, had banned him as well. From his place by the window he watched as the creep of the shadows painted the landscape with mystery. If he held his face solidly against the glass he could see, out of the very corner of his eye, the storm drain. Just 07
visible beyond the lateblooming branches of a boxelder tree, its shadows deepened, lengthened, then snapped into a sudden pane of black as a streetlight engaged somewhere on the road above. An impenetrable curtain hiding something that day could not contain. He'd watched the drain at night ever since one of the dogs had gone missing. She'd been an older dog, and his parents felt she must have gotten lost out in the woods. They told him there was nothing in the drain but water, and even walked him down to it to show that it contained no missing spaniels. Perhaps not during the day, he'd thought, but when he woke one night from a dream of spiders, tigers, and darkness, he'd was sure. There was something inside of that drain, but only at night. Maybe it was the tiger from his dream, stalking into the wide pipe from another yard as the sun went down, returning to its ancestral nesting grounds to digest the bones of lost dogs. Maybe it would come into his yard one night, creeping between roots like a shadow, waiting for an open window to go unattended. Maybe he wouldn't even wake up until the huge golden orbs of the tiger were inches from his face, it's putrid breath pouring out onto his bed, giving him only a moment to realize he had been left for last. It could have been some kind of monster. Something the world had never seen before. Something with long green
tentacles that pulled in wild animals to be digested, then suctioned the walls clean before the sun found it. Something so horrifying that it would crawl into his dreams one night and keep him there forever. What if someone lived down there? A human being so depraved they had been driven to capturing dogs for nefarious underground dog fighting rings. The kind of person that would never be satisfied with just dogs. Would find some way to hurt his parents, because they were good people and bad people can't stand that. He'd tried to warn his parents about the tiger, and the monsters, and the people. His father had sat him down and told him to never talk to strangers, to never take anything they offered him, and to run home immediately if someone he didn't know ever spoke to him. This was all well and good, of course, but it didn't address the immediate problem of dog kidnappings. Couldn't they see that there was something in that pipe? There had to be. Wait, what was that? Movement, he was sure of it. His eyes strained, trying to keep his head in place to see through the branches. The wind was low and his parents had long ago fallen into the sleep of the laborer. Still, something large had moved at the edge of the storm drain. He couldn't say what, for sure, whether it was the paw of a tiger or a tentacle, but he knew without a doubt that something had just entered the shadows.
He pushed himself backward off his toybox and landed in a pile of stuffed toys. Scrambling to his feet he started to look around. It was obvious he'd need to investigate. His parents would never believe him, and soon it would be too late to warn them. The only way to stop this thing was to confront it himself. That would prove to them that he was a big boy, once and for all.
basement, but it was beyond his ability to lift well, and a dark house away from him besides. The light of his bedroom could not follow him even as far as his parent's room down the hall. Even now, danger at the foot of their driveway, his parents wouldn't let a lit hallway and empty bedroom go uninvestigated. They didn't understand the stakes the way he did.
The nightly staring ritual had taken a toll on his arms and legs. Pins and needles combated excitement and fear, losing after only a few short moments of finger-flexing and toe-wiggling. Not exactly heroic as a warm-up to slaying monsters, but satisfying.
With a sharp “click� the only light came through the window from its distant lamppost. The long shadows of toys and furniture crept towards him and ushered him more quickly through the door. There he could see nothing, instead his hands felt along the far wall, tracing a path below picture frames. Curly haired babies and smiling family portraits stared unseeing out at him, and he unseeing back.
Less satisfying was the flowy night gown he was put in when he had been tucked in for the night. It was meant to be an imitation of his mother's, meant for being pretty and looking like silk, it served mostly to bunch about his feet and make sneaking out difficult. After a brief jostle with a toy broom and a clothes hanger he drew something more practical out of the closet. Strapped in the little black he owned, the dress was otherwise blue with a pink bunny and fell only as far as his knees. Still holding the toy broom he crept to the door, reached up to the light switch, and hesitated. It was night time in earnest now, darkness waiting in the hallway, outside the window, beneath tree branches, and down long curving drains. There was a handheld floodlight somewhere in the house's sprawling
At the end of the hallway was another door, this one liable to creek when opened. Often when his parents woke to walk to the bathroom at night the creak would bring him half-awake and he would sit listening for the quiet footsteps of some terrible beast. He was more careful, slipping through the door without opening it wide enough to creak. On the other side of the door was a wide landing, a step up to the bathroom, steps running down to the first floor, and a window which allowed a little ambient light. At the far end of the landing, just before the window, was a huge plastic bush covered in white christmas lights. His mother normally kept
it on a timer to keep the path to the bathroom lit at night, but this week it was broken and the stairs descended back into invisibility. Beyond the stairs would be a door, and beyond that a final door and a window looking out toward the driveway. The steps were no quieter than the door had been but the door had been thick, and so he hurried down into the dark before he could change his mind. The steps had been carpeted originally, a ridiculous shade of orange, but were now stripped to the hardwood beneath. A few still had clinging staples, and it was necessary to straddle the wall when he reached the shadows to avoid stepping on them. One step creaked especially loud when he touched down onto it, almost a sharp crack, and he froze. It hadn't sounded like a noise a stair would make by itself. Something beneath him in the soupy dark had sounded, like a massive clock hand sliding into place. He stood for a full minute, balanced oddly with one foot on the stair, but no similar toll occurred and the creak was less when he continued on. He reached a second landing, felt along the wall, and continued downward to the door. His hands found the door but could not find the knob. Something was wrong. He knew there was meant to be a knob for the door, but sweeping his hand up both sides revealed nothing. After the noise on the stairs he was already anxious, and he suddenly found himself boxed in by darkness. A day ago he might have given up, crawled 08
back upwards towards the window light. Now, having seen a night terror with his own eyes, he knew he could never go back. It was no better to go back to bed than it would be to stay huddled in the dark. If not for the size of the stairwell he'd have suspected it was there with him already, the quick beat of his panicked heart actually the pounding of some salivating creature. So close he could hear it echoing from a hungry chest. Close enough to feel its breath. A droplet of sweat ran down his forehead like venom from a waiting fang. 09
He scrambled down the last step, pressed fully up against the door, and found the doorknob as he did. Throwing it open, the light of the window pressed demons into staples and left him sweating alone. Alone downstairs. Only one door lay between him and his goal now, and he could easily see the doorknob. Halfway there. The first floor was wide and warm, rooms flowing into one another through wide doorless frames. There were no hearts but the walls of each room had been painted in a welcoming pastel sometime before his first
birthday. From where he sat in the lilac dining room he could see some of the red too-small kitchen, and the open orange living room his parents dragged themselves to at the end of each day. He could also see the light of the streetlight at the end of the driveway. It pulled him to his feet. Socks hadn't occurred to him back in the bedroom, but the pile of shoes near the door was more immediate. He carefully extracted a small pair of dirty pink sneakers from the pile and strapped them on extra tight. Knots rarely agreed with him, but he had found a way around
them. Perhaps he would never bother to learn to tie knots. Surely great men had managed without in the past. They would certainly be no help in slaying monsters. For a moment he considered the toy broom he still carried. He was intent on considering everything on his person before he considered the door, to be sure he was ready. It was a poor excuse for a spear, although he'd used it as that many times. Perhaps he should try to find one of his father's hammers or wrenches. But no, they had all been locked up tightly after their utility for spears had become obvious even to his parents. The broom would have to do, and subsequently the door. Reaching the deadbolt was easy enough, and turning it was only a matter of moving a chair and improving his leverage. From his perch on the chair the top of the streetlight was easily visible, but the drain itself was obscured by branches. His next look would have to be from outside. There could be no more hesitation. A turn of the knob brought in the warmth of summer's final exhalations. Then he was out into it, wrapped in the breath of the night and the great reaching greenery of its teeth. Passing from shelter into the reach of mosquitoes, wood ticks, and the endless imaginable horrors that could settle behind any branch or wait in the depths of the sky. Outside he was careful to walk only on the sidewalk, and then
only down the middle of the driveway itself. Already he knew that the local snakes weren't dangerous but the tree roots that reached out of the earth were. As he walked he practiced a few swings with his broom. Nothing terribly fancy, just making sure he knew how far he could swing it and how fast. Whenever a bush moved in the breeze he took a few practice swings towards it, so the bushes and their invisible observers would know too. Slowly he made his way down the driveway, already going over in his mind how he would handle whatever he found. Obviously, it was something he could see, or he wouldn't have seen it once already. If he could find its head and hit it enough it was sure to be driven off. Even plastic wasn't pleasant to be hit with, and he had pretty good aim. Of course it wasn't necessarily straight forward. Maybe whatever was in the pipe had more than one head. Instead of a limb maybe he had seen a long neck snap back into the pipe to intermingle with a thousand other heads, each of them holding only a single eye, set with innumerable teeth. Or perhaps it had no head, rolling like a bundle of snakes across the ground until it found a victim and simply encompassing them. He supposed he would have to improvise. The driveway held only one slight turn that kept the drain from view. Whatever force of will had driven him this far called him to keep moving his feet forward, to face his fate head on before it could double back around behind him.
As he came around the branch he departed the road into the first patch of light he'd seen since his bedroom. The road rose up here, concrete stretching off past the next treeline, and the grass led down into a slight ditch. Above, the streetlight bathed the grass and the boy and pushed the shadows back. Below was a patch of grass, a small strip of concrete, and then the mouth of the drain itself, beyond which the shadow could not be pushed. Doubt finally reached him as he gazed at the edge of the drain. His legs felt weak, and he wanted to run home. Still he moved forward, almost in disbelief. He had already come this far. He had really come to face the beast that had haunted his nightmares for weeks. To come and see if it was really real or if his parents had been right. This possibility chilled him most of all. He had to know. At first he walked a wide circle around the pipe. There was no seeing past the shadow, and it left him exposed to whatever lay inside, but it seemed like the only thing to do. Nothing came rushing out at him. Nothing appeared to him inside. Then he approached slowly from the side. It was too much to watch the shadows as he walked closer, to imagine at any moment something covered in scales and claws like shards of glass could explode from it towards him. Maybe it would have trouble turning, he thought, pulling the broom handle close. 10
When he was about a foot away from the mouth of the drain he stopped. He was hunched a bit, holding the broom up near his shoulders in case something suddenly shot out. In fact he was waiting for something to shoot out. Some animal or person that would justify the fear that stopped him from entering the pipe itself. He was waiting to see something that made it real. Something that proved once and for all that he knew better than his parents about something really important. His heartbeat seemed to slow as he waited. Nothing was diving out at him. Nothing was happening at all. Even the bugs buzzing around the light were too high up to be bothering him. There was no growling, no hissing, no shouting. There are barely a sound beyond the wind that passed quietly through the length of the pipe and out past him. Not even enough to be mistaken for a low moan, onlybut there was something. A soft rustle. At first it sounded like leaves in the wind but then something else whispered along with it. He unconsciously stepped closer to the wide open dark, leaning over the lip of the concrete that spread from the drain's mouth. The soft breeze rose a bit, blew vines and grass and made his ears tingle. His eyes bulged staring into the dark, his knuckles whitened clutching his broom slightly in front of him.
“Closer,” like the last gasp of a deflating air mattress fluttered out beneath the breeze. 11
A beat like a horse stampede pounded in his ears and the broom dropped from his fingers. Blood rushed out of his face and his hands and pumped through his heart. Something unknowable dripped down his leg. Something inside of him called for flight, but it misfired. For a moment he couldn't even think at all, couldn't move, could only stare. Slowly feeling returned and with it a realization. There really was something inside. His parents had been wrong and he had been right. He knew something they didn't know. It was his secret victory. If he was eaten now he still knew he had been right and it could never be taken away from him. Taking in a breath he raised one foot and moved it over the concrete. The wind died down but the rustle came again. It came from deep inside the darkness. Far more distant than the pipe had been in the daylight. There was no echo, but it sounded like it came from miles away.
“Closer.”
promises and depth, nearness and presence. It came from all around him, the warm air and darkness itself speaking to him.
“Young girl, now is your time.” He took a step back. He looked down himself in all his courageous finery, then back at the dark with its secrets. He thought of the possibilities each held. He narrowed his eyes, pressed his fists to his hips, and leaned forward until his nose touched the shadows. His eyes burned into them and at the top of his lungs he shouted into the void, “I'm! A! Boy!” Then there was nothing left to do. No monster worth facing. All secrets worth knowing already known. Certainly no one worth talking to. He bent to pick up his broom, eyes still on the dark, then turned on his dusty white heals and ran back to his house as fast as his legs would carry him. As he slammed the door behind him he was glad he'd thought to wear such a practical dress.
This time he didn't freeze, but his spine felt like he'd showered in needles. His shoe landed with a dull scuff, followed by another. The last trace of moonlight fell where his shadow entered the tunnel ahead of him. There would be no turning back after the next step. No returning unchanged. A single hanging vine swayed past his head as he stood to listen a final time. When the rustle came it came with
D r awin gs by marlin
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Photo by Ian Parker
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Su n sets > Su n r ises by Patricia P (Previously published)
I don't like the sun. it burns my skin and turns the world into a microwave it hurts my eyes and i can't stand the feeling of sweating after stepping out of the shower I have to bathe in sunblock and wear sunglasses; I'd wear the ones they give to horses if I could I will never understand why people choose to go to the beach or pay a ton to get suntanned why would they surrender their bodies to the wrath of the sun? I don't like the sun very much. being out in the sun reminds me that one day I'm going to end up somewhere that's bright and hot it may be heaven, it may be hell I'm sure as damn hoping it's heaven each time the light kisses my nose and the rays hover over my head I feel raw, exposed fuck Vitamin D and singing suns that wear sunglasses for some reason if I find out I'm a vampire, I wouldn't be surprised at all I hate the sun. the sun is my enemy I bet it's already scheming my downfall it'll sneak into my room in the middle of the night and turn me into a fried human-a delight for all the cannibals out there whenever the day ends and the sun sets I let out all the breaths I've been holding in I pop open a beer or two and drink until the sun comes back to haunt me once more
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Contributors Patr icia P Patricia doesn't really know much about herself, other than that she likes to fail at making poems rhyme and imagine a life where she lives in the countryside. You can contact and find more of her poems on her blog: pennilesspoet.tumblr.com. Ch r is B air d Chris Baird perpetuates his consciousness through words & images on murdered pixels at chrisbairdisdead.tumblr.com
kewagi gentleman psychopath, technomad journeyman. the nicest junkie you'll ever know. https://twitter.com/kewagi
Am y K Amy is a journalist. She is currently in talks with bugs and the birds who eat them. Twitter: @sexyprison
Geo r gen e N u n n Managing editor of Earth is Huge. Bit of a scamp for a 32 year old, really. Lives in NH. Pro Trash Princess.
m ar lin said hi to you once, sleeps, likes ice cream
R o ss M en z ies Ross Menzies lives in Stirling, Scotland, and you can find him doing all sorts of fun comedy and writing and drama stuff there, because that's his main zone. Alternatively he also does the whole Twitter thing at @RossMenzies.
Ian Par ker Ian Parker lives and works in New Hampshire 19
Th o r in So r en sen A Queer androgyne from a farm in Wisconsin. Currently living in Denver, surviving on the brink of homelessness with their loved ones. They're an amateur slam poet and writer, dreaming of Lovecraftian fiction without racism or ableism.
Af ter wo r d
Photo by Ian Parker
O Readers, I hope you have enjoyed another issue of Earth is Huge. After the second issue came out, there was a wonderful outpouring of offers to contribute. WIth good fortune & your support, the trend will continue at this lively pace and we'll keep at it until the wheels fall off. I have a confession though. At a few points this month, I found myself in crisis. "Suppose I can't maintain this?" "Would it be appropriate to run a fund drive or Patreon to make it more than just a digital and wholly unpaid endeavor?" I was wracked with doubts of all sorts. For the record: I've ultimately decided to forgo Patreon or other funding. At least for now. I'd love nothing more than to offer contributors at least minor compensation for their efforts; no one really has it easy, especially not when trying to be creative as a career. Although contributors have a variety of skills and backgrounds, I'd hoped to be able to afford payment anyway, to say be able to say thank you in some physical way. But the feedback I've gotten and difficulty in sorting out the logistics of trying to run a paid project suggest people are happy to simply have an open, welcoming creative outlet. That is something I can provide for free indefinitely. But the one idea that struck me, and the creative prompt for August is: Keep Moving. Even if that movement is just breathing in and out, keep moving. Even if it's in a totally different direction than anything you thought or planned, keep moving. It can be hard to keep moving when it feels like even your own body has gained additional gravity that would pull you still to the ground, forever. Whether it's wiggling your wiggle-ables, stretching your stretchers, or working your lungs like a bellows: keep moving. Share with us what it means to you to keep moving. Are those two words a source of hope in the face of overwhelming inertia? Are they the ringing shade of condemnation to interminable action without rest? I plan to keep moving and in Issue 4 we'll compare notes. ~ <3 GHN 07/28/14 20
Vol. 3 July/August 2014 "Sunlight"
Earth is Huge and We Are All On It is an online zine that intends to publish monthly. Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, comics, stand-alone visual art, and anything that can be put on a page is welcome here. We seek to create space for all sorts of ideas and all sorts of people, and in particular want to create a welcoming environment for those who find themselves existing in the margins of society. Any brief study of historical texts will show that marginalia is where all the really interesting stuff lives. Visit us on tumblr for updates, calls for submissions, progress reports, and more:
earth-is-huge-mag.tumblr.com
Email giania+zine@gmail.com with questions, submissions, fan mail, hate mail, etc.
Earth Is Huge And We Are All On It by http://earth-is-huge-mag.tumblr.com/ is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. All works in this publication are subject to this license except where otherwise specified.