CCLaP Weekender: November 21, 2014

CCLaP Weekender

From the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography

November 21, 2014

OUR LAST ISSUE OF 2014!

New fiction by Matt Rowan Photography by Masha Demianova Chicago literary events calendar November 21, 2014 | 1

THIS WEEK’S CHICAG

For all events, visit [cclapce

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22 5pm COOKIES

The Hideout / 1354 W Wabansia / Free, +21 hideoutchicago.com Join Ovenly and The Hood Internet at the Hideout for an evening dedicated to all things cookie. Throughout the night, Ovenly will pass out their signature sweet-and-savory treats, acclaimed authors Nick Ward, Lindsay Hunter, Jonathan Messenger, and Molly Each will read original stories and The Hood Internet will spin a cookie-induced soundtrack. Get hungry.

7pm Poetry Event

The Book Cellar / 4736 N. Lincoln / Free bookcellarinc.com The Book Cellar hosts an all-poetry event! We welcome to the store poets Kate Gale, William Trowbridge, and Elise Paschen, to read selections of their work.

10pm Delphic Arts Center

Delphic Arts Center / 5340 W. Lawrence / $10 facebook.com/delphicarts Music, poetry, comedy, monologues, and more are welcome.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 23 7pm Uptown Poetry Slam

The Green Mill / 4802 N. Broadway / $6, 21+ greenmilljazz.com Featuring open mike, special guests, and end-of-the-night competition.

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GO LITERARY EVENTS

enter.com/chicagocalendar]

7pm Asylum

Le Fleur de Lis / 301 E. 43rd / $10

lefleurdelischicago.com A weekly poetry showcase with live accompaniment by the band Verzatile.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 24 8:30pm Open Mic

Kafein Espresso Bar / 1621 Chicago Ave., Evanston kafeincoffee.com Open mic with hosts Chris and Kirill.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 26 9pm

In One Ear Heartland Cafe / 7000 N. Glenwood / $3, 18+ https://www.facebook.com/pages/In-One-Ear/210844945622380

Chicago's 3rd longest-running open-mic show, hosted by Pete Wolf and Billy Tuggle.

To submit your own literary event, or to correct the information on anything you see here, please drop us a line at cclapcenter@gmail.com.

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ORIGINAL FICTION

Image: “Silent Forest” by Jyrki Salmi [flickr.com/salman2000]. Used under the terms of his Creative Commons license.

SO MANY OLD RI 4 | CCLaP Weekender

Artificial Forest 12467 was written on the crumpled note card in mostly legible ND Park Ranger scrawl. I’d gotten us a “Team Hike Days Pass”—very expensive, but no big cost when weighed against our likely future rewards. The Woodsmen were not venturing off on any ordinary Team Hike and each one of us knew it. I was thrilled my four very best friends were willing to take their holidays with me. I was thankful for those two other novice woodsmen strangers accompanying us, who were accompanying us because of the ad we placed on our website foretelling the exciting future that might be ours, all ours, if everything went as planned.

ICKETY BRIDGES

BY MATT ROWAN November 21, 2014 | 5

This was the Team Hike that should, and if I had anything to say about it, would change our lives for the better, maybe the best. I had a t-shirt made that said, “Hiking For The Best All Time!” With any luck, the expression would seep into the consciousness of all my woodsmen companions, delivering us to the vaguely stated result I hoped for—we all hoped for—complete and total success. I’d make a shirt with “Complete and Total Success” written on it if we achieved said objective, I promised myself. If we did, I’d deserve it—we all would.

The world’s not so terrible. Everyone complains about the artificial forests, but without them what would we have? Essentially no forests (and definitely not even one that’s open to the public) and everyone would complain about not having forests to climb around in, or whatever else you would do in a forest.

They’re not as dirty as real forests were, something none of us have ever had to worry about—all that dirt and other natural filth. An artificial forest is as real as anything is now, as real as being alive in a different time was for previous generations of people like the American pioneers and their real, living forests. They lived among plants that apparently had water inside of them and ate the sun, somehow. Whereas, let me describe to you what I’ve seen in our new (and, again, very clean) albeit artificial forests: green things colored with the best and most expansive number of hues on the green part of the color spectrum, shiny and sometimes wet because of the general moisture still extant in our atmosphere. Blades of grass that, after you’ve stepped on them, spring back upright like soldiers at attention. Trees with a moldedpolyethylene exterior (and likely a hollow interior). I’ve seen very few real trees in my time, but the trees I have seen compare very closely to the ones in Artificial Forest 12467. They’ve done a lot with real-style texture and scent flora technology in the last decade.

Two different realities. That’s all. And we’re making the most of it, just as they did in pioneering times, building their cabins and smoking their meats and such.

We still have our own things that are very similar to the consistency of smoked meats, food scientists tell us!

We still have our own things to love.

I loved my new hiking boots. So springy. So cushioned. And warm! Were they ever warm. My feet felt great in them. I was ready for the hike, feetcovering-wise.

The rest of my body was clothed in standard woodsmen outfitting, recreations of exotic animal fur, exotic flannel, a comfortable synthetic down vest, synthetic Ruskie mink hat. They said it got cold in those artificial forests at night, but they didn’t give a reason. I hate being cold so I tried to stave it 6 | CCLaP Weekender

off as best I could. All the advertisements told of how each synthetic item was virtually identical to the real thing. And since the real thing couldn’t be had, at least we had these man-made alternatives.

They’ve outlawed any mode of thinking that doesn’t firstly and foremost have you considering how bad you are, in terms of your life choices. So before we got going, we took a moment to consider how bad we were, in terms of our life choices. I’ve made some bad ones. Not getting that first governmentissued credit card was a bad move, in retrospect. Especially when you consider my many failed investments—the dog farm, the marble farm, the ad hocmeat farm. Percy considered how bad he was for longer than the rest of us.

He looked like that’s what he was doing anyway. It was hard to know for sure.

He was easily the most catatonic of the group.

We each had a minimum of one thimble camera (named for the fact that it fits easily on your fingertip, like a thimble) with Major Motion Picture Association quality pixelation. The thimble camera we used has a wide following on the internet. Many of the product’s comments made by satisfied customers include some mention of the great, film-quality level of pixelation.

I figured it was worth a big charge, so I charged it to my Great Wilds Frontier Card, a card for those of us out there with the spirit of an adventurer and the heart of a woodsman.

I added that last bit about the heart of a woodsman, given my enthusiasm for the great outdoors and my soon-to-be status as a woodsman myself. But everything else regarding one’s possessing “the spirit of an adventurer” was expressly stated in the contract I signed, along with a lot of other wording that was a bit more technical in nature and led to my agreeing to lots of “adventure” surcharges and super fees. I felt a lot of excitement amid all the signing and agreeing I did, though, so it was worth it.

There’s a trail out here they made nearly impassable to even seriously skilled travelers. In building it, they put in place a system governed by a complex algorithm that randomly implements the variable possibilities of the most treacherous climbs and paths that once existed on earth, or still exist someplace but that are no longer open to the public. This trail is better than even the natural trails that still exist because it includes all the trails ever recorded in history, in one extraordinarily dangerous location. We were getting a much more expansive, dangerous experience and I, for one, could not have been happier. Who knew if we’d be killed? There was a really good chance, though I was steadfast in my belief that most of us would survive.

My one woodsman friend, Bruno, brought a goat that he said no other woodsman among us was allowed to eat, and he was catching all their insults for it. The other woodsmen were giving him the worst of what they could think to say. Things about sexual congress with animals and other stuff that November 21, 2014 | 7

really wasn’t suited for television. I said they needed to knock it off or I’d slap them hard and often until they complied.

My slaps were well known. I majored in slap-fighting in college. But there was no money in it then and there’s no money it it now, unless I wanted to teach slap-fighting like the great master senseis—but I had a falling out with some of them for trying to teach a new kind of slapping that involved way more shots below the belt than ever previously allowed or thought possible.

To be sure, slap-fighting allows many different shots below the belt. To be sure, my actions got me partially banned from the sport. So my slapping is feared not without reason.

Most of my fellow woodsmen lost wives in the past few years. They lost them mostly to divorce—marriage termination—a divorce that comes from the fact that bad decisions were made. Of course, even if you made all the right decisions, it was easy for you to lose your wife and your family. One minute, you were working in your shed, wood-working to name an obvious example of what you might be busying yourself with, making a comfortable chair or a three-legged decorative milking stool you’re pretty sure would support the weight of most average-sized people. The next minute, you’re summoned from your wood-work. And it’s clear by the look on the face of your wife, Amy, and the stern but sorrowful expression of your counselor, Greg, with whom both of you had been getting counseling about whether or not it was a good idea to keep the marriage going or for Greg to instead deem it necessary to pull the plug. Twelve years and a lot of fond memories of things built with wood all gone, in one instant. Done. And, sure, Greg pointed out he once, early on in your counseling, asked you to say a few words about your marriage, and that you avoided answering the question by telling him you were busy, with the wood-working, of course—and at that moment, you were drafting designs for your drafting tablet. But really, was that not true? When they arrived at the shed, the first thing you did was hold up your stool to show them you had been very serious about what you’d been working on, with wood. You tried really hard to finish it quickly but, sometimes, these things take time. Especially because you had to be careful at the task, since wood was in short supply and messing up on a project could get very expensive. Nothing doing, no good defense, they said. The marriage was recommended to be terminated by Greg or some other counselor, and no more marriages until such time that you’re able to stop what you were doing and talk about your marriage—for at least a few minutes.

It’s always the same sad story.

I don’t really want to slap any of my fellow woodsmen.

Still, my threatening to slap ended their insulting Bruno. The real work could begin.

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Bruno repeated, elaborating only little more as to why the goat was off limits, “This is a goat nobody is allowed to eat under any circumstances. I don’t care if we’re all starving. Not even I’m allowed to eat it. You hear me?

Not even me.”

I said, “That’s right. That’s excellent. That’s just the sort of bullheaded, dangerous thinking I want to see out of all of you. Bruno’s thinking is the kind of thinking that’s going to make every last one of us stars, mark my words. Feel free to mark my words. Big beaming stars.”

Bruno said, “No, seriously, Cot. Nobody eats my goat. He’s my pet.

He’s all I have.”

“I don’t care. Fine, nobody eats your goat. We won’t eat it for lots of reasons, and one of them is you told us not to,” I said, which more or less satisfied Bruno. But, just to be sure, I added, “Everybody okay with that?”

And they all grunted that they were okay with that.

New Democracy affords us all kinds of opportunities to test our limits. New Democracy paid for this forest. The man-made rocky climbs. Off in the distance you could see a few human forms belaying up the artificial rock face. Seeing them like that made me think of the days before belaying or climbing rope or precautions of all kinds. You just let your body cushion the fall when you slipped. It must have been the worst feeling, especially as goes for physical pain—in those rare instances when you didn’t die on impact, I mean.

We began our trek by passing under the long network of power towers that provide all the electricity to the region. Some call them an eyesore, but I say to those people, “Wait! Don’t be so quick to judgment! You need power, right? For most every detail of your day-to-day activities?” Power’s got to get to you one way or another, so either you invent a better means or you make do with what you’re given—or you complain and I get into an argument with you. Those are the options.

What we were after was most generally fame. But I’ll tell you, avenues to fame are many if you’re willing to do what it takes. Our plan revolved around trekking into the wilderness dangerously under-prepared and lacking a great deal of the necessary knowledge to survive when just a small amount of knowledge of the outdoors could definitely mean the difference between life and death—and then ultimately to triumphantly re-emerge or escape the

New Democracy affords us all kinds of opportunities to test our limits. New Democracy paid for this forest. The man-made rocky climbs.

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Artificial Forest 12467’s clutches, happily and alive anyway, despite our many shortcomings. We’d film everything and we’d send it to a major television station. The rest after that would be history—great history for us.

If I’m being honest, I hoped at least one of us would die or be so severely injured that he’d rather be dead. I didn’t want it to be me but if that’s how fate moved, then fine. I could take one for the team. What would I be if I only wanted my fellow woodsmen to die? No good. I’d be no good.

It was how all the best became famous, all the big-name celebrities of New Democracy. You had to get your thing. What happened, really, was a return to the old way: offering up some innovation for society to accept or reject, however society was moved to act.

There has always been drama because there must be drama. But the reality doesn’t have to be real. That’s been true since people started telling stories and became famous for their storytelling. No, what’s really important is that you get people to care. They have to want to care. You have to “risk life and limb” to give them a reason to care. And it’s better if it seems real—i.e., the reality has an especially real seeming quality to it. And since not one of us was a good actor, we just had to put ourselves in true, mortal danger. We were woodsmen in the sense that we were men in the woods and that we planned to call our show “Woodsmen Learning to Live in and Love the Wild.” We were not woodsmen in any other sense. Our lack of special skills was our most valuable asset. It could be no other way.

It was finally time to test our collective lack of wilderness acumen.

Some of us were pretty stupid too—a big-time help. We entered into the beginning of the fake-tree part of the forest, beyond the power lines.

There was danger afoot in there. I made sure to say those very words into my thimble camera. One of the novice woodsmen strangers who was accompanying us tripped over an exposed artificial tree root. It looked really stupid and, boy, did we get that on camera. We started calling the new guy “The Brains” after that. He smiled dopily. He thought we were calling him “The Brians.” Apparently, his name was Brian. McGoon started calling him The Brians, already knowing his real name because he actually introduced himself. (That’s a good idea too, when traveling with strangers you should generally introduce yourself, at minimum, first.) And then we all stopped calling him “The Brains” and instead called him “The Brians” and that’s how he got his nickname.

Jerome piped up as we entered the considerable shade of the trees, getting maudlin amid the fake leaves and misty, hazy sun whose rays cut between gaps in the branches. “My life is a slice of living hell,” Jerome said. Erlantz— who looked like the mummified corpse of Diego Velázquez with long, curlywaxy, black hair, who was the second of the two woodsmen accompanying 10 | CCLaP Weekender

us that I had not known previously, and had also not yet introduced myself to—gave Jerome a quiet but stern once over.

Erlantz remained quiet, though thoughts appeared to stir inside, and, finally, before anyone else could think to say a word either comforting or insulting to Jerome, Erlantz said, “Hell on earth? That’s nothing, my life is full of people and things cutting me every day. I attract sharp points. I mean what I’m saying. I mean that I get cut at least once every day by someone or something.” He showed us his freshest cut, peeling away its bandage. It had small sutures he must have sewn himself—not very clean looking, a little inflamed, stitches jaggedly threaded through the wound.

I was pleased by the discovery that we had someone with Erlantz’s style of amateur, non-clinical medical experience. We needed our cuts to clot with gore or people wouldn’t be sufficiently entertained. So while, don’t get me wrong, I did feel lied to by Erlantz because he had some medical knowledge that he was definitely not supposed to have, I let it go immediately, thinking of the greater good. There was nothing I could do about Erlantz’s presence on our team at that point anyway—besides, his cuts, which we began to notice all over many parts of his body, looked pretty infected. It was very surprising he seemed not to improve his stitching after so much experience with getting cut and tending to those cuts himself. His layman’s surgical skills would be perhaps the best option in lieu of doing literally nothing to stanch bleeding or just tying torn cloth around injuries. Erlantz completed his odd pronouncement by saying, “Just wait till the day’s out. By then, I’ll have gotten cut. Hopefully not too badly, given where we are and all. But yes.

Sliced open flesh. Blood.”

I told him we would be on the lookout and ready to film if he got cut by whatever cut him this time. He said, there was no “if.” And I didn’t care whether there was an “if ” or not but I decided not to get into it with him.

An artificial newt scurried through the artificial brush. “Watch out for artificial bears, woodsmen. They’re common in these parts.” “These parts” being the artificial forests that were built expressly to include artificial flora and fauna like artificial bears. I wasn’t saying anything we didn’t already know.

The audience maybe didn’t though, so I said it for them. Yes, I did it for them.

“Maybe you’ll get cut by an artificial bear, Erlantz,” McGoon said.

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Erlantz replied. He always seemed to know just how to reply.

We each one of us knew precisely where we were headed, where would be the climactic moment in this woodsmen’s trek. There could be no other destination. Up into the artificial wooded artificial mountains. That’s where the trail really gets scary. To the falls. To the bridge. That’s where people have gotten themselves killed most frequently, so that’s where we had to go.

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“I think the first thing I’ll do if I become famous is quit my job at Recycled-Cardboard Suits Affordable Clothing Manufactory,” McGoon said to everyone. Most of us worked for the exact same company and we all agreed.

We’d quit right away. March up to Harry Noisegun’s office, tell him where he could stick this job, and we’d ask, did he enjoy the show last night? Because we’d have been on TV at that point and he’d very likely have watched, given he was our most immediate supervisor and, in his way, appreciated our hijinks.

Not to mention, our show would be extremely popular, so he wouldn’t want to miss it—because everyone would be talking about it. Who wouldn’t want to be in the know?

“Can I interest you in a nice recycled-cardboard suit? Compliments of Recycled-Cardboard Suits Affordable Clothing Manufactory? To wear on the show?”

“We’ll take seven in lumberjack,” I’d tell him.

“Bellissimo,” he’d say, a word we’d both basically understand is Italian that he’d be using for dramatic effect in praising the taste of a high-end client such as myself. And all would be very well.

I was caught up in these thoughts when we met our first significant trouble while wandering up the trail— an artificial squirrel, completely lifelike. Squirrels still exist. You can visit them on preserves, so it’s observable how close the artificial kind are to the real thing. They both have big puffy tails. They have what looks more-orless like soft but matted fur on the rest of their bodies—pointy rodent faces. They both are more violent when cornered than you could possibly expect.

Maybe the artificial squirrel malfunctioned. It seemed to be sparking from an opening in its torso where its interior machinery was now exposed and visible, wiring spitting out electric charges—and it was zipping around extremely fast between all of our legs. There was definitely something wrong with its exposed inner workings, which we learned beyond any doubt when it leapt up and grazed Jerome’s bare skin, jolting him with electricity and dropping him to the ground. The squirrel kind of staggered off into the artificial forest after that, as though it were dying despite its still having plenty

I was caught up in these thoughts when we met our first significant trouble while wandering up the trail—an artificial squirrel, completely life-like. Squirrels still exist.

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of juice evidently. “I hope we got that on film,” Jerome said from where he laid on the trail, visibly in pain, his clothing smoking a little. Bruno and Percy helped him up.

We did get it on film. I watched it on visual projection screen mode.

Great pixelation—even for projecting against the surface of an artificial tree stump.

“It’s all worthwhile so far,” I said. “This looks like a pretty good place to set up base camp for the night.”

“What? We’ve gone no more than maybe twenty yards. We’ve gotten approximately nowhere of significance yet,” McGoon said.

It was true.

I was ready to unpack the few things I’d brought, not least of which was the portable grill.

“Um. We can keep going then. At least we’re off to a great start.” I jinxed things. We didn’t get mired in any kind of trouble or tribulation for the next three hours. It was boring.

“I’m bored,” McGoon said. “I don’t want to die out here, but I don’t like being bored out here either.”

“It’s better than being stabbed,” Erlantz said. “Getting cut.”

“Or shocked,” Jerome said. He was still pretty messed up. We got footage of him stopping to drool and keel over a few times, the after effects of his near fatal encounter with a malfunctioning squirrel. Bless that damn malfunctioning squirrel. It was our most usable footage from that whole three hours of pretty much nothing else.

Bruno’s goat made a lot of noise because of its braying. It had a seriously strong inclination toward braying, whether it was occupied with other things or not. “I’m really getting tired of your goat, Bruno,” McGoon said, messing around with the Bowie knife he brought along.

“Careful with that,” Bruno said, casually deriding McGoon. “Wouldn’t want to hurt yourself or anything. You do know how to use it safely, right?”

McGoon didn’t answer.

“If it happens, it’ll happen,” Erlantz interrupted. Because of what he said about his cuts, his words had taken on a new and dark quality. There was no need to make a big deal out of it, but the corrosive undercurrent he produced made the rest of the woodsmen seem nauseated and not understanding their nausea—nausea and the lack of ability to complain about being nauseated. I did say to Erlantz, “You’re very skilled at casting a pall on what we’re doing.”

He nodded, agreeing.

“This looks like a good place to set up camp for the night,” I said. Then a bunch of artificial rock variables rained down on the spot I suggested. The Brians broke his leg. We got that on film, but its emotional resonance was lost November 21, 2014 | 13

some by his characteristic lack of any kind of visible reaction. Plenty violent enough. We could add sounds of pain-induced screaming later. It was good footage. Very usable.

“Intimidating,” I said, looking into the thimble camera with eyes bugging. I wasn’t entirely doing it for the benefit of the camera either. The Brians seemed to be really hurt. And the rocks were huge.

I’m still not entirely sure why rocks in the artificial forest need be artificial, except I guess for uniformity’s sake. Why have anything real, when most of it’s artificial, right?

“If we’d made a fire back there with Snap Brand artificial kindling, tinder, and fuelwood, the falling artificial rocks would definitely have put it out,” Jerome said. “And that would be a real waste of a good fire. We should feel very fortunate, all things considered. I do, despite the searing pain I’m still in.

Getting electrically shocked stays with you.”

“Nobody has died yet. That’s good,” McGoon added. “Let’s keep it that way. Don’t die, Jerome. Okay? Don’t die.”

“Gentlemen, we’re getting a little far away from what we need to be thinking about: each one of us is a bad person, in our own and particular way or ways. We need to stop and meditate on that for a minute, on the decisions we’ve made that are bad, before we find a new campsite,” I said, which tacitly reminded them that there was always the possibility we were being watched and, even if we weren’t, my thimble camera continued to film.

Who knew if we’d get the chance to edit before the wrong sort of person saw us getting so excited about the things we had left to be thankful for, without first remembering those things we didn’t?

“We’ve all made some pretty terribly bad choices. It’s true,” Bruno said, looking at his goat. “I hope I can earn your forgiveness.” He appeared to be talking to his goat, or maybe he was just looking at his goat and talking to all of us. I didn’t see why he needed my forgiveness. It was both amusing and likely to me that he was talking to his goat that he wronged somehow.

“I’d like to suggest that someone else suggest the campsite this time,” I said.

Percy pointed at a good spot near very few large, dead-looking artificial trees and adjacent to no cliffs with loose boulders. Why make trees deadlooking? Verisimilitude, duh.

“Nice suggestion, Percy,” McGoon said. “I’d sleep there.”

Jerome stumbled to the campsite and fainted, his body telling him he could now finally shut down for the time being. His body shook some, but his expression (a slight crease in his lips reminiscent of a smile) suggested he was at peace with the world despite his dire need for some form of competent medical attention.

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We pressed the release buttons on our automatic tents—little triangular capsules before they’re released, though we each only had one—and climbed into our portable beds. (We were probably slightly more prepared than advisable as it was, now that we were out in the thick of it, easily surviving.

I thought of sabotaging some of our gear but ultimately decided against it.)

Bruno roped his goat to a metal stake, and then covered it with a portable livestock dome, which can be adjusted to fit any size livestock, from lamb to cow. The goat could breathe easily in there and wouldn’t wander off if it managed to chew through its rope. Bruno was extremely cautious about his goat and feared its getting lost, if that wasn’t obvious. Which it was, to everyone.

Once situated in our respective tents, I hollered out so everyone could hear, “Don’t forget to pray about how bad you are, and recount all your poor decisions made today. Good night.”

A light wind rattled my tent. The goat brayed softly, which was still braying, awful braying.

Eventually, I fell asleep.

In the morning,we awoke to find Bruno’s goat was missing and so was Percy.

Over instant morning tea, Erlantz mentioned rolling over onto McGoon’s Bowie knife (which McGoon had fallen asleep holding) the night before, saying it penetrated his body a good half-inch. But we were preoccupied with the goat. “I didn’t even sigh in pain,” Erlantz said.

“Did we get it on camera? Did the goat go willingly? Did Percy leave a note expressing why he wanted to heighten drama like this?” I said, aiming the camera toward my face, asking the questions.

“Skivvy!” Bruno cried. He named his goat Skivvy, we all found out then.

“What a compelling storyline,” I said at the camera. “A man goes into the wilderness with his goat, only to have it taken from him by that very wilderness and, well, actually mainly, or really, exclusively by another member of our woodsmen party.”

There was no note from Percy—nothing to provide clues to the mystery.

And Bruno was torn up. He seemed to be. He seemed like he lost his only friend in the world. But he still had us, and me, and so I found his sorrowful display offensive. I tried to hide my disgust and I think I did a pretty good job for the most part, especially when you take into consideration how disgusted I was.

We broke camp and continued up the trail despite Skivvy and Percy’s disappearance, not wasting time trying to find either when they disappeared without a single clue. We had filming work to get done besides.

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We left despite Bruno’s protests. He wanted to have us fan out and search the surrounding area. They could have been close. They could have been hiding. What could Percy need with the goat? Percy was not a violent person and he wasn’t a hungry person—he had all the synthetic jerky a body could safely process. So considering those things he wasn’t, what was the point?

I had a feeling our viewers would identify with and appreciate what we now endured.

We were almost to Treacherous Bridge, that most dangerous part of all of Artificial Forest 12467, or so the statistics and survivors say. I was hopeful we’d run into wayward Percy and the captive goat there. High pressure, high intensity zone. I could die. The realization struck me.

I really hoped that I didn’t die.

Percy haunted us with his absence. Or he haunted Bruno—really, just Bruno. But the rest of us were in turn tormented by Bruno, the haunted. The Brians and his bum leg we left behind, claiming we’d return for his dumb waste of skin when we could. I played it up on camera that he was missed, sobbing when appropriate.

McGoon continued to fiddle with his Bowie knife. Erlantz continued to be darkly brooding and to occasionally break his skin one way or the other— it had already happened multiple times on that second day of our journey, but no major wounds, which was good because we couldn’t afford any further delay. Jerome feared the malfunctioning squirrel’s return, though there was no reason to believe it ever would.

The artificial water raining down from a recreated version of the Angel Falls was purple but translucent. It thundered down the falls as if, even were it in the water’s power to do otherwise, it would travel nowhere but downward.

The spray drenched us quickly and completely. It also came in bursts and spurts, some more powerful than others.

“Now I’ve been giving it some thought, Cot,” McGoon called to me.

“Twirling my knife—it helps me to think. I’m worried about what our celebrity could be. It could be something none of us want. Something about these falls is giving me the strength to admit what I’m admitting. I don’t know if I want the celebrity, Cot. I don’t really want to be the object of other people’s amusement. I don’t want to get laughed at.” Water clung to his face and rivulets formed and dripped from him violently. The surrounding mist was like smoke. I was, truthfully, a little mesmerized by the strange raised harbor quality of the falls, the rock face rising in a kind of horseshoe with huge slabs seeming stacked atop each other, and a good bit of greenery thriving about the slabs, even though everything was artificial. I had to remember, nothing was real. But sometimes, occasionally, I was truly lost in the beautiful, breathtaking unreality.

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Treacherous Bridge is like so many of the old and rickety rope bridges you’ve seen strung over high-altitude chasms between cliffs. Not enough wooden boards to safely step on, and the ones left were rotting through.

I could not hear McGoon very well, but I heard him well enough and I argued with him unrestrained. I had a tantrum—began shaking the bridge.

The footage shot there is unbelievable, a true marvel. It had to be reckless, to be understood. I knew that no one could understand me over the roar of the falls. What I was saying was mostly gibberish. I planned to think of something better to dub over the gibberish later.

The purple of the water, thankfully, didn’t stain. The water was no doubt digitized water, with very real splashing graphics. It truly felt as though you were getting wet.

“We need to not make the bridge swing,” McGoon yelled at me.

Everyone else agreed, except Erlantz, who kept a cigarette lit somehow and stayed insouciant, even a little grave.

“Stop it, Cot! Stop swinging!

You’re going to kill us all!” Bruno pleaded, barely audibly. He was turned from his grief to appreciate the precariousness of our circumstances, which I considered a victory of sorts. He added, “And if I’m dead I’ll never get Skivvy back!”

Jerome seemed about to plead for me to end my swinging too—but, before he could, he was again attacked by the malfunctioning squirrel, which sent him over the side of the bridge. I got a lot of him going off the side of the bridge on film. He was saved from the jaws of death by an outcropping of artificial rock that he landed on, hard. He was moaning loud and horrible. I continued my swinging.

And then the bridge broke and we remaining fell over the side, in a weird sort of aggregation of humans. I was able to continue filming while we fell.

I often admire my ability to focus during life and death struggles. It’s one of my finest attributes, easily.

We came to a stop, very hard, in a tangled pile on another ledge of artificial rock, a bit further down than the one that saved Jerome. A few inches of difference and we would have likely plummeted to our deaths. I gave thanks to whatever force wanted me to achieve fame and then reminded myself of how bad I am in most of the things I pursue, safely crossing dangerous bridges a new failure to add to the very long list.

After we recovered our wits, counting what parts of our body seemed

The water was no doubt digitized water, with very real splashing graphics.

It truly felt as though you were getting wet.

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broken, we noticed—impossible to ignore as it would have been—a familiar braying sound. At first, I assumed it was just any old artificial mountain goat.

But Bruno’s reaction told me no, it was Skivvy.

We found him standing in a nook on the opposite end of the ledge, pressed against the artificial wall of rock. Percy was there too, kneeling with an arm slung around Skivvy’s neck. Skivvy was struggling to get free of Percy’s hold, as animals will.

“You were supposed to get him to his family, Percy!” Bruno scolded.

“I tried. We fell. We got stuck,” Percy replied, sheepish. “I’m not the best at crossing bridges. That’s what I found out today.”

“Somebody care to explain all this?” I said.

“Erlantz has come for the goat. He’s from the Counsel. I figured it out last night, spied on him and caught him sending messages. Percy was supposed to return Skivvy to his family, so he could be free, finally. But here we are instead,” Bruno said.

“Why didn’t you tell us? We could have tied up Erlantz. And, also, everything here’s artificial,” I said. “Especially the goats, or also the goats anyway.”

“Yeah, and so is Skivvy. That’s why Erlantz wants him. He contains secrets, robotic secrets, state secrets about robots, what they can do and how they can be used in the future to best represent the state. Somewhere inside of him. I didn’t want Erlantz to know I was on to him. I figured we might avoid a thing, a confrontation,” Bruno said.

“If the goat’s not even real, then who cares? Just give Skivvy to Erlantz,” I said.

“He’s my friend, real or not real. And Erlantz is evil, real though he may be. And Erlantz wants Skivvy for evil reasons,” Bruno shouted, mainly at Erlantz.

“I don’t think that’s much of a surprise to anyone,” Erlantz at last said.

“But listen, I’ll let you live. I’ll do what I can to help you attain your celebrity as well, if you hand over the goat. Whoever helps me get the goat, you are essentially assured of gaining celebrity.”

It sounded like a pretty good deal. But then I remembered how everything in my life had been dictated in a big way by ruminating about the bad decisions I made and how those decisions made me a horrible human being, by necessary correlation.

It was basically a moment of epiphany.

That’s what I had.

I said to Erlantz, “I’m not a horrible person, really. I mean, I want fame.

I want a better life. I want to care about others, you fellow woodsmen, for instance. And hell, why not, the dumb artificial goat too.”

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“What do you mean?” Erlantz stopped, surprised by my apparent change of heart. He expected this to be easy.

“I’m saying if you want that goat, you’ll have to slap through me.” It would look better on film too, standing up for an innocent goat against the forces of evil, an immediately recognizable archetype.

“And me,” McGoon said, rubbing his head. He’d been really dazed, on account of that everyone landed on him earlier. He drew his Bowie knife.

“Sharp things,” Erlantz sneered, “do not scare me.”

I was ready to slap. I was ready to slap Erlantz so hard, but a length of rope swung down and separated us right as I readied my first slap. “Wait right there. Not so fast!” came a voice hollering down to us.

It was The Brians, looking a lot more sinister than I remembered him.

Evidently, he was with Erlantz, which made sense.

“Your leg seems healed?” I said.

“That’s because it is healed,” The Brians spat, still looking and sounding fairly idiotic but more intelligent than he had before. He stood just fine, coming between Erlantz and me.

I slapped The Brians hard in the face, which felled him quickly.

“You want one too?” I raised my slap hand at Erlantz, which prompted him to draw a slap hand of his own.

“Two can play at that game! My hand is lethal. Give me that goat, goddammit!” Erlantz made a number of tightly executed slap-hand motions.

He meant what he said. He might have been my slap-fighting equal.

“Give him the goat,” I said to Bruno, who held Skivvy tightly. I winked at Bruno, but Bruno failed to understand my wink. I began wrestling with him for the goat, which made a number of goat-like noises. Impressive what they can do technologically nowadays. Meanwhile, Erlantz was growing impatient. He was preparing to do something, though I couldn’t tell what— perhaps grow still more impatient? I was preoccupied with wrestling the goat from Bruno, which I intended to use as a weapon if Bruno would have just released him from his grip.

We all heard familiar moaning coming from higher up. A body was falling fast. It was Jerome. A great big narrative device hitting us at precisely the most opportune moment. I couldn’t have wished for a more cinematic outcome.

Jerome bounced off the rock ledge above us, tumbling down after having apparently been gotten to again by the malfunctioning squirrel. He landed on McGoon, who was immediately rendered unconscious. But before falling unconscious, McGoon let go of his knife with such downward momentum that it broke through Erlantz’s hiking boot and cut deep into his foot.

Erlantz cringed in pain, but said, “Sharp things don’t bother me in the November 21, 2014 | 19

slightest.” Bruno saw an opportunity and approached him, stomping his hiking boot down on the knife. With Erlantz’s foot nailed to the ground, Bruno shoved him over the edge of the cliff. The knife held him tenuously to earth. Erlantz’s leg was fractured badly.

Erlantz flailed and shouted for us to help him back up. He’d make sure we got everything we wanted and could keep the goat for all he cared.

We considered his offer.

We got every pixel of it on film.

You should see all the pixels. C

Matt Rowan lives in Chicago, IL, with a talented female writer and two talented chihuahuas. He coedits Untoward Magazine and Horrible Satan and is fiction editor of Another Chicago Magazine. He is author of the story collection Why God Why (Love Symbol Press, 2013). His work has appeared, or soon will, in mojo journal, Gigantic, Booth Journal, Necessary Fiction and SmokeLong Quarterly, among others. A collection of his CCLaP Weekender stories, entitled Big Venerable, will be published in 2015.

More at literaryequations.blogspot.com.

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Masha Demianova

originally published May 2014

PHOTOGRAPHY FEATURE

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Location: Moscow 25 years old, born and raised in Moscow, taking pictures for 5 years I guess. Before that I was a producer in fashion and advertising. Right now shooting model tests, fashion stories and personal series of different kinds of stuff. Big part of my inspiration comes from the movies. Right now I’m working on creating one. It will be a photo movie like La jetee of Chris Marker or Dog’s dialog of Raul Ruiz.

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mashademianova.com flickr.com/mashademianova 40 | CCLaP Weekender

Featuring

Patricia Ann McNair plus six open-mic features

The CCLaP Showcase A new reading series and open mic

Tuesday, November 25th 6:30 pm City Lit Books | 2523 N. Kedzie cclapcenter.com/events

To sign up in advance for an open mic slot, write cclapcenter@gmail.com November 21, 2014 | 41

The CCLaP Weekender is published in electronic form only, every Friday for free download at the CCLaP website [cclapcenter.com]. Copyright 2014, Chicago Center for Literature and Photography. All rights revert back to artists upon publication. Editorin-chief: Jason Pettus. Story Editor: Behn Riahi. Layout Editor: Wyatt Roediger-Robinette. Calendar Editors: Anna Thiakos and Taylor Carlile. To submit your work for possible feature, or to add a calendar item, contact us at cclapcenter@gmail.com.

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