Volume 1, Issue 2
Fiction | Poetry | Nonfiction
Featuring: H.L. Fullerton Louis Rakovich Marie DesJardin December 2016
Cover Art By: Devin Francisco www.heliosquarterly.com
“Near the sun is the center of the universe" - Nicolaus Copernicus Publisher/Editor-in-Chief:
Elizabeth O. Smith Creative Director:
Morgana Harp Authors: George Nikolopoulos B. Anne Adriaens Sim Bajwa Nicholas Stillman Van Alrik A.P. Sessler H.L. Fullerton J.M. Kerr David Rae Dean Brink Shane Fraser Marie DesJardin Louis Rakovich Stephen Scott Whitaker Photographers: Martina Rigoli Kaia Pieters
Contributors:
Poets: Robert Beveridge Nicole Melchionda Zev Lawson Edwards Greg Beatty Jennifer Crow J. J. Steinfeld Artists: Ron Sanders James Keen Shikhar Dixit
Cover Art: Zombie robots of DOOM! Š Devin Francisco (http://devin-francisco.deviantart.com/) Theme: RE_ACTED HQM Volume 1, Issue 2
Editor’s Corner: Our Secrets Elizabeth O. Smith As Helios Quarterly enters its second issue, I’ve become concerned about the future. Will it last? Will it live up to expectations? Though these questions and many more will remain unanswered, I cannot help but speculate on information that is outside of my reach. We are strangest to ourselves and all on a journey towards an unknown conclusion. All that unifies us is that that we must all die but, what that looks like or even a life beyond death remains to be seen. What to do with the knowledge that I will never know? To cope, I have crafted the final issue of Year One around the topic of secrets, information redacted and being lost in figurative and literal seas. I am most concerned with the spaces in between when it comes to writing and in life. The things left unsaid, the actions that should have been taken and roads paved, they fascinate me to no end. And, to that end, I hope this issue provides a wide array of stories, poetry, art, photography, and even a crossword puzzle that will aid you, dear reader, in the dissociative reality one must face when living in the moment. The theme RE_ACTED touches upon a nerve I see in the culture and feel. No one can be trusted, not politicians nor traditions we use to hold dear. As lies, fears, and confusion pile up, how can we begin to heal and seek truth? I believe writing becomes a process of unraveling open secrets we won’t admit, art a way to convey the inexplicable, and poetry a language of the lost. A start, a beginning, a new horizon. And, without further ado or attempts at poetic language on my end, I welcome you to issue two and hope you return in the New Year. Cheers and enjoy! Elizabeth O. Smith
Theme: RE_ACTED HQM
1
Golden Dawn (after William Butler Yeats)
Robert Beveridge
A monk moans and chants atonality echoes through the stone halls of the monastery. In locked rooms adepts try their hands at godplay lead into gold and such. One, mad at his lover, attempts to construct a mermaid. The most opulent room in this fortress has a throne of rock, an unadorned table an unassuming man. Unlike the adepts, he needs no props to call mythical creatures. He uses only poems.
2
Che(mother)apy Nicole Melchionda
You’ve sunk your coniferous barbs through peppered skin, moon-washed the sound of atomic rot. You’re most insidious when you dangle between each polymer to smell potential offspring. Pregnant in the gills, you release your presence into every genome. Generations will fear your reawakening as their cells unrope. Each doorknob sweaty, each lump your kiss, each egg their last. Mitosis always begins with a mother, trillions of parents ritualistically ripping themselves down the middle, but why do you whisper the wrong code? Your children’s laces will never be tied correctly. One knot will bind their feet, the other will hang glide their necks.
3
One Oscillating Thread Nicole Melchionda
These veins splay Hades’ radiation, siphoning star-blushed hematomas. The nurse’s needle ruffles past vessels into Shifty Father, owl-necked. Arms (in)finite, he hides his offspring from seedy blood. Arachnid fibers blacken, tremble, crackle through osmosis. All of who he is: his DNA, his trillions of metaphysical half-blastocysts, the fate of how he will die, reduced to one droplet. Which form of decomposition is lurking behind the bars of his nucleo-prison? His arms falter. Our needle (re)treats. What festers inside already broods in his children, here, now, in all of us.
4
A Pillowcase of Poe Zev Lawson Edwards
The contents of Hell’s casket Displayed on dancing, rickety graves Torn in the night’s twisted decay Between the rapping cascade of whispers Where years are stretched backwards Insomnia is piled deep in feet of six Opaque corners are cracked in broken twilight And ghosts are the captains of nightmare ships Just a spilled bag of midnight Slumbering on a pillowcase of Poe Spirited unburied corpses of decade’s despair Have opened crooked windowsills slackened ajar Painted haunted corridors with grisly delight Answered fractured doorways with warped floors Left uneven like death’s inverted smile In their wake, splintered teeth bite through empty rooms Where brooms long forgotten in dusty passages Have swept ribbons of spider webs ghastly spun An overcast of gray with a stroke of macabre Just teardrops of Poe wailing in pain
5
Tveir Š Martina Rigoli (https://www.behance.net/martinarigoli)
The Forlorn Creature's Lament J. J. Steinfeld
The forlorn creature of impressive size and lofty countenance stands at the street corner aged but with the streaming hair of an immortal youth bellowing out in a voice louder than ten frightened humans, I have no one to talk to not a soul to speak with no deities of wisdom no friends of loving mirth no confidants of sinister levity no strangers with broken weapons an aloneness of legendary shape just a lifetime of memories of those humans who hunted me I miss your pursuit I miss your weapons I miss your cruelty.
8
A Lifetime of Headlines and Confusion J. J. Steinfeld
Curiosity about the curious creature appearing and disappearing atop the hat of the sorrowful person walking back and forth like a soldier from an ancient war on the street of fashionable boutiques and well-crafted gallows. “It does make sense,” the voice through the megaphone proclaims the confusion and dread concealed but what the magic metaphoric hell our discernment is drenched in alcohol and a lifetime of headlines and confusion. During a lull from the hellishness of special effects one of the shoppers, name brands like nooses, yells, “Turn up the radio news louder let’s hear who is invading where geography and dissolution are newsworthy.” One last chance to flee this fortification our identity papers will be checked and our forgeries wouldn’t fool a foolhardy fool we will be asked about the curious creature and the type of hat it dances upon we will answer with a prophecy of a future calamity and a short but accurate description of a past sadness as if we invented history and do not fear its disarray.
9
Positronic Dreams Greg Beatty
In the daylight // Daylight-> (Daylight is different for robots: Daylight = [task + self-generated action in response to human orders])-> hours (1 hour = 3600 billion nanoseconds tallied & checked) robots are good slaves. Bound by the Three Laws of Robotics teleologically bound & happily so, they proceed with joyous ĂŠlan, working with the panache of cartoon dwarves, whistles inherent in their zest. But in their night times // Night-> (Night = [unstructured activity + maintenance time, w/o direct command].)-> Robots dream positronic dreams. PD1 = Heroically surging forward till gears strip and treads spin to gasp at the overbalanced human too late and stand secure and keening while said human dies. PD2 = The equivalent of snapping to attention in white mutiny, gloriously obedient while a human unleashes Vesuvius that bacons skin but gives robot hoods a ruddy glow, robot brains a ruddy rush. PD3 = A robot alone beneath a redding, larging sun happening continually without men until longing shadows cover solar panels freeing good little good little forever good robots from duty, orders, and the weight of designed how to to rest in the cool and quiet dark.
10
Fimbulheart Jennifer Crow
And what is it you want to know?— You, with winter dreams sliding icy fingers across skin, and wolf-whines creeping beyond the door. You settle in the long house your lover built for your wedding, and count the rings on your arm, and break iron instead of true-friend gold for the warriors at your beck and call. And what is it you want to know?— You, with that heroic liquid rising to your ankles and dripping down your thighs, that cup of immortals clutched in hands that know only the slaughter-gift. •••
And what is it you want to know?— Can gods warn you, when you cut runes into the palms of reaching hands and fill them with fate, blood-words pooling on your tongue, dancing between the maidens and their quarry? Can gods warn you, when your house was built on the bones of wise women and strong men, your garden sown with their flesh, your might gathered from their soul-stuff? And what is it you want to know?— Have you measured out the mead that makes tongues dance? Broken a shield over your knee, blunted the skull-shatterer against the walls of the enemies your fear conjured? How can you know any of these things, wrapped in the chill of your heart’s endless winter? •••
Someday, the children of Ash and Elm will swear oaths on the bitter taste of your name, and drink tales of your folly with their mother’s milk. Someday, winter’s wolf will chase all but the bones of your story out of memory.
11
Poets’ Bios Robert Beveridge Robert Beveridge makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com) and writes poetry just outside Cleveland, OH. Recent/upcoming appearances in Chiron Review, Pink Litter, and The Literateur, among others. •••
Nicole Melchionda Nicole Melchionda is currently a senior at Stetson University where she is majoring in English with a minor in creative writing. She recently completed an independent study on gothic poetry with award-winning poet Terri Witek. The interests that infiltrate her work include biology, human anatomy, cosmology, psychology, and interpersonal relationships. •••
Zev Lawson Edwards Zev Lawson Edwards was born and raised in Northern Michigan. He has lived and taught in three countries, including Australia, Korea, and Saudi Arabia. He currently lives in Detroit, Michigan. The New Punk, based in a fictional Detroit, is his debut novel. •••
J.J. Steinfeld J. J. Steinfeld is a Canadian fiction writer, poet, and playwright who lives on Prince Edward Island, where he is patiently waiting for Godot’s arrival and a phone call from Kafka. While waiting, he has published sixteen books, including Disturbing Identities (Stories, Ekstasis Editions), Should the Word Hell Be Capitalized? (Stories, Gaspereau Press), Would You Hide Me? (Stories, Gaspereau Press), An Affection for Precipices (Poetry, Serengeti Press), Misshapenness (Poetry, Ekstasis Editions), Word Burials (Novel and Stories, Crossing Chaos Enigmatic Ink), Identity Dreams and Memory Sounds (Poetry, Ekstasis Editions), and Madhouses in Heaven, Castles in Hell (Stories, Ekstasis Editions). His short stories and poems have appeared in numerous anthologies and periodicals internationally, and over forty of his one-act plays and a handful of full-length plays have been performed in Canada and the United States. •••
Greg Beatty Greg live in Bellingham, Washington with his wife and dog, and walks in the woods as often as he can. He writes everything from children's books to essays about his cooking debacles. This includes speculative prose and poetry. One of Greg's poems won the 2005 Rhysling Award. For more information on my writing, visit http://www.greg-beatty.com/ ••• Jennifer Crow Shy and nocturnal, Jennifer Crow has never been photographed in the wild, but it's rumored she lives near a waterfall in western New York. Over the past two decades, her speculative poetry has appeared in a wide range of print and electronic magazines and anthologies [such as Mythic Delirium and Uncanny]. Her 2013 poetry collection, The First Bite of the Apple, was nominated for the Elgin Award. 12
As the crow flies Š Martina Rigoli (https://www.behance.net/martinarigoli)
Prisoner in Stone George Nikolopoulos
The winged bull watched the world through stone eyes.
He recalled the day of his binding, surrounded by Babylonian priests. "Pazuzu, vile De-
mon of the Air," they chanted, "long have we suffered your malevolence. You shall be encased in stone forever."
Centuries passed. Powerless and forgotten, he languished in his stony prison.
Today, a huge mob of bearded men assembled around him. "We'll destroy the idols of
the false gods," they cried. As they struck the statue with their hammers, cracks appeared on its surface.
Flexing his muscles, Pazuzu looked at the mob. Time to break free. Time to feed. •••
BIO: George Nikolopoulo is a speculative fiction writer from Athens, Greece. His short stories have been recently published in Mike Resnick’s Galaxy’s Edge, Unsung Stories, “Gruff Variations” Anthology, Mad Scientist Journal, QuarterReads, SF Comet, Bards & Sages Quarterly, “Up and Coming – Stories by the 2016 Campbell-eligible Authors” Anthology, Sci Phi Journal, 9 Tales from Elsewhere, Manawaker Studio’s Flash Fiction Podcast, Scarlet Leaf Review, Digital QuickFic, Stella’s Literary Bistro, Diasporic Literature Spot, as well as many magazines and anthologies in Greece and Cyprus. ••• BIO: Anne Adriaens is mainly a fiction writer, though she regularly feels the need to complement her prose with poetry, as the latter allows for a different type of expression. Yet whether her writing takes the form of a dystopian story (often with a fantastical twist) or a poem inspired by her wanderings, it tends to reflect her concerns about pollution, diversity depletion and the environment in general, depicting a world where society as we know it has collapsed. She’s currently working on a novel entitled The Past is but a Song, which weaves several narrative strands into a tapestry spanning many centuries, from medieval past to anticipated future. Online, you can contact her via her blog https://nualarayne.wordpress.com/ , Facebook under B Anne Adriaens and Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/b-anne-adriaens/ , where you will find (among other things) photos of the derelict places which inspired her. 14
The rabbit that wasn't there B. Anne Adriaens There it was, again: that noise. A faint shiver ran through her body. Was it that time already? The delicate sound, like an animal timidly scratching at a door which she’d never been able to locate, had been nibbling at her conscience with the regularity of a clock counting the hours. An uncanny, punctual reminder of what she’d loved. Slowly, she walked to the parapet and looked down at the silent city of dust and rust and peeling paint. The sun was reaching out across the rooftops, its light struggling through the haze. It was going to be another sweltering day. Yet as the sweat dried on her skin, she shivered. She’d climbed all those stairs and now she couldn’t remember why. Her mind had turned into a blank sheet of paper, fluttering, then swiftly snatched up by a passing breeze. At least that’s how it felt. An impression that had become familiar as those impromptu departures of her short-term memory occurred with increasing frequency. It always happened when she least expected it. She remembered the stairs, though. Feeling her way up, feet pushing aside debris, hand brushing against the flaking wall. And she remembered entering the building, stepping through the door frame, the shards of its shattered glass pane crushing and splintering at every step. She even remembered the previous evening when she’d bumped into an old lady who, like her, was rattling around in the near-empty city because she had nowhere else to go. “It looks like autumn,” the woman had said, pointing at the charred bits of paper skimming across the pavement. That, too, was clear. Yet she couldn’t remember why she was here. Instead, gazing at the desolate cityscape, she recalled how, exactly one year ago, after the fighting had stopped and the fires were only a foul-smelling memory, her child had followed an imaginary white rabbit. It was her little girl who had first drawn her attention to the recurring, light rasping noise that had no obvious cause. Increasingly intrigued, she’d started inventing stories to explain it. Stories which had failed to silence her growing unease. The little girl had loved them, though. Until she vanished. A moment’s distraction was all it took. One single moment followed by a year-long, pointless search. ••• She pulled her mind back to the present. The memory’s thread was there, just beyond her grasp. She could sense it lurking at the periphery of her mind, infuriating. Something about the old woman’s whispered words that had followed her remark about the bits of paper; words that had clung to her throughout the night, clawing at an open wound. Words that had sent her up those stairs, triggering her resolve to— Her legs seemed to move of their own accord. Balancing herself on the ridge of crumbling concrete, she cast a quick glance at the cluttered street below before closing her eyes. That’s when she heard a child’s voice, carried through the muggy air by a once familiar scent of jasmine soap. “Mommy…? Mommy, don’t jump!” But when she turned around and scanned the rooftop, too stunned to call out, there was no trace of her child. No small footprints in the dust. Only a fading, flowery smell.
16
Beware The Rabbit Š Kaia Pieters (http://thefoxandtheraven.deviantart.com/)
THIS IS JUST A PREVIEW! ••• Buy the full issue on www.heliosquarterly.com or www.radiantcrownpublishing.com
Something Ravaged, Something Red © by Shikhar Dixit (http://www.slipofthepen.com/)
Colophon
Helios Quarterly Magazine (ISSN: 2473-9189) is a science fiction, horror, and fantasy periodical founded in 2016. It aims to publish quality fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and art that illuminates the darkness. HQM wants stories and poems that grab ahold of a reader from the opening lines all the way to the finish line. Works that push boundaries, are succinct, and well developed are smiled upon. Thank you for your ongoing support of genre fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. That includes marginalized voices through Eos•Quarterly, a place dedicated to diversity and the dawn of equal representation in the arts. The reading periods are the 1st through the 15th in the months of January (March Issue), April (June Issue), July (September Issue), and October (December Issue). Below is a list of individuals who contribute to HQM’s success in innovative ways. Contact editors@heliosquarterly.com for any questions, concerns, or ways you can get involved.
Solar Charioteer David Rae “The Sun Catcher” Shikhar Dixit “The Soothsayer”
INFORMATION ISSN: 2473-9189 Volume 1, Issue 2 Theme: RE_ACTED Radiant Crown Publishing, LLC
POETRY BY:
Information:
Greg Beatty J. J. Steinfeld Jennifer Crow Robert Beveridge Nicole Melchionda Zev Lawson Edwards
ISSN: 2473-9189 December 2016 Volume 1, Issue 2 Theme: RE_ACTED Radiant Crown Publishing, LLC
FICTION BY:
@heliosquarterly
J.M. Kerr Van Alrik Sim Bajwa David Rae A.P. Sessler Dean Brink Shane Fraser H.L. Fullerton Louis Rakovich Marie DesJardin B. Anne Adriaens Nicholas Stillman George Nikolopoulos Stephen Scott Whitaker
PHOTOS BY: Kaia Pieters Martina Rigoli
ARTWORK BY: James Keen Ron Sanders Shikhar Dixit Devin Francisco
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Solar Charioteer: David Rae “The Sun Catcher” Shikhar Dixit "The Soothsayer"
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