Volume 2, Issue 1
Fiction | Poetry | Nonfiction
Featuring: Sara Codair Ingrid Garcia Mike Adamson March 2017
Cover Art By: Tommaso Renieri www.heliosquarterly.com
“I looked and looked but I didn’t see God” - Yuri Gagarin (Propaganda) Publisher/Editor-in-Chief:
Elizabeth O. Smith
Head Serial Fiction Editor:
Britny Brooks
Head Poetry Editor:
Reiss McGuinness Contributors:
Authors: Jarryd Bartle Jeff Dosser Thomas Canfield Jack Lothian C.W. Blackwell Pamela Jeffs Jenny Blackford Ingrid Garcia Mike Adamson Sara Codair Photographer: Rabban
Poets: Bryanna Licciardi John Grey J. J. Steinfeld Jennifer Crow Artists: Matthew Andrew Sam Guay John Sowder Cover Art: Ghost © Tommaso Renieri (http://tommasorenieri.deviantart.com/)
Theme: For information about Commercial Cosmonauts & Hired Guns advertising with HQM, HQM Volume 2, Issue 1 contact press@radiantcrownpublishing.com
TABLE OF CONTENTS
United We Fall by Elizabeth O. Smith 01 The Grim Sleeper Takes me Hiking Before his Execution by Bryanna Licciardi 02 Life in an Out-Station by John Grey 03 Despite Being Weaponless by J. J. Steinfeld 04 Blood and Chocolate Forever by Jennifer Crow 05 You Could Not Save Them by Rabban 07 Paradoxical Risk by Jarryd Bartle 09 Mother’s Love by Jeff Dosser 10 Day is Done by Thomas Canfield 12 Pestilence by Matthew Andrew 14 Black Flowers Grow by Jack Lothian 15 The Apollo Protocol by C.W. Blackwell 17 Saloons and Stardust by Pamela Jeffs 20 We Are Looking for the Beautiful Horses by Jenny Blackford 23 Datura by Sam Guay 26 Space Bike Zombies FTW + Interview by Ingrid Garcia 27 Lux Aeterna + Interview by Mike Adamson 33 Adrift by John Sowder 39 Red Tide Rising (Part 1 of 2) by Sara Codair 40
Editor’s Corner: United We Fall Elizabeth O. Smith Year Two of Helios Quarterly Magazine is finally here! Many things are still on the horizon but, as of now, we’re moving forward with a new vision for the magazine. Britny Brooks and Reiss McGuinness have joined the team as the Head Serial Fiction Editor and Head Poetry Editor respectively. We’re excited to work as a team to craft jam-packed issues with great fiction, nonfiction, and poetry moving forward. As the first quarter of the New Year comes to a close, divisions seem even starker on the global landscape these days. With that in mind, we enter the first issue of 2017 with one reigning truth. The closer we’re pulled together, the more we will feel worlds apart. Speculative fiction serves as a springboard and melting pot of ideas and worlds seemingly much different from our own. But, once the fantastical, horrifying, and science fictional aspects fall away, speculative fiction often serves as a mirror to our struggles and hopes for the real world. That is where the theme Commercial Cosmonauts & Hired Guns hits home for me at the moment. Something is endearing about the figure of the hero or heroine facing down forces bigger than themselves, and environments too distant to be imagined on what we’ve come to call the final frontiers. Through these figures, real and or imagined, we are often swept up in a grand feeling of unity and that humanity did that, whatever the action may be. At the same time, things are never what they seem to be on the surface. This issue explores reluctant heroes and heroines in hopes that many can relate to their struggles. United we fall deeper into this chaos called life. Against all odds, let us endure. Cheers and enjoy! Elizabeth O. Smith
Theme: RE_ACTED HQM
The Grim Sleeper Takes me Hiking Before His ExecutioN Bryanna Licciardi Taking off more than a decade between killings, Lonnie David Franklin, Jr. was convicted in 2016 for the murder of 10 women. On August 10th, the LA court issued 10 death sentences— one for each victim. You’ve decided to lead the way, because you want to offer me one last thing. I think that, if I was a good woman, I’d protect you from this – doesn’t love require suffering? I look around to see our path dug-in from other sinners, everyone seems to mistake this steep hill for salvation. I’ve decided, no, this is hell, and drop back further to watch your sweaty burnt skin, dirt clouds from dirt rocks you kick up to watch them explode in the air. And because your back is turned, I’ve slipped away, not knowing how to say this is your burden, your reparation, your plate. This is something I won't share.
2
Life in an Out-Station Each morning I stranglehold my head under the mirror like a wrestler, don't let it up until it agrees to live another day.
John Grey
I report to where a plastic cube stakes out its place in the universe surrounded by screens aching for my touch, noon local time, the sun's as close as it dares, a creamy yellow egg cooking itself to death life here is nothing but the sacramental bliss of science, for the benefit of some multi-galaxial corporation. Afternoon, it’s Earth contact time, a weak signal, bullied by weather's ill-manners, a smattering of the latest news and music, mostly a voice, modest in its care. At night, in a plexi-dome muffled from the winds, its walls wrinkled by snow, an oxygenated, heated, gravity-tweaked, clean break from the outside I crawl into a bed and dream the opposite of all this.
Despite Being Weaponless I love a good joke within a bad dream as much as anyone facing a stranger holding a gun and eager to make the evening news just once.
J. J. Steinfeld
That’s humor, wouldn’t you say, but I’m not the one on stage, so to speak, in the limelight, so, since you seem to be at odds with authenticity and between psychoses, tell me a good joke within my bad dream not too funny nor convoluted something earthy a real knee-slapper as a famed theologian I knew in my youth used to say but he never knew how to laugh not at new-world jokes and he always missed his target thinking of the old world. I, on the other hand, am a good shot in dreams despite being weaponless but bored to surreal tears so let’s hear the joke before I have to deal with my anonymity and damaged sense of wakeful humor.
4
Blood and Chocolate Forever Jennifer Crow For a price, you can have anything you dreamed, even immortality. We ship eternal life on our fastest frigate. Star-sails billow in the wind between systems, pushing heaven closer, for what are gods but our dreams and the icy clutch of time? So transfer your accounts with speed: deathlessness aside, we limit this offer to our most loyal customers. And if a front-row seat to the inevitable heat death of the universe doesn’t suit, we can deliver simpler goods—say, a bar of chocolate, the kind of rich, dark sin even Earth’s wealthiest haven’t seen in a millennium. •••
We have the secret of a bittersweet past melting on the tongue, like the notes sung by the angel of death as it bends over your bed. You shiver, guilty pleasure running its cool fingers across the nape of your neck—did you know, aliens from Masoni Delta have a similar sensation, but at the base of their abdominal tentacles? They find chocolate intoxicating, but we have saved the best for you. And if not sweet, perhaps salty suits your tastes—you could be a blood-sibling of the universe, drop by drop, which gives its own sort of life unending—passing like star dust through each other’s veins, they become you-become everything. •••
We aren’t allowed to say other people’s fluids will make you smarter, but . . . Combine the two, blood and chocolate, and we give a discount. Imagine our brave pilots crossing emptiness with their holds full, body and ship intertwined, cerebral fluids coursing through smart polymers and sentient metals, all for you. Eat, drink, be merry for as long as you can. We know the universe stretches to its cold boundaries, but we can reach further, and you will reap the bounty. Place your order now, and we will deliver before you even forget which biometric you used to reach us.
Poets’ Bios Bryanna Licciardi Bryanna Licciardi has received her MFA in poetry and is currently pursuing a PhD in Literacy Studies. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and has had work appear in such journals as Poetry Quarterly, BlazeVOX, 491 Magazine, Dos Passos, Adirondack Review, and Cleaver Magazine. Please visit her profile on P&W or bryannalicciardi.com for more about her. ••• John Grey John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in New Plains Review, Stillwater Review and Big Muddy Review with work upcoming in Louisiana Review, Columbia College Literary Review and Spoon River Poetry Review. ••• J.J. Steinfeld Canadian fiction writer, poet, and playwright J. J. Steinfeld 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 seventeen books, including Disturbing Identities (Stories, Ekstasis Editions), Should the Word Hell Be Capitalized? (Stories, Gaspereau Press), Would You Hide Me? (Stories, Gaspereau Press), Misshapenness (Poetry, Ekstasis Editions), Identity Dreams and Memory Sounds (Poetry, Ekstasis Editions), Madhouses in Heaven, Castles in Hell (Stories, Ekstasis Editions), and An Unauthorized Biography of Being (110 Short Fictions Hovering Between the Absurd and the Existential, Ekstasis Editions). His short stories and poems have appeared in numerous periodicals and anthologies internationally, and over fifty of his one-act plays and a handful of full-length plays have been performed in Canada and the United States. ••• 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. You can find her poetry on several websites, including Goblin Fruit, Uncanny, Mythic Delirium, Eye to the Telescope, and Mithila Review. She’s always happy to connect with readers on her Facebook author page or on Twitter @writerjencrow.
6
You Could Not Save Them Š Rabban (http://rabban12.wixsite.com/darkandromantic)
THIS IS JUST A PREVIEW! ••• Buy the full issue on www.heliosquarterly.com or www.radiantcrownpublishing.com
Tiny World Š John Sowder (http://latitudezero.deviantart.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 2, Issue 1 Theme: Commercial Cosmonauts & Hired Guns Radiant Crown Publishing, LLC
POETRY BY:
Information:
John Grey J. J. Steinfeld Jennifer Crow Bryanna Licciardi
ISSN: 2473-9189 March 2017 Volume 2, Issue 1 Theme: Commercial Cosmonauts & Hired Guns Radiant Crown Publishing, LLC
FICTION BY: Jeff Dosser Pamela Jeffs Sara Codair Jack Lothian Jarryd Bartle Ingrid Garcia Mike Adamson C.W. Blackwell Jenny Blackford Thomas Canfield
PHOTOS BY: Rabban
ARTWORK BY: Sam Guay John Sowder Tommaso Renieri Matthew Andrew
Twitter:
@heliosquarterly
Facebook:
/heliosquarterly
Solar Charioteer: David Rae “The Sun Catcher” Shikhar Dixit "The Soothsayer"
QR Code: