PLANET MAGAZINE

Illustration: “Cigar” © 2007 by Patrick Stacy

Portentia Clarke looked out the window and watched the cameraman struggle to get his legs into the contamination suit; he was a heavier man, and the producer and tech crew were helping out. It was five in the morning, and they weren’t scheduled to begin until after nine. Four hours of preparation, all for their safety.

“This is it!” Portentia said aloud. “We made it… we’re here.”

Grabbing the steaming pot of ‘NiCoffee’, she filled her cup with the warm sludge and added a squirt of freon and a tablespoon of Aspartame before taking it to her lips. She couldn’t help but laugh at herself — she was dressed and ready to go already. Too bad none of the crew had evolved yet; it would have made things so much easier.

Trying not to think about all the fuss being made outside, Portentia decided to make sure everything was ready with the house. Grabbing a cloth, she started to clean out the doorless microwave; of course, she had to make sure it was pristine. This was Derek’s first big invention, and she had come up with the slogan for it: “The easiest way to cook healthy!”.

Derek! Dear, brilliant Derek. He was on a lecturing tour now and would not be home for two weeks; the children were at summer camp in Chernobyl and would not be home for another week. Portentia wished they could be there with her on the pedestal, but she was more than prepared to shine alone. After the microwave was cleaned, she went on to the other inventions she was planning to showcase.

She took a deep breath of the carbon-monoxide-filled coal sauna when checking to make sure it was orderly. She thought about cooking something for the crew on the indoor BBQ, but realized they would have to open their suits to eat… or to go to the bathroom, for that matter. That was their problem, she decided, as she made sure the fridge was full of ‘Clarke’s Coala’. The fire pit was cleaned of its melted plastic and Styrofoam heap, and there was a fresh batch of polystyrene egg cartons and bags piled neatly nearby.

Seeing all of these wonderful things they had come up with had brought a tear to Portentia’s eye, and she felt it roll down her cheek. Quickly, she ran to the bathroom to wipe it off before it destroyed her dress, her dark, leather-like skin smoking where the tear had rolled down it. She always wondered what external pain felt like when she saw that.

Gathering her senses while she wiped the tear away with the asbestos cloth, she looked into the mirror to make sure she looked OK.

“It’s fine. You checked everything last night. The bathroom and septic pool are contained and clean in the backyard. Bedrooms are nice and clean, with a nice layer of soot covering the new lead-paint job. You outdid yourself with that, by the way,” she said to her reflection in the mirror. “We’re here.”

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Illustration: “Mother May I” © 2007 by Junior McLean

The owner of Ozymandias has just gone over the edge of the horizon, and we love it. With OzymExo, he’s taken his well-established outlandish obscurantism and gotten rid of the landish. OE’s virgin catalog is pure weird candy for the unhinged and the mutated. I promise you — heavy rotation at Bebe Monster and Monkey Bar.

Someone once said, “Tuning a mellotherium doesn’t.” Well, listening to what OE’s offering up doesn’t. Take OZM(exo)020: Origin unknown. Species unknown. Just an artifact (“Vessel with Biotic Interior [Possibly Analog]”) floating through Pavonian space a few centuries ago that had “an Interior Communicative Organ Beeping and Whistling” (as the subliner helpfully clarifies). The “organ” makes non-repetitive, arhythmic beeps, squonks, and hoots for about three minutes. In the background, various hummings and swellings are punctuated by raspy clankings and crescendoes.

Intelligent? What’s the criteria? Music? As I was listening to this track, I imagined an alien “listening” to our industrial exhaust pipes churning out “music” via radiation signatures and asking a similar question. He might deduce our intelligence correctly, but be totally wrong in reasoning the purpose of these byproducts. For the same reason, I wondered if this semi-vivified soundmaker weren’t a “vent” of some kind. The Rosetta Sphincter.

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Illustration: “The Flaming Phoenix Storm” © 2007 by Junior McLean

The first days were always the hardest. It had been six months since I stopped counting the days and the nights. But somehow, somehow — I knew this was the first day. Maybe it was the black fog overhead, or the constant beat of war drums coming ever closer.

First day. Sacrifice. Food. Women. Children.

And they didn’t give a damn who or what. When the drums sounded, it was time to pay. This gothic aural calendar never failed, and as I stepped out of the wreckage of what was once my home, I could see the neighbors had fled. That meant it was me and my Julie. And I’d be damned if they were coming for her.

It hadn’t been too long since we all had family, friends, television. Hell, even running water. I remember taking those things for granted. I remember my car. Then they took that away, too. First, it was our power. Then it was our rights. Finally, every living thing that was deemed unfit for “consummation” (whatever the hell that meant) was destroyed.

In the new world, they didn’t give a damn about society. They didn’t give a damn about the Constitution. Black-market money. Power. Pleasure. Those were their games. It was a shame, too. I know. I used to watch the news. No one thought this world would eat itself away from the inside out. No. We all were watching out for Korea, for Space Aliens, for the Boogey Man.

Sometime around six years ago, society collapsed. Sure, the government did all it could to help, to make things better. The president declared martial law. The guys in green came out in force. If you were out after dark, you were an enemy combatant. You were dealt with. Easy enough. They were too smart. The sniveling little bastards. Someone told them they had rights, and they ran amuck. Daylight massacres became an everyday thing. Soon our patrols of hundreds were whittled down to scores of ten, then five. Then we were lucky to see one at all. The first called himself “Herrod.” Or something like that. To us, he was master. We did what he said. Or we’d die.

I remember when we had our court, when there was “justice.” Fifteen-stories tall and brand new, shining against the sun now blacked out. He lives there now. On the top floor, overlooking what used to be beautiful sandy beaches and the fresh ocean breezes.

“All living things belong to the earth. And so they are returned.” That was his first decree, right before he burned my town to the ground. Right before the rat-a-tat-tat of automatic gunfire and the acrid black-powder stench of certain death filled the air. My friend Joe, he ran to get his gun. He was going to fight back. He was going to be a hero. He was dead in the blink of an eye. They took his head and placed it on the roof of what used to be our police station. We never fought again. As for the rest, I heard they took them out west. Fertilizer for their crop.

Now it was first day. And he was hungry. And I was alone.

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