thejanuaryist

[thejanuaryist]

Januariad Stats

Among the invented worlds, the far-flung characters, the carefully turned details of the month-long Januariad project, we inevitably find common threads that can be spun into statistics. I’m taking a stats course right now, so I thought I’d pull out a little math on the Januariad as a wrap-up. This month, we have 42 images and by my count, we log 115 works that I’ll call "Januariad Fiction." (No exposition or factual image captioning included here.) Among those numbers we see the following individual trends: portersnotebook Likelihood of a story …that contains a monster: 35% …placed in a wasteland: 30% …in which a city figures prominently: 25% galalc Likelihood of a story …that features a bar: 25% …that contains a murder/untimely death: 15% …that features a father/son relationship: 10% mollyculetheory Likelihood of a story … that features a witch: 10% … that contains an apocalypse/dystopia: 20% … that features foreign or obscure English words: 65% thejanuaryist Likelihood of a story … with a geezer protagonist: 30% … featuring an untimely death: 20% laurenpapot Likelihood of a drawing … that features a portrait: 63%* … that contains coffee: 19%* … that features one or more helmets: 19% jackrusher Likelihood of an image … that contains a landscape: 25% … that contains a portrait: 29% Likelihood of a fiction work … that contains aliens: 16% … that contains an apocalypse/dystopia: 16% kayseerights Likelihood of a work … that features the natural world: 27%* … that contains a talking animal: 6% mmichaelmcelroy Likelihood of a story … that features an implication of cannibalism: 14%* … that contains a mug or glass of a beverage: 86%* There’s some fun in the aggregate data here, too. Based on the group of fiction writings, I count 43 works in which we can read a clearly female gendered or presumed female protagonist, which gives us 37% female protagonists for Januariad 2016. While this is nowhere near true equity, it’s vastly more gender-equitable than Hollywood (In the top grossing films of 2014, only 12 percent of protagonists were women) or in gaming (traditionally), or in literature in general. mollyculetheory led the way here, with 70% female-protagonist stories, followed by kayseerights, with 62% likelihood of a female protagonist. I was actually making a considered effort this month to include more gender equity, and I hit a decent balance with a 50% chance of a female protagonist in any given story. When jackrusher chose to add writing to his imagery, he showed a 43% likelihood of writing a female protagonist, but if we take into account the gender of the writer overall, the female Januariad writers were much more likely to produce a male protagonist than the male Januariad writers were to write a female protagonist. Again, interesting, but unsurprising, given the way that gender balance has been represented in fiction across history. So I’ll wrap this up, but nice work this month, everyone! Congratulations on finishing the project, and enjoy your extra free time! Methodology: Presumption of “monster” includes god-like monsters, and outsized lizards, but not humans with monstrous behavior. Presumption of “female protagonist” is based on a reading of the work that produces no overt reference to the protagonist’s masculine gender. Works containing no specific protagonist or a gender-flexible protagonist were excluded from the presumption of feminine protagonist count. Seeing as how simple calculations for probability are based on independent events, it’s highly unlikely that we can refer to a given Januariad post as "independent" since most of us are reviewing the work of the others across the course of the month. Thus, there’s no randomness and no indication that these percentages will predict future work. Standard count of works was 20, but some contributors produced more or less than 20 posts. Individual percentages are based on the total 2016 Januariad works for that individual. * rounding

[thejanuaryist]

The Shining City

When the house burned, taking her dear mother with it, Caledona cut her hair and left her village behind. She’d heard stories about a shining city, across the pass, beyond the plain. A place of brilliant people with lives somehow different from the sad little soil and timber town where she’d been raised. Dressed in the clothes of her forgotten father, she walked as a man, talked as a man and adopted the name "Cal." While slender, Cal turned out to be a clever, hard-working boy, and he didn’t lack for farm work along the path. Many families offered a meal and a bed of hay in the barn. At one such stop, Cal was adrift on the hay, but woke as he heard a noise in the night. He rose in readiness. At the doorway, he met the widow, hushed in shadows, her soft breasts loosened to meet the moonbeams. She was the first of Cal’s women, and the memory of her scent never failed to stir his hunger. But there was always the call of the road. No matter how sweet the smile, how soft the lips, he couldn’t stay long. In the forests, Cal was a forester. On the sea, a sailor. Along the lonesome lands of dry weed and scrub, there was no work, no trade, no life but for those few who passed along through to something better. Cal told stories of the forest and sea to hard-eyed travelers and children crusted in salt and grit, crowned with oily locks. In return, he always asked if they’d heard of the shining city, across the pass, beyond the plain. Answers varied, depending on the speaker. All through the years, Cal walked as far as men can walk. He saw wonders: mountains that snagged the clouds, deserts that devoured rivers, dunes that walked, mighty cyclones of sand, spirals of water. A forest of rock carved down into columns. All manner of birds and bugs and beasts, dragons and ancient-eyed leviathans. Age brought silver hair and failing joints. Shorter days, slower progress, but still, Cal sought the shining city. And one fine morning, the air heavy with birdcall and the damp scent of ready soil, Cal peered across the crest of a hill and saw a shimmer emerging from the mist. With a charge in his chest, he quickened his step. By noon, he approached the edge of a shining city, alive with the noise of people, carts, animals. Cal entered the market, a blur of tents set with pyramids of spice, mountains of dates and nuts, garlands of hanging meats, tables of cheese, pails of crabs, fish and frogs. Tall buildings, rich costumes, packs of schoolchildren in tight formation. He walked the streets in wonder, admiring fountains and statues. It had taken a lifetime to find, this jewel of bright energy. Grinning, dazzled, he soaked in the splendor. And then, as he turned a corner, agape at angels in the lintels, he recognized a wooden church. Humble, crooked, dwarfed by its neighbors, it sat, alone, on small flat of green, a piece out of place, out of time. Settling pack and body onto a bench at the edge of the green, he turned to face the building of angels, a stone behemoth set on the place where he was born, eighty years before, a girl named Caledonia. The city he’d sought, grown up all around. Cal closed his eyes. He laughed. The end of the journey. The fool come home at last.

[thejanuaryist]

Miners

We arrive alongside the ravine at dawn, dry and ready, nails still rimmed with the black mud of yesterday’s labor. There are are a few robust women here, but we miners are mostly men. Each finds his place. We are orderly about this; our group has a community feeling. There’s an electric crackle in the air this morning. The rains came last night, and every man heard it from his bed, awake in the night, guessing at the future, eager now to greet the day. Along the rushing waters, mysteries pry loose from the crevices. With shovels, we enter the rushing water and dig at the mud. Using magnets, we sift to capture scrap metal. Sometimes the pieces are recognizable: bolts and nails, bottle caps and hairpins, faucets, spoons, zippers, buckles, pens and door hinges. Our fingers are breaking clumps, careful to examine everything. The most valuable pieces are some of the smallest. Coins, gold pendants, silver bracelets. A cross. An engagement ring. Carlos once found a gold tooth. We don’t talk about the smoke from the fire that won’t go out, the smells, the strange foam. We try not to think about the poisoned waters that wrinkle our skin, work into eyes and mouth. The rashes and burns. We don’t talk about finding broken glass, festering cuts, the eight men killed last year just before Christmas, drowned under a collapse of wet garbage. We talk about the finds of the day, the thrill of the treasure hunt. How much better the money is here, better than what they paid at the factory. With no boss to yell at us, we work as we work. Under the sky, under the circling buzzards. Each man adds the day’s progress to his tote. We’ll drag our totes back up the hill to be weighed and purchased when darkness comes. We tuck the special treasures into hidden vials and plastic pockets. Insurance against the uncertain future. But our present is here, with an honest day’s work measured out in iron and copper, bronze and tin. I wonder sometimes about you. All the things you lost. All the things you threw away. It’s your stories I’m mining. Your past. That’s what’s out here, the piles and layers of it, waiting to break free in the next hard rain, wash down the ravine, meet my waiting fingers.

[thejanuaryist]

Corner Office

At last! After all the late nights of data visualization, all the last-minute presentations for the board, all the tedious meetings. The dog-and-pony show bullshit was finally paying off. Margaret looked around her new office with pride. And it had a door! With her name on it. She couldn’t fully describe it, but there was something so satisfying about her new chair at her new desk. High ceiling. Low-pile carpet. Snake plant in the corner. All of it, just right. Paloma from legal peeked in from the doorway. “Heeeeey… look who’s got the fancy digs now!” “I know. I love it. I really do.” “Nobody deserves it more. Congratulations, Maggie, seriously. See you at the pizza party?” “Oh, yeah! The pizza party. Yeah, see you there!” “Enjoy that view, lady!” Normally, Margaret didn’t have time for something like the Monthly Meet-and-Greet, but for some reason, pizza sounded especially compelling. In fact, she realized she was famished. Walking into the canteen, she felt empty, hollow, with hunger that seemed insatiable. She had a vague memory of the same feeling in adolescence. Since the amnesia, childhood and puberty were only flashes of sensation. She had no memory of her parents, no inkling of other family associations. For Margaret, life began at fifteen. She usually bypassed the bakery selection, but the display looked amazing. She’d never noticed the small pastry disks filled with creamy yellow custard, and dotted with sear marks, as though they’d floated too close to the sun. “Do you like the pastéis de nata?” “Pardon?” She asked, turning to the dark-eyed man next to her. He pointed to the display. “The little custard pastries. My mother used to make them. They’re wonderful. I mean, I don’t know if these ones are wonderful, but in general they are.” Margaret salivated, and she wasn't sure if it was because of the pastries or the man. There was something about this man. He cracked a warm smile and extended a hand, “I’m Bernardo. I just joined the UX group in Marketing.” “Maggie. Head of Analytics.” Back at her office, Margaret closed the shade on her window and shut her door. Leaning over her garbage can, she ate everything she’d bought. Flaky croissants, airy glazed donuts, a chewy oatmeal cookie and three sweet pastéis de nata, which conjured visions of Bernardo’s big hands and muscular forearms. She brushed croissant flakes off her skirt and surveyed the oily papers in the waste bin. It wasn’t enough. Neither was the pizza party, where she tried to appear casual and relaxed while consuming slice after slice. Bernardo was there, too, shaking hands and flashing a contagious white smile that glowed against his warm brown skin. She felt a pinch in her abdomen. Was that ovulation or intestinal gas? Bernardo’s laugh floated above the noise of the room. She needed to get near him. Loading two more slices of pepperoni-mushroom onto her sagging paper plate, she weaved through the crowd, reaching fingers out to touch the taut muscle of his forearm. “Bernardo,” she said. But as he turned, she caught in a sneezing fit. Turning her head to the pit of her arm, waving him away with her free hand, she dashed out to the nearest ladies room, where she grabbed a paper towel to stop the mucus running from her nose. The paper was stiff and uncomfortable, but no more horrible than leaving a trail of snot. The sneezing continued, and she grabbed more paper towels, they'd stop the flow long enough so she could get back to her office. Paper towels at her face, pizza plate in her hand, she pushed out of the bathroom and up the staircase. Stopping up her nostrils while chewing the last two slices of pizza, she was again grateful for the door that separated her from the prying eyes of the cubicle hive just a few meters away. As the sneezing subsided, Margaret’s snot began to thicken. She dabbed her nose and the tissues pulled away from her face in long, silvery strings, which were really quite beautiful. All at once, Margaret knew what she had to do. She quickly ate two cocolate-coated Kind bars from her bag and locking her office door, she removed her clothing, folding everything carefully and piling it into one of her new desk drawers. Then she settled her naked bottom into the cool smoothness of her leather chair and composed an email. Subject line, “Leave of Absence Due to Family Concerns” Margaret climbed onto her desk. After coating her palms and feet in sticky snot, she pressed her hands to the wall and continued climbing up to the ceiling, where she knitted silver-white strings into a beautiful net. Slipping into this lofted bed, she wove the gaps into a solid wall of silk, and reclined to sleep and dream. Twenty-eight days later, Margaret’s third stage broke free of the lofted web and emerged from the corner office, consumed with primal urgency. With just three hours to fertilize the egg sac, Margaret filled her glands with the rich scent of Bernardo in UX.

[thejanuaryist]

Recipient

She met him at a party, thumbing through the host’s LPs. He was tall, slender and muscular, slightly rumpled hair, maybe bit of odd squareness in the nose and brow. Taken as a whole, the collection was compelling. At any rate, she found she was compelled to linger nearby and comment on the LPs. “Do you have a turntable?” “I don’t.” He looked her over as he replied. “But I like the records. Good looking. Big picture on the front. Nice heft.” What was said beyond that? She couldn’t remember now. Words, just words. There was something about his impish smile, the jagged rapids running though his irises. They moved to the balcony, under a clear bright night and in a dim corner by the grill, they fell into kisses and groping like awkward teens. Embarrassment buried beneath excitement and urgency, they made a pact to meet outside. He went looking for his coat. She kissed her friends goodbye, begging off early, but promising brunch “really, really soon.” They walked out separately, but met in front of the building. She flagged a taxi and he gave an address. Groping mouths and hands in the dark cab, a rush through the overbright lobby, pressed bodies mashed against the wall of the elevator. In the apartment, they draped across the sofa, half-clothed, skin damp with saliva. Wandering fingers and tongues searching the geography of the flesh. She woke, realizing her hand was wedged beneath him, still asleep. She pulled it away carefully, shaking life back into the dead thing as she wandered into the bathroom. The tile floor was cold under her feet. She felt for the faucets and ran the tap in the dark, splashing warm water across her face, her chest, her sticky crevices. He was awake when she returned, smiling in the moonlight, pulling her close to his warm body, wrapping a soft blanket across their intermingled legs. In the morning, she suggested a breakfast delivery, but he insisted on making scrambled eggs. She was enchanted by this bit of old-fashioned charm. They parted, but the next night, close to midnight after a series of charged texts, she took a cab to his place. They met wordlessly. A voracious reunion of bodies brought to necessity through the loss of time. He entered her thoughts across the day. His smell. His flavor. The play of his fingers across her lips. She looked across a menu, past the salads, past the meat and fishes… she wanted pasta, tender, yielding in the mouth. Pho seemed just right, and she had a coupon code for Deliverrama, one of the newer services. She texted her pho order, side of mango sticky rice, and salivated at the thought of his strong thighs pressed against her backside. Lost in dreamy reverie on the sofa, the jarring buzz from the lobby stirred her to action. As she opened the door, she took the Deliverama bag and just by chance, she met his eyes. His eyes. Widened, terrified. Half-hidden under the Deliverama baseball cap. He held out a gray stylus and a flat screen. “Sign here, please.” “You…” “I’ll text you. I have to go.” He turned away from her and hustled down the hall, taking the staircase instead of the elevator. She slumped into the sofa and mindlessly removed the containers from the bag. Delivery Class. None of her friends were Delivery Class. She’d never known anyone Delivery Class. They were just faces under hats, wrapped in uniforms, bundled onto scooters and bikes, lugging wagons, lugging backpacks, pushing buttons on oversized devices, rushing through lobbies and down hallways, trading packages for thumbprints and signatures. She was a deliveree. A recipient. She ordered things… all the things… everything. Her whole life came via delivery. All the food in bags and boxes. All the clothes online. Fresh laundry, delivered. Office supplies, delivered. Packages in, garbage out. She ripped the cilantro and Thai basil, maybe more forcefully than necessary. Was it classist to think that? Was it bad? She could imagine the jokes from her friends. Did he bring you a big package? Was it a special delivery? Did you put it in your box? Ha ha ha. Later that night, as promised, he texted. “Hey, babe.” Just that. Soft and sweet. She sobbed and punched the sofa cushions as she deleted him from her contacts list.

[thejanuaryist]

Hero

I didn’t ask to be a hero. That name came for me, hunted me down like they hunted my family. I learned that hero is what they call you when you survive. When you don’t back down. When you stuff the fear away and stare at death eye to eye. When the gangs come out and you say, “Enough. This ends here, with me.” I guess that’s what a hero is. I was always different from the others. Born pale and luminous. My mother called me “little moon.” Told me that pale was special. Others told me pale was special, too, by the way that they avoided me, stared from a distance. Special doesn’t mean beloved. After my mother was killed, I spent a lot of time alone, apart from everyone else. I had to wrestle with the questions until I realized the questions don’t matter after the ones you love are gone. Boy, it hurt, too. Still does. Don’t ever believe the pain goes away. It doesn’t. You just learn to deal with it. During that long stretch, I had a lot of long conversations with myself. I composed a few songs. I traveled. I swam in the Indian Ocean and ate a lot of seafood. Ultimately, I concluded that my life wasn’t worth anything on its own. I had to live in service of the others. The gangs know us. They know where we live. Where we gather food. They know that if they injure one of our family members, one of the youngest ones, the rest of us will group around the crying little one, and then, of course, we’re all the more vulnerable. But I know them, too. For all their savagery and ferocity together, when I isolate them, I’ve seen how soft and terrified they are when they're alone. For one thing, not a one of them can swim. They’ve been after me this week. I’m not just being paranoid. It feels personal. A group of them chased me down. There was a struggle. I messed them up bad and got away, but one of them stabbed me in the back. It’s still there. No way I can get it out. So now I’m trailing a long rope with one of their guys, tangled up, bloating, gray-faced and flailing. I’ll wear the bastard like a totem. He’s my putrid good luck charm. I want them to see that, to see what it means to feel fear. Let them vomit when they see me coming. Today’s the day. Live or die. For mom. For the others. White Moon. Dark Sea. It ends here. It ends with me.

[thejanuaryist]

High Dive

At 2 p.m. on the minute, the lifeguards tweeted and cleared out the pool for their break. Maggie ran from the shallow end, dripping, giggling. She reclaimed her towel and asked for a can of 7-Up from the cooler. She cracked open the lid, that familiar pop and hiss. Jason flashed back to a poolside memory of his own, fizzy bubbles citrus popping in his nose, quenching skin stung by chlorine, baked in the sun. “You having fun out there?” Maggie nodded, wet hair lashing her neck and shoulders. “There were diving boards here when I was a boy. Right there, at the end. A low springboard, and beside it, the high dive, 5 meters up. Do you know how long a meter is?” “Mmm hmmm. We did the metric system in math class. Can I have apple slices, too?” “Sure you can. Dig in, kiddo.” As she leaned over the cooler again, Jason saw the telltale pink across her back. Just a little, but still. “Come here. We need to get more sunscreen on you. I take you back looking like a lobster, you’re mom’s going to murder me.” Maggie laughed and made pinchy fingers while he slathered milky-white goo over her shoulders and back. “Get your arms and legs before you go back to your friends, okay?” Before the whistles chirped again, Maggie and her friends had already lined the edge of the shallows, threatening to push each other, poised to jump. Jason gazed out to the place where the diving boards once stood, a void at the deep end of the pool. His bare feet on the ridged metal steps. Up and up and up, Pete Stagger behind him, the tension is his stomach rising with the elevation. That walk down the board, knees threatening to give out, but Pete still behind and the guys watching down in the shallows. No looking down, no turning back, no crouching into a ball and holding onto the board. No looking down. But of course he looked down. A dizzy ten meters. Pete shouting from behind, “Hurry up! Don’t be a puss.” Don’t be Spickmann, the kid who chickened out and slunk backward down the ladder. Forever shamed. Do it now. Now. Now. The step off the edge, moment of faith and adrenaline and flight! Eyes closed, cannonball splashdown, relief in the water. A swim to the surface, to victory. For a ten-year-old, it was a fine test of mettle. More to come of course, life was full of tests, but this early one, the high dive, was personal. Stepping into the void despite the shaking knees and knotty stomach. Maggie and the girls leaped into the air, arched and skimmed across the shallows, holding breath like seals, emerging, splashless, a distance away. No diving boards for these kids, but they’d have their tests, too. Tests of will. Tests of courage. Tests more subtle, more diverse, with circumstances he couldn’t guess. Still, Jason longed to hold tight to the steel rails, to feel the metal ridges under his knobby old feet. Not a test anymore, a practice run. Know the fear. Step over the threshold. Jump into the void. Open eyes, long and strong.

[thejanuaryist]

Galleon

Chapman went mad. He took a lifeboat on the open sea. Won’t last more than a week, I wouldn’t think. Not out there, untethered from the great mother that futters us, holds us close. The waiting vexes younger men. I watch their rituals, magic charms, embodied hopes. Murmured prayers to god, to spirits. Pace the boards. Throw the bones. Knock on wood. He took a good supply of water. Enough that Captain has me drawing dew from the sails each morning. Each day, I rise in darkness, first light along the edge of the Earth. I’m not to tell the others. Captain keeps them busy in other ways. Lacking work and hope, men go mad like Chapman. Captain knows that. So day on day, we labor. Heads-down over the weave and mend, wash and polish, cut, carve and sand. We watch the skies for clouds. We feel the air, hot and heavy. Seeking signs of the change. Today? Today? If the wind never comes again, we’ll have the most glorious ghost ship on the seas. But I jest. She’ll come, she’ll come. She always does. I’m old enough to know. One day, she’ll puff the sails again, cool air to push us out across the glass. I scrape the canvas, track every fold and crease where drops collect. As I pour my morning pitcher into galley barrel, I see how it’s lower. Each day the level lowers. But she’ll come. I know she’ll come. And when I watch across the sea, I watch for Chapman. Tiny boat, endless waters. Mad Chapman, come at last to his senses. Rowing back to life.

[thejanuaryist]

Ogygia

Along the coast, where the river became the sea, an insular city-state grew, tall and fortified, waves lapping at its walls, sun warming the white-bleached stone. Within those walls, the lord and lady had two daughters and two sons, all of whom received lessons from the gnarled scholar who had taught the lord himself. All of the children were bright or talented in different ways, and each excelled in some way that demonstrated value to the family… all except the youngest boy, who seemed ever dreamy, ever distant, never present in the lessons, likely to float away if the windows were opened too wide. Though the old man tried everything he knew, the boy was unteachable. He finally requested an audience with the lord and shamefully confessed the shortcoming. The lord had independently determined that the boy was useless, and decreed that he should be sent away to the great scholars across the sea. If the voyage didn’t kill him, he might learn something there. The boy himself was keen on this idea. The middle-sea voyage was certainly the most exciting thing he’d experienced, and during the course of the trip, he eagerly learned all the ropes and knots, the recipes the galley produced, the order of preparations, even the songs and tales the sailors told all night to distract themselves from stormy times in jagged waves when the ship creaked and shook. When the ship finally docked at Constantinople, the city became his school. The boy walked, wobbly, down the plank and out into a wonderland of markets and forums, temples and gates. Among the fruit and spice stands, he detected a dozen languages. Along the hippodrome, he heard the sounds of strange music. In the streets and shops, he wondered at a grand collection of feats and skills brought in from across the known world. The unteachable boy grew into a man beloved by his neighbors, respected by his tutors. And he continued to adore Constantinople, reveling in the chaos of sights, sounds and smells, the streets alive with noise and color. But one day, a letter arrived across the sea from his father, the lord. The city-state was under siege. Attackers by chariot and boat. The man, now called Ceionius, sailed quickly. He docked a distance from the city-state and approached on foot as a peddler of toys. As he reached the invading camps, he knew their language and charmed the soldiers he met with jokes and a dozen bawdy tales. The captain presented Ceionius to the general, who invited him to dinner, eager to hear more stories and songs. Across the evening, the general saw through the wit and recognized Ceionius as wise. He offered an advisory role, which Ceionius graciously accepted. When the time seemed right, Ceionius presented the General with his plan to invade the city-state, revealing a sewer drainage point in the wall where a small force could quickly and quietly gain entry. The general agreed, giving Ceionius command of an invasion force. The group chopped through the thicket, uncovering the gated tunnel exactly where Ceionius had predicted it would be. They easily broke the rusted gate and entered the tunnel. As they reached a multi-branched fork, Ceionius signaled a halt. He removed his helmet and raised a torch to examine a marking alongside a tunnel that rose upward. Holding the fire to the wall, he recognized a cryptic symbol, thickly drawn by an unteachable child. Mounting the ladder, he dampened the torch and gestured to the others. They rose in darkness until Ceionius cut the grate. They emerged in the first light of morning, gathered, fully armed in a corner of the lord’s kitchen. The cooks threw down their tools, ran, yelping, to the captain, who dashed from his chamber half-armored, but ready fight off the invasion. By the time he summoned his force, the invaders had taken the hall. The captain dashed, sword raised, into the room, and was immediately perplexed by the calm, familiar features of the commander he saw there. It was the boy, Koros, returned as a man. He was demanding an audience with the lord. The captain glanced around the hall, now a mass of tense foreign invaders with knives in their teeth and swords in their hands. At the center of it all stood calm Koros, sword sheathed, helmet by his side. The captain shouted a command to his men to stand down. The meeting was arranged. The lord met the general at a table positioned in the garden. Koros/Ceionius sat between the two, serving as translator. On each side, he spun the men's hard feelings and rough sentiments into sweet charm and flattery. The talks were smooth and easy, and both forces jointly agreed to appoint Ceionius to oversee the new city-state, opening an era of trade and exchange. Both lord and general left these talks feeling powerful, and each man reported a victory to his subjects. In this way, the first siege of Ogygia ended bloodlessly, a feat often celebrated, but never repeated.

[thejanuaryist]

Chickens

Katie often worked late, so Lisa agreed to meet her for breakfast at one of the newer cafes. The place was improbably situated on the corner of a residential street in a district of old Italian immigrants, housefronts adorned with gaudy plaster fountains and toga-clad nudes that perched along the lintels. The morning was clear and cold. Katie shuddered and tucked her layers against encroaching air seeping in through the weak spots. The cold felt so much worse before coffee. **** Lisa hung their coats and settled into the booth. She shook off the chill with a shiver and rubbed her hands together. Katie noticed that her nails were neatly manicured in pastels and felt a pang of shame about her own jagged cuticles. “I’m shocked this place is open at 8. Hipsters don’t generally stir before 10, right?” “God, Lisa, that term is so dated.” “Stir? I suppose I could’ve chosen ‘wake’ or ‘move,’ but I like the notion of stirring.” “Hipsters, you geek. Whatever. Where did that guy go? Coffee needs to appear. Like now.” “I read that the coffee here hits a new high-water mark for Brooklyn. As in the price is high. I’m sure the quality is beyond reproach.” “Yeah whatever. This is a business breakfast, right? I’ll deduct it. Anyway, this job is getting to me. In addition to working unpredictable hours, I’m not sleeping well, either.” “Naturally.” “I had the most fucked-up dream last night, too.” Coffee arrived in the broad hands of a smiling young man too pretty to have been anything but a model/actor/something. “Have you had time to look at the menu?” “I think we’re both getting the ‘Sailec Morning Special,’ right? Yeah, two of those.” “So… your fucked-up dream.” “Right. I won’t go into all the detail, because it’s one of those complicated situations that only makes sense in a dream, but the punchline is, I was watching myself getting fucked by a giant chicken.” “You were dreaming of a big cock? Can’t say I’m surprised…” “Ha ha ha. Yeah, a giant chicken. I mean, I don’t even know if it was consensual. How do you get consent from a chicken?” “I really love that, actually.” “Take it. It’s yours. I don’t want it.” Lisa produced a pen and notebook from her bag. “Should I be surprised you don’t take notes on your phone?” “I suppose it’s retro, but I like handwritten notes. I think it supports the creative process.” “How’s the creative process going?” “Eh, it’s okay. I get a pittance from the blogging. Doesn’t pay the rent. But I’ve got a pitch today for a comedy writing gig, so maybe that’ll bear fruit.” The Sailec specials sailed onto the table, sunny-side-up eggs on creamed spinach sea, housemade sausages docked along mountainous hash brown islands. “I’ll leave the check here.” The model/actor/whatever had a velvety voice. “You ladies stay as long as you like.” The work grind continued. Katie found that weeks were dripping off the calendar without delineation. At some point in the blur, she’d received a “Yay! I’m employed!” text from Lisa and sent back thumbs-up emojis, but she hadn’t had time to follow up. The project launched late, gimpy and over budget, making the obligatory launch party a kind of happy/sad event. The team drank their free booze and unsuccessfully attempted to avoid talking about work. On the train home, Katie was resolving to get her life back in order, reach out to friends, maybe use the gym membership a few times. A text came in from Lisa, “We’re big in Japan, baby!” It was followed by three chicken heads and a run of exclamation points. As she emerged from the train tunnel, Katie ran a search for Lisa’s recent emails, pulling up one labeled NSFW!! with a video link. Girls wearing nothing but neon-colored feather boas romping in a room full of straw. Giant chickens. Oh my god. Now it was Lisa who was too busy to meet up. As a producer for ComedySexx, she ran live shows across the world promote the online content. Her Instagram feed began to resemble Last Night’s Party with a stream of international hashtags. A box filled with ChickenFucker merch arrived at Katie’s flat on a Saturday morning. She read the note, full of xoxo from Lisa, kicked the box into a corner and poured the cream into her iced cold-brew. When they finally met up again, it was for cocktails on a random Tuesday. They talked about the heat wave, Katie’s new project team, Lisa’s latest liquor tie-in, the way the neighborhood was changing. Katie didn’t offer any personal information. Lisa didn’t ask any probing questions. She certainly didn’t bring up dreams or chickens. They drank their cocktails quickly, made plausible apologies about work overload, and parted with a mixture of immediate relief blended with wistful sadness. Despite verbal omissions, each sensed the unspoken chickens looming in the space between them.

[thejanuaryist]

Grotto

Along the left side of a long corridor of sculpted trees and curved flower beds, all meticulously planned over the winter by the king’s head gardener, there was a dark tangle of woods and a grotto. Although these features appeared unkempt, both were as intentional as the scheduled progression from early crocus to squill, forsythia to azalea running up to phlox, rudbeckia and finally, autumn asters and pansies that withstood all but the very coldest days of January, despite some misplaced reputation of tenderness. Meanwhile, the princess, healthy and headstrong, pushed through the tangle of woods and settled her layers of silk across a smooth rock beside the grotto. She waited and watched until a creature emerged from the crevices, copper-red and leathery, angular ridges along its back, coal dark eyes surveying the day-lit scene. The princess tossed her golden ball into the depths of the grotto, and cried, “Oh, magic frog, my beautiful golden ball has dropped into blackness. Now I am inconsolable.” As the creature stared back at the princess, she noticed its eyes were rimmed in an iridescent gold. It lifted each sphere-tipped toe in sequence, as if accounting for something. “Creature, I know you are the magic frog of legend. I assure that you will be rewarded handsomely if you return to me my golden ball.” As gentle morning light crept across the back of the creature she could see the highlights in its rusty bumps, brilliant orange on a bed of platinum. It adjusted its position, settling more comfortably on the rocks. “Your unwillingness to do my bidding is perplexing. I am the most stunning of all the princesses. Can’t you see that my hair is like the golden rays of the sun and my skin is the purest milky white? These gowns are Chinese silks dyed in murex, that flame-bright liquid drawn from diver shells in the waters of Hydrantum. The trimming is real gold. The very nose on my face represents more than sixteen generations of careful breeding. These delicate fingers have never seen labor. Are you in no way bewitched by my charms?” Despite the impassioned speech, the creature had lost all interest in the princess, focusing its attention on a cricket, newly emerged from the shadows. “Creature, I will give you one last chance, and know that I am powerful. If you refuse to answer me, I will have my father drain this pond and erect another massive gazebo.” In one lightning strike, the creature’s sticky tongue wrapped the cricket and dragged it back to an open mouth. Though it kicked and pulled, the cricket was consumed in a single bite. The princess recoiled, revolted at the sight of continued punching motions that disturbed the creature’s stomach. Eventually, she began to weep and slowly climbed down into the pool to retrieve the golden ball herself, soaking her gowns in the cold (but ultimately quite shallow) waters. After she’d dragged away from the grotto, skin horripilating, locks matted, looking more like a hound caught in the rain than the daughter of a king, the creature smiled, chuckled and called out after her, “Magic Toad owes you nothing.” Down the path, she stopped and half-turned, almost convinced that she’d heard a voice, but all she saw were the rocks and reeds.

[thejanuaryist]

The Well

There was a quiet village on the endless plain, an island on the sea of rolling meadow. In the center of the town near the courthouse, adjacent to the line of shops, stood a small stone well. The water from the well was sweet and satisfying, cool and consistent. There was always enough. No-one questioned whether the bucket might one day return from the darkness rattling, empty. The bucket was damp and full. What else would a well-bucket be? On the anniversary of its hundredth year, the village staged a massive celebration in an open field down the road. A site was chosen near the rocky creek bed, a wild spot said to be ancient, full of spirits that nested in white pines and red maples. Across three days in the cool, frogsong evenings of June, the village encamped to the grove. Long-gone sons and daughters returned to celebrate. Artists and tradesmen, bankers and peddlers. They arrived on bicycles. They road in on pack animals. Attracted by the crowd, a circus stopped in, spangled fairies, leaping imps, dazzling satin musicians, fanged and frothing beasts. Days of wonder and feasting, nights of fire and dancing flesh. The morning after the third day was slow and queasy. The circus and cider had vanished overnight. Cicadas screeched in the treetops while stragglers washed up in the creek. Nobody felt up to making eye contact. The return to town was a creaky parade of cranky corpses who fell into dark houses, chewing sage leaves and lolling on mattresses. A boy called into the empty square. “The well! The well!” No-one paid him much mind. There was so little mind to give. But the next morning, a crowd gathered around the well in wonder and fear. The bucket went down, the bucket came up. The bucket was dry. “You’re doing it wrong. Let me do it.” “This can’t be… It’s impossible.” “I told you. I told you all. God’s judgment is on us.” “We’ll go back to the creek. Put your barrels on my wagon.” Priests and scholars were summoned to the well. Prayers and experiments ensued. The philosopher held a meeting on the nature of existence, using the well as a metaphor. When does a well stop being a well? At what point does the well transform into a hole? Households began hoarding. Peddlers added water bottles to their carts. Families constructed rain catchers to harvest moisture from the roofs. When prayers and science failed, the priests and scholars slunk away. Last hopes evaporated. The grass yellowed. The bucket remained dry. Blame spread through the village. A campaign against old widow Simmons hissed in the shadows. Dangerous suggestions leaked out like vapor from the crevices. A small mob gathered near the square, cloaked in hoods on a too-hot Saturday morning. Beating hearts, quivering fingers. Chapped lips spat droplets of evil. Across the way, a covered wagon rolled into the village, tucked and tidy, adorned in buckets. It was drawn by chestnut ponies and followed by a pair of black-muscled steers who shimmered, whitebacked, in the morning sun. A young girl, strong and braided, jumped off the bench and stepped up to the well. Before anyone could stop her, she drew up the bucket, pouring water for the horses. As she sent the bucket down again, a barefoot boy set out a trough for the oxen, and she filled that, too. The clutching mob watched agape, then loosened. Tools tucked away into pouches and pockets, it dispersed anonymously. The hooded leader, serpent-lipped and spirited, continued shouting fearful proclamations down the slowly waking walls. As the wagon picked up its troughs and pulled away past the courthouse, curious folk approached the well with eager hands and hopeful jars. Again and again, the bucket came up full. The water ran, cool and sweet, as if it always had and always would. Rumors bloomed in every mouth, but no-one had a real explanation. And though the well never failed again, a generation passed before the thirst was quenched.

[thejanuaryist]

Gotta re-post this. As per usual, @jackrusher is spot on… the lack of interaction on this platform really brings me down.

I miss being able to comment on each other’s posts. Januariad is more lonely without those little notes. There’s no easy way to riff back and forth, no way to tell—

— the @januaryist her 🐮🔥 story nearly killed me, or

— @mmichaelmcelroy that Kong is the best thing of his I’ve read, or

— @portersnotebook how many times I laughed while I was Unhitching the Lizard, or

— @galalc that he can use my Bicycle if he needs it, or

— @kayseerights that she should keep listening to her cat, or

— @mollyculetheory that no one knows the Circus the way she does, or

— @laurenpapot how much I like her drawings

… and so I’m saying it here, and I also say that next year we go somewhere else for the Januariad, somewhere that let’s the chatter flow among us as a reminder that we’re not alone as we face the hard work of this cold month.

[thejanuaryist]

Replacements

The marsh burbled. The reeds shook. The water rippled. The beat rose.

Fingers, then hands, arms and whole bodies thrashed their way up through the water. Tacky grey-black feet touched firm ground. Joints twisted. Sopping hair slopped against leathery skin.

And then, one of them began to sing.

“We fen as fuck, draggin' rhymes through the muck, lay it down on the wasteland, beats in the wet sand. Words unholy, dripping out slowly…”

“Is this rap?,” asked Gran, looking up from her reader. “It looks like Thriller. Do you even know who Michael Jackson is?”

“Of course. Jackson plays for Arsenal.”

“But that’s… never mind.” She settled the reader into its recharge base. “Is this what kids are listening to now?”

“Oh, Gran… this is trashhop. It’s SO OLD.” Jeskola spat the words out with disgust, rolling her eyes with the mortification that pre-teens seem to pick up all of a sudden, like a virus. Wasn’t it only a few days ago that she’d been a child?

“I have to do a paper on bog bodies. That’s the ONLY reason I’m watching this.”

“We fen as fuck, hit you like a Mack truck. Drop you hard like the old ones, tossing back cold ones…”

Stacy shuffled into the kitchen and opened the cupboard. Seaweed-nut bars. Algae crackers. Instant laverbread tempura. Exoflour cookies with carob chips. Strawberry-flavored agar spread.

She picked up the Exoflour cookies and scanned the label, looking for something that might have grown on an old-fashioned farm, the kind of place she lived when she was Jeskola’s age. It was all bug ranching and sea farming now. Not much there. Maybe the sugar beets and soy oil.

She sat at the table and nibbled one of the cookies. It was sweet, crisp and lifeless. In a coloring book, it would have been a pale gray disc, unnoticed among sunny richness of the shortbreads, the darkness of half-charred raisins in the oatmeal cookies, the spicy bite of the gingersnaps playing off a base of mellow molasses.

The standard Cavendish bananas Stacy had always known had died off years ago, replaced by the more lemony Goldfinger variety.

Jeskola and her mother didn’t notice. They couldn’t have noticed. To them, these gray cookies were the world’s definition of cookies. These bananas were their bananas. The music Jeskola listened to was music. The kitchen lighting and countertop surfaces represented the way things always were. There was never any “before.”

All the things Stacy had known in childhood — lightbulbs, books, music, dances, language, the furniture in the homes, the fabrics she wore. Replaced. All of it. Faster, cheaper, more efficient manufacture and distribution. Strange materials. Shifted perspectives.

These people had no memory of truffle butter or Jamón Serrano. They didn’t crave the juice that ran out of August peaches. Why would they need those things? They had agar spread and carrageenan pops.

She put the cookies back on the shelf. In another life, she’d worked as a food critic. Now Stacy realized there were no more jobs as food critics. It occured to her that she was no longer even Stacy. She was Gran, the old one. The one who was out of time, out of sync, living in a world that didn’t exist.

“Will you read this, Gran?” Jeskola set her tablet on the table. “I’m gonna make kombu patties. You want one?”

“Sure. Why not?” Gran watched her granddaughter, the long-limbed, clever girl. Dark-eyed, like herself. Similar in facial structure, but more confident and studious than she’d been.

Jeskola moved boldly through the world that was hers, owning her space, right in her time. An improvement on the original. A worthy replacement.

[thejanuaryist]

GoodBuy

Lena waved at Michael from the doorway. She hated to interrupt him during work, but she needed to engage a second brain. “I’m going to the store.”

“Ahhh… hold on.” He disengaged from his headset.

Lena repeated, “The store. What do we need?”

“Okay. The store. Like the food store?”

“Yeah. Where they keep the food. We need milk and something for dinner.”

“Also coffee. The oranges have been nice. Maybe more of those?”

“Good idea. I’m going to try to get hot chocolate, too. It’s supposed to be cold tonight.”

“Do you need money?”

“I’m going to GoodBuy, so it shouldn’t be that much.”

“Ugh. GoodBuy?” He shuddered. “Really? Have we come to that? Well… good luck.”

Lena stepped into the bus. In the post-rush hour timeslot, all the worker bees were working. Now it was only Lena, an old man with a newspaper and a Chinese woman surrounded by shopping bags bulging with… what, exactly? Empty plastic bottles? Without people filling the seats, the bus seemed to rattled all the more.

She had her phone, but didn’t feel like looking at it. As much as she knew the rejection letters were impersonal (it was nearly the same text every time… she knew everyone must be using the same legal boilerplate to minimize risk), they still hurt somehow.

The electronic scanner at the door greeted her with undue brightness. “Good morning smart shopper! Today is a great day for GoodBuy! Insert your customer card and select shopping assistance now.”

The selections appeared on the screen in three flavors: a big, green Full Assistance button, orange for Normal Assistance and purple for Minimal Assistance. Of course there was also a smaller gray button off to the side for “No Assistant,” but nobody came to GoodBuy for that.

Lena sighed and pressed green. “Now that’s a GoodBuy! You’ll get the full discount package today. Put on your headset and get ready for smart shopping!”

She took the basket and headset. There was no way to adjust the volume, but she’d learned that if she moved the ear cups farther down, they rode on her jaw more than her ears, so the voice wasn’t quite as loud. Pro tip for the unemployed.

She briefly thought about writing it up as a blog post, but the GoodBuy social media team would probably just report it to the engineering team and then she’d have her ears blasted like everyone else.

All the promotional blah blah started right away, before she even got near the food. GoodBuy seemed especially self-congratulatory.

She chose a rolling basket and made a beeline to the oranges. “Hold on there, Lena! You don’t want to miss out on the luscious fruit flavor of JoosClens. These super-detox juice drinks are made with the flavors of pineapple, lemon, kale, spinach and ginger juice with just a hint of cayenne…”

It was hard to tune out, but she picked out the nicest-looking oranges and moved on to the bagged salads. “Salad is great, but no salad is complete without Baconauts! Launch your tastebuds into orbit! Baconauts have all the bacon flavor you love, but none of the fat. You’ll get a special deal on Baconauts today, Lena. Buy one, get one free!”

Baconauts. Okay. Why not? Michael liked them. She put two canisters in the cart beside the oranges and the arugula.

As Lena moved through the store, the voices talked, sang, made terrible puns, interrupted each other. It was madness. It was exhausting.

Turning into the canned goods aisle, she saw a long, thin retiree dressed in a navy blue rain jacket topped with a flowered scarf. The woman seemed frozen, staring, her crepe hand gently resting on a squeeze-ketchup display.

When she reached for a can of chickpeas, the Beano jingle triggered across the big screen. Undulating cartoon intestines shimmied to a synthetic samba. She tore herself away, but the jingle persisted until it was interrupted by the spiel triggered off a cracker endcap.

By the time she reached the ice creams, Lena felt dizzy and had to brace herself against a concrete column. Closing her eyes, she rested her forehead on a Haagen-Das poster. It was cool and smooth. She ached to take off the headset, but the sensors would detect that. Her discounts would begin to dissolve away.

She took a deep breath and checked the basket. Oranges, lettuce, tomatoes, hamburger, chicken thighs, chickpeas, coffee, paper towels, Baconauts. Maaaaalala Lemontina! Lemontina, I adore. Lemontina, give me more. Ma la la Lemontina!

Get out. Get out. Get out.

Lena struggled to navigate to the cashier, past the flash displays, past the bargain screens and the impulse buys.

Even as she ran barcodes across the scanner, the ads for items within grabbing distance played on and on. At last, the credit card swiped, it was almost over.

“You’re a smart shopper, Lena! Today you saved eleven dollars and forty six cents! Did you know you can double that in an Amazon credit? Just say or touch Amazon on the screen.”

“No, dammit. Give me my discount.”

Lena threw her headset in the bin, stuffed the receipt in the bag and ran out of the building.

She collapsed into a seat on the bus, thankful for the space, the cool air, the empty rattle. Oh god, the milk. The fucking milk. She’d completely missed the dairy aisle. No hot chocolate, either. Another failure.

I’ll get it at the bodega. I’ll pay double. I don’t fucking care anymore.

Six dollars for organic. Still a five-dollar savings overall.

Past the sticky window, she watched the buildings transform from low brick to shining steel and glass.

It wasn’t worth it. She knew that. The bus trip alone cost more than five dollars. It all felt like some kind of penance for the sin of unemployment.

The bus paused in traffic while the lunch crowd gathered, lining up for a turn at the burger counters and salad bars. Lena singled out a dark-haired woman her own age. She was vaping while she waited, laughing with a friend.

Ten more applications this afternoon. After ten, I’ll get into a bubble bath.

[thejanuaryist]

Cowmunicate

McGinty’s device fascination started at the farm show. Wandering through the halls, collecting freebie ball-point pens and hard candies, he encountered MooMe, a wireless unit that strapped onto the tail of a pregnant cow. When the calf began to emerge, the tail elevated, the device picked up the signal and the farmer got a text. Ingenious, really. McGinty wished he’d invented it himself. He immediately signed on for a subscription with a trio of the strap-on monitors. They were lightweight, durable, easy to install, and strong enough to withstand the slobber and nibbles of curious cattle. The neighbors were as curious as the cows, and there was some early jeering, of course, but he saw how impressed they all were when he got a push message at the pub on a Saturday night. McGinty downed his drink, took up his coat and met Bess in the barn. As he rolled up his sleeves and washed his hands, the hooves were already emerging. It took four years of tinkering before he had a solid prototype of his own wireless device, Cowmunicate. Based a simplified version of standard texting, McGinty fashioned a plastic-coated keyboard and screen oriented at an ergonomically correct position for the cows. For the prototype, he selected a handful of icons and made them big. Cattle don’t actually see red or green (despite centuries of flag-waving by matadors) and their vision in yellow and blue is limited, so he used black and white. After an initial round of licking and nudging, with corresponding piles of SMS garbage on his phone, the herd proved to be wholly uninterested in the Cowmunicate panel. In time, McGinty realized the cows weren’t the right audience. He needed to focus on the next generation. He lowered the height of the nudge-screen and started coaching a promising weanling named Heather. To his delight, Heather picked up the system quickly. When she nuzzled 💧, he gave her a bucket of water. When she nuzzled 🌽 or 🌾, he brought her feed. Over time, he raised the nudge-screen to accommodate her growth and included more icons, especially from nature and food sets. On an especially cold morning in January, he received his first compound emoji SMS: ❄💧 He pulled on boots and went to the barn. The heating unit had failed and the outdoor water tank was frozen over. McGinty used a shovel to bust up the layer of ice. He scratched Heather between the ears. After the exhausting calving season, McGinty had a little more time to spare, and he expanded the nudge-screen again, installing multiple menus. Heather was a clever cow, no question, but this concept would probably be beyond her abilities. Still, McGinty hoped to have something mind-blowing to show off at the farm show. Heather found the new panels and became a naturalist, observing her surroundings. She located the birds and the butterflies and the field mice. She reported planes flying overhead. When there was a problem with the fence, she started texting ⛩. It took him a week to piece that message together. Unfortunately, McGinty quickly learned that Heather’s new favorite SMS was 💩. Once she found it, no poo went untexted, and Heather pooped up to 15 times a day. At the pub, Old Man Jones sneaked a peek at McGinty’s screen and nearly blew up the whole project. “So McGinty… Who’s this Heather with the shite fetish?” “Ah, that’s the daughter of my old friend Daniels. She’s just now learning the phone. You know how the kids are.” Another text came in: 🔥🔥🔥 Jones poked a finger at the screen. “Well, she might need a 999 call. But maybe not. You never know with kids.” McGinty didn’t know, but he threw down a fiver and hustled into his car. He saw the smoke as soon as he rounded the bend and he hit the brakes. “Shit shit shit” He stopped to call the fire brigade from his cell. 🔥🐮🔥🐮 Flames roiling up. Black smoke rolling out. The herd in the field watched wide-eyed, skittish, terrified. 🔥🐮👻👽🤖 The fire sirens arrived to drown out awful cries from inside the barn. McGinty threw up in the hedgerow. They ruled it an electrical fire. A beam had fallen, blocking the doorway. Heather and two others were trapped inside. McGinty didn’t… he couldn’t rebuild the nudge-screen. It made him sick to think of it. He gathered all the Cowmunicate documents and pushed them deep into the filing cabinet. When they erected the new, aluminum barn, he added wireless fire-detection. During the next calving season, he picked out the prettiest one with gentle red splotches and chocolate-brown eyes. He named her Heather.

[thejanuaryist]

Bone Glue

The old man looked fresh at breakfast. He stared wide-eyed into space as he chewed. His sons knew the look of his visions. When he finished his beer, he set aside the pottage bowl. “Joen, I want a fresh surface today. Three panels in oak.” “Ja, Vater.” Joen, the eldest, was a painter as well, but it was his father’s renown that won commissions and kept the household. In the studio, the boy poured hot water into rabbit-skin pulver, stirring the blend from egg-white consistency to a soft jelly. He worked quickly across the panels, spreading long strokes until the glue thickened to a gel. With one section remaining, he returned to the fire to melt it again. The old man addressed his cabinet as soon as he entered the studio. He placed the jars along the table. Lazurite, Nicosia Green Earth, Pozzuoli Red and Cyprus Raw Umber. He paused, holding the German Vine Black. “Joen, I want you to go into town today.” “Ja, Vater.” “Take my bag of geld here. Go down to the docks.”
 “The docks, Vater?” “I need you to go to the docks, inns and brothels, Joen. You must watch the people there, and take note of the details. I need horrible, sordid things. Bring them home to me, son. I will work on paradise here while you go out to find purgatory.” Joen paused, setting down the gelling glue bowl. “What will I tell Moeder?” “I will tell her that I have sent you for Schijtgeel and Vivianite. These pigments are very rare. It will take time for you to find them. Go out. Stay safe, but bring home filth.” **** Joen returned after four days gone. He showed a pasty pallor and slept twelve hours straight. When he woke, he sipped broth. “Vater, I have seen the wages of sin.” “You are a good boy, Joen. Today we begin sketches for the second panel.” Together they spoke and sketched. Parades and piles of naked men, women and animals. Fruit crushed across bodies. Fleshy orgy acrobatics, mountains of skin. Bottles, ribbons and flowers in orifices. Slovenly fluids. Lolling eyeballs, wandering fingers, lost tongues. For weeks, they drew and painted. The second panel grew dense with flesh. The master was unsatisfied. “We are on the brink of the vision, Joen, but I need more. Go back to the dark places. Find the medicines of the mystics. I will tell Moeder that I’ve sent you to London.” **** After two weeks, Joen returned, unwashed, unshaven. His skin resembled the nauseated yellow-gray of the sky along the winter sea. The old man met him at his bedside. “Have you brought me visions, Joen?” The boy whispered of the horrors evoked by Crimean mushrooms, crushed Persian powders and strange French tinctures. A woman caressing a giant sea bass. A man making love to a wide-eyed owl. A mass of nude travelers entering a carriage-sized egg. A cascade of crows. Pearlescent pink palaces lined with blue veins. Silvery sea people with fishy tails. Pyramids of masked debauchery ringed in a garland of vines and rotted fruit. Insectile orbs and crustacean-shell houses. Again they attacked the center panel, filling every conceivable space with man’s fleshy lust and the soul-less desires of the mindless beasts and foul. Joen’s nightmares continued in his dreams. He recorded the details and described the images to his father, who painted them into the landscape. Each day, the panel grew more mad, erotic, unspeakable. The very sight of it made Joen twitchy. “I have to go out again, Vater. There’s more, worse, still out there.” The old man nodded. “The third panel must give them hell. The workhouse, the madhouse, the infirmary. Demons and tortures. They must know what it is to suffer.” **** More than a month passed, and Moeder threw a fit when Joen was delivered to their door, pocked with a rash, coughing, laughing, frothing and sputtering jibberjabber. When the nightmare thrashing took him, they tied him to the bed and forced him to eat chicken porridge and gin. Shouting and shuddering eventually waned, and when the silence settled in, the old man took Joen, gaunt, bloodshot and cocooned in blankets, to sit in the chair beside the fire. “Now tell me, son,” said the old man, his voice eager, his eyes flashing, “tell me all you’ve seen of hell.”