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April 17, 2015

From “The Serial Lifer” by Letisha Frieler

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Mattheson looked at the shambling zombie walking gaily down main street, protected by a police cordon from curious onlookers. The corpse had been carefully dressed in someone’s Sunday finest and given a complete makeover with wig, silicone prostheses, and foundation–enough that it could almost pass for alive.

“Interpol says that it’s the body of one Tobias Kurz, born 1937 in Munich and died 2013 here in town,” said Wilson, flipping through his files. “It looks like he’s trying to go to his favorite breakfast spot.”

“Too bad it closed last year,” said Mattheson. “How many is this now, Wilson?”

“Three,” Wilson said. “One every two weeks or so. Same modus: tarting them up like they’re still alive.”

Nodding, Mattheson kept his eye on Mr. Kurz’s shambling zombie as it attempted to politely lift its had to someone cowering inside a storefront. “Three or more victims…likely done for psychological gratification…totaling more than a month’s time…including a significant “cooling off period” between each of them…”

“Yeah,” said Wilson. “It fits the classical definition. We’ve got a serial lifer out there, compulsively bringing people back from the dead, and we have no idea where they might strike next.”

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April 16, 2015

From “An Unsolicited Egg” by Gauci Goldenstein

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With delighted quibbles, the bird alights. A cuckoo enters the nest, level and light, balancing a bit to clutch twigs for a smaller bird. A nearby sparrow shouts a warning as the interloper lays a fake.

A sparrow weathers the events beside his hen, an apology unspoken between them. The hen runs claws against her clutch, against the interloper. Nearby, in the leaves, the cuckoo waits: ready to wreck nest and meat within should things go ill.

The sparrows have decided. They will keep the child and love it with offerings of chitin as if it were their very own. Perhaps their love will be enough, and their child will no longer savage the nests of others but build its own.

Theirs is the hope of a doomed generation.

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April 15, 2015

From “Three Cold Paragraphs” by Schroader Applegarth

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An overpriced athlete’s performance displays her superior winter genetics, her impractical spinning icebound combat halted by a sudden whistle, a sudden horror.

A misrepresented prophet puzzles, her invective punctuated with an ambiguous lisp. It was not always thus; need it always be?

Why does the senior horde beam so, grinning beneath the ceiling fan amid a puzzling void? She sits there among them, lost in thoughts of corkscrews on the ice.

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April 14, 2015

From “The Doomchairs FAQ” by the Delta Doombrary

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Q: How comfortable are the doomchairs?

A: The doomchairs are as comfortable as one’s doom. So if you die safe in bed, they are actually very comfortable and many such foredoomed patrons can be found napping in them. However, if your doom is much more exciting–exploding in a reentry rocket, assassination by car bomb, or the like–the doomchairs are, to put it mildly, intensely uncomfortable. No actual physical harm can come from using a doomchair, but the sensation of being burned alive makes them unpopular with foredoomed patrons who have interesting demises.

Q: Can I use a doomchair to learn my ultimate fate and thereby change it?

A: No. The sensations are unspecific and even trained doomologists are generally unable to learn any significant details. Patrons have reported feeling different sensations at different times, but the Delta Doombrary has no reliable information indicating that lifestyle changes can lead to different dooms. This makes sense when one realizes that many such dooms are accidental in nature and cannot be predicted.

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April 13, 2015

From “Dr. Josiah Darkshadow, DDA” by Anonymous

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To the Friends of Evil everywhere, Good Evening
Be it known that
JOSIAH DARKSHADOW
having completed the required course of study, is this day, by action of the Faculty and of the Board of Untrustees, declared a
DOCTOR OF DARK ARTS
of the UNIVERSITY OF DOOM and is admitted
to all rights and privileges accruing thereto.
In testimony whereof this diploma duly certified by the signatures
of the proper officers, and the seal of the University, affixed this the
31ST day of FEBRUARY in the year of our Dark Lord 2015 and in the 666TH
year of the University.

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April 12, 2015

From “87-Octane Rhyme-Free Fuel for Orange Cars” by Chrysalis Motor Co. Inc.

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REMINDER
Orange cars require special maintenance and fuel. Because nothing rhymes with “orange,” maintenance must be performed monthly (as nothing rhymes with “month” either) rather than yearly or after a period of weeks. Special non-rhyming fuel must also be used for orange cars; attempts to use rhyming fuel will result in catastrophic engine damage. Care must also be taken to use only oil whose hydrocarbons are unrhymed stanzas.

The converse of these requirements is that the chances of a rhyming accident, in which two automobiles are fused into a single poem, is nil. Orange cars are also immune to the kind of scansion, parallelism, and other minor damage that affects colors whith rhyming colors like red or blue.

Only you can decide if an orange car is right for you; consult your Chrysalis Motors handbook or visit your local dealer for more information.

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April 11, 2015

From “The Pirate Ferry MV Huron of the Great Lakes” by Greason Lukehart

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The captain and crew had abandoned ship, leaving Murray and his band of retirees in complete control of the MV Huron.

John One and John Two had been in the Navy during the Korean War, so they knew enough to get the boat underway. John Three and Edgar had been in the Marines, so they knew how to bust open the arms locker. Not that a motor ferry on the Great Lakes had any great quantity of small arms, mind. But a line gun, an assortment of Orion flare guns, and a Marlin Mariner with half a dozen signal rounds and another half-dozen of no. 8 birdshot were enough to make anyone at least think twice about boarding.

Murray called a meeting on the bridge. “The way I see it,” he said, “we’ve got two options. Option one, we go ashore right now and turn ourselves in. Face the music. We kind of got caught up in something that got out of hand, and they might go easy on us since we’re old as hell and likely to die in jail before we learn our lesson.”

“What’s option two?” said John Three.

“Option two is we fuel up this tub before anyone realizes what’s up and set out for open water. Take what we need from the assholes in boats and stay ahead of a Coast Guard that hasn’t dealt with anything bigger than meth heads in rowboats for a hundred years.”

Looking at the faces of his friends, Murray saw that he scarcely needed to call a vote of any kind. The pirate career of the MV Huron had begun, the first such pirate to sail the Great Lakes in living memory.

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April 10, 2015

From “Trees of Ramal Park and Their Personalities” by Lira Karpman

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The Leaning Tree has been slowly tilting over the years as the sandy soil to its northwest subsides. It has but a decade or less left in its long life, and it knows this. It puts desperate seeds to the winds, hoping to compensate for a life cut short with many strong and upright children.

The Twisted Tree came from a bad seed, warped as it grew both by the poor soil and a stillborn twin that died when it was but a twig. One would expect this to breed a most bitter wood, wormy and weak, but in fact the Twisted Tree has the strongest flesh of all its compatriots. It must, for a consequence of its nature is that its seeds are infertile and will never bloom, and it has quietly resolved to live forever as a result.

It is remarkable that the Twins, seperated by 100 yards, both tilt into the wind at exactly the same angle. What’s more remarkable is that they are actually the same tree: born of different seeds from different parents, their root systems have found each other and merged deep in the topsoil. They share nitrogen, nutrients, memories. Their children are a perfect mix of the two.

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April 9, 2015

From “Review: The Great Unmaking” by Isola Playford

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Pallafor, Yodis. The Great Unmaking: How Mississippi Will Fare in the Doomtimes. Jackson: Universal Press of Alternate Mississippi, 1206 ACE.

Mr. Pallafor has a firm vision of what he calls the Doomtimes, the end of all life in Mississippi (and Mississippi alone); he sets these ideas forth in this screed, due out from UPAM soon and available for preorder.

The overall thesis of Pallafor’s Doomtimes is that an 11.0 earthquake will occur along the New Madrid fault, causing the Mississippi River to change direction once again and sucking up vast quantities of seawater to inundate the Delta and most low-lying areas of the state with brackish water. This will, he writes, then lead a race of crawdads, mutated and given intelligence by the BP oil spill of 2010, to enter the state and dominate the surviving humans.

As support for his claims, Mr. Pallafor offers up verbatim transcripts of conversations he had with the archangel Metamucil after suffering a series of blows to the head as part of the confirmation process for his former position on the Mississippi IHL. These, serving as a lengthy appendix, are exhaustively indexed and cross-referenced.

While this title is probably not suitable for school, public, university, or special libraries, it certainly belongs in any Mississippi Doombrary worth its salt, and indeed the first inscribed copy was donated to the Delta Doombrary after publication.

Isola Playford
Underlibrarian
Mississippi Delta Doombrary

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April 8, 2015

From “Review: A Guide to Mississippi Fanfiction” by Floro Alpis

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Poydras, Fiallo. A Guide to Mississippi Fanfiction. R’lyeh: Great Auk, 2016.

As readers of Fifty Shades of Grey can attest, fanfiction—works written by fans based on existing universes but not authorized or condoned by rightsholders—has never been hotter. However, the existing treatment of fanfiction tends to dwell on the phenomenon at a macro level for very popular milieus. Twilight, Harry Potter, Star Trek…all of these have been well-covered by other authors at length.

However, Mr. Poydras—an amateur working out of Biloxi—has undertaken to write the first guide to fanfiction written by Mississippians about Mississippians. His encyclopedic volume, complete through August of 2010, features extensive treatment of the Faulkner fanfics that are so popular in Mississippi circles. Special attention is paid to the Yoknapatawpha Wars cycle, an epic tale in 27 volumes that brings characters and situations from As I Lay Dying and Sanctuary into a 31st-century setting dominated by space zombies.

Poydras also treats Eudora Welty fanfiction—so-called Weltfic—at some length, though it is clear that his interests lie more with Faulkfic and the intense subculture of Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote slashfics, which re-imagines the characters and situations of those writers in intense and often lurid heterosexual relationships.

That weakness aside, this volume is recommended for all libraries, especially those with large numbers of circulating vampire movies.

Floro Alpis
Director
Yoknapatawpha County Public Library

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