Jupiter 37: Kale

By Ian Redman

Featuring 6 brilliant new stories from Krishan Coupland, Aliya Whiteley, Douglas Thompson, Chris Bailey, Jack Ford and Simon Petrie. Also a wonderful cover by Sam Mardon.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ian Redman
• Release date: Jun 13, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301393954

Ian Redman

I edit Jupiter, a Science Fiction short story magazine published every quarter in the UK

Book preview

Table of Contents

Jupiter XXXVII : Kale

Editorial

Apples

Krishan Coupland

Midnight Midnight

Aliya Whiteley

Centauri

Douglas Thompson

Avert

Chris Bailey

The Blog of Revelations

Jack Ford

Sky Pie

Simon Petrie

Contributors

Don’t Miss An Issue!

Jupiter XXXVII : Kale

July 2012

Jupiter is edited by: Ian Redman

Write to Jupiter at: Jupiter, 4 Stoneleigh Mews, Yeovil, Somerset, BA21 3UT, UK. or e-mail to: [e-mail] Further information from www.jupitersf.co.uk

All comments or enquires about advertising should be sent to the above address.

Submissions: Stories to 10,000 words. Poetry to 25 lines. Artwork - cover and for use with stories, please send examples first (copies).

Full guidelines at www.jupitersf.co.uk/wguide.htm.

Copyright (2012) for this collection, Ian Redman. Published at Smashwords. Rights to individual contributions remain the property of the relevant writer/artist. The views expressed in Jupiter are not necessarily those of the editor or of the magazine or publisher. Any resemblance between any of the characters depicted and anyone alive or dead is purely coincidental.

Editorial

Welcome to Kale. We’ve got 6 great new stories for you this issue. Most of the authors are new to Jupiter, in the case of Jack, this is his first publication. Simion Petrie returns with his second story in Jupiter, his first, M.R.E, was published way back in Harpalyke (issue 22). Sam returns from gracing the cover of Orthosie (issue 35) with another fine piece of artwork.

I’ve really enjoyed putting this issue together, I think it’s a good one. I hope you enjoy it too.

Enjoy!

Ian

editor - Jupiter

Apples

Krishan Coupland

Adam

There’s this memory I have from before the Shake. Father says I shouldn’t think about the past because the past is full of nothing but wickedness, but this memory… it doesn’t seem too terrible. I’m five years old and I’m watching my dad as he shaves. The mirror’s misted up, but he’s cleared a little patch so that he can see what he’s doing. Water runs in the bath behind us, steaming. I only come up to his middle. I am wearing my new, scratchy school uniform, which leaves trails of blue fluff all over my shirt. I am warm and clean and happy and well.

But of course, that’s all over now. My real dad is dead and my home is dust. All there is now is Father. I don’t know how long it has been since the two of us set off on our journey. At first I tried to keep count of days, but the days became months and years, and after that it seemed pointless. Every day that passes is the same: an endless grey landscape of decaying houses, fallen trees. Plants rot where once they grew; fields of wheat and hay become fields of gorse; cow herds turn to huddles of bone. The streets are wild with dogs and rats, the dead abandoned, split open and drying to black leather. Cars sink on baggy wheels, red-rusted, wasted. And through it all the two of us trek, alone, hating each other, trapped in a pilgrimage the end of which never seems in sight.

***

Clare

You need to bleed before you can have a baby. I don’t like it, but Mother says it is necessary and that it is a sacrifice. What she means is, you have to put up with the bleeding and the cramps and everything so that later on you can have a baby inside of you. Mother knows all about these things.

Also, you need a boy. Mother says that there is still one left, out there somewhere, and that when the time is right we’ll find each other, and be together and make a baby. Mother doesn’t bleed, and I’m the only other girl left after the Shake, and that’s why it’s so important. I’ll bear the next generation and make the world alive again. That’s what Mother says.

Sometimes, though, I don’t think it is fair, how I have to bleed and get pregnant and give birth and all this boy has to do is be with me. Mother says that is the way it always has been, and that is the way it should be. Not like what the Old-Timers did.

The Old-Timers were the ones who were around before the Shake, and they had all these awful, wicked ways. Like they used to make babies by cooking them up in bottles, or mixing together bits from people who had died. Unnatural, awful things. The Old-Timers had all sorts of wicked inventions and ideas, and that is why they died out, and left me all alone. That’s why it’s my destiny to bleed and to sacrifice, and one day to make a baby, and bring the world back to life.

***

Adam

When I’m bad Father takes away my lighter. It’s a long-necked metal thing with a little silver bottle of gas in the handle. I scavenged it from a hardware store three weeks ago, after my Zippo finally ran out of fuel. Father only ever lets me have one lighter at a time, so that if I’m bad he can punish me by taking it away.

Without a lighter I can’t make a fire. Without a fire I can’t sleep. That’s why it’s a punishment. I hate the dark and Father knows it. I hate watching my own body disappear, holding a hand an inch from my face and seeing nothing. In that blind hot dark my imagination runs away with me. I see things. Monsters. Eyes and teeth and glinting claws. And so I cry, and I beg and I say I’m sorry. But Father won’t speak to comfort me, not if I’ve been bad. He just sits there silent and invisible, listening to me scream for him all night long.

***

Clare

We’re sitting together in the grove, in the sunlight, and Mother’s telling me all about the Old-Timers and how they put an end to themselves with their wild, evil ways. This is a story she likes to tell. See, they had these weapons, Mother calls them bombs, which they would throw at each other, or drop out of machines, or hide in crowded places to explode and send metal and fire everywhere, and kill lots of people.

For a while this was fine. The Old-Timers fought their wars and lived in their wicked cities and sinned. It was not good, Mother says, but at least it was in balance. But then they built bigger bombs. Bigger and bigger, until one day they built the biggest bomb of all, and they dropped it out of a machine and it exploded and killed nearly every Old-Timer left on Earth.

After that, says Mother, there was chaos for a very long time, and emptiness and storms of dust all over the world.

I have heard this story so many times before I know it off by heart. And that was when you found me.

Mother nods. That’s when I found you. You were just a little baby at the time. You were wrapped in this tiny bundle of rags and lying in the dirt all cold and alone. I rescued you and brought you here. To the last green place on the whole wide earth. And ever since then-

You’ve raised me like I was your own.

That’s right.

And I’m the only one. This is my favourite part of the story. It makes me feel so good inside. I’m the last girl left and I’m precious.

Mother smiles. You’re precious, darling.

I’m more important than anything else.

Yes, you are.

Mother holds me close and I feel dizzy from how much she loves me.

***

Adam

We are walking along a wooded road, screened on both sides by stumpy, blasted trees. Here and there trunks have fallen across the way, and a thick soft carpet of ash covers the ground. Everything I can see is grey, the strip of sky above my head furry with cloud. We round a corner and come to a house by the side of the road. The place is tall and shattered, its windows gone and the roof nothing but a skeleton.

Be quick, says Father.

The inside is dark and wet. Sloppy black stains mask the walls. The acid smell of mould stings my nose. I go from room to room, footsteps sucking behind me in the sodden carpet. Furniture is toppled and broken. Things scurry frantically in the walls. The fridge is busted and yellowing, the floor lined with broken glass.

Here is what I find: one woollen fleece, dirty but intact; a bottle of painkillers, four remaining; a jar of peanut butter; a foil envelope of cocoa; a sealed bottle of vodka; a squashed box of multivitamins and a foil-wrapped bar of cooking chocolate.

In the door to the bathroom a swollen spider hangs, twirling slowly. The cabinet here yields up the best thing of all: a tube of toothpaste. It has been months since I had toothpaste. I crack it open and rub it into my gums. The whole of my mouth feels puffy and full of snow, a hot-cold rush and the taste… the