Black Denim Lit #2

By Black Denim Lit

Black Denim Lit is a monthly journal of fiction available on the web and on all eReaders for free through BlackDenimLit.com. This month Christopher T. Garry brings together sixty pages of bold, intriguing new fiction from Ted Morrissey, Sean Monaghan and David W. Landrum. All the authors expand significantly on their work with dark, speculative tales to give immersive looks into hearts of men and women facing a changing world.

“The authors are at their best here,” Garry said. “It’s been a real pleasure to work with them to bring this edition together. I couldn't be more honored and inspired by their thoughtful work.”

Landrum starts off with “The Way to Shangri-La,” which tells of an East Indian woman’s decade-long epic tale of transcendence. Morrissey offers, “Scent of Darkness,” a woman’s journey through an inner world mixing solitude and nightmare. And finally, Monaghan offers “800,”a brief look at parenting in the future where social norms have become twisted by the success of longevity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Black Denim Lit
• Release date: Mar 12, 2014
• ISBN: 9781304921093

Black Denim Lit

Black Denim Lit welcomes thoughtful writers, new and established for online and print literary journal (monthly / twice-annually). Rolling monthly deadline, all year.They are looking for fiction up to 7,500 words that has unique, lasting artistic merit and will offer token payment. They consider novelettes up to 17,500 words on a case by case basis, and some genre work. They offer writer-focused, personal feedback and fast response.Why "Black Denim"...? It's understated and unpretentious, typifying the tone of style that appeals: grounded, approachable and unassuming. Their tastes consider that "lasting artistic merit" can emerge from almost anywhere.Black Denim Lit (Fiction: $token, G/F/S/O). http://dtrp.me/m_14164.aspxEnjoy.Sincerely,The EditorsBlack Denim Literature Magazine

Book preview

Black Denim Lit #2 March, 2014

Black Denim Lit

Copyright 2014 Black Denim Lit

ISBN 978-1-304-92109-3

ISSN 2333-9977 (Online)

ISSN 2333-9969 (Print)

Published by Black Denim Lit at Smashwords

This file is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 U.S. License You may copy and share the file so long as you retain the attribution to the authors, but you may not sell it and you may not alter it or partition it or transcribe it.

For more stories, visit http://www.bdlit.com

Contents

The Way to Shangri-La by David W. Landrum

Scent of Darkness by Ted Morrissey

800 by Sean Monaghan

About the authors

Black Denim Lit on the Web

Cover Art

THE WAY TO SHANGRI-LA by David W. Landrum

Jeevitha Mitra had left her ashram and had lived for several years in Pemakö before the nuclear war between India and China broke out. She decided, given this new crisis, that she needed to begin wearing clothes once more.

Jeevitha lived the first thirty years of her life as a cloistered renunciate and a virgin. She had envisioned living her entire life in that role. Encountering realms of spirituality and enlightenment made the outside world of commerce seem superficial and sex a pointless distraction. She wore orange as a sign of her celibacy and cloistered herself so she hardly ever encountered men. The other Hindu nuns called her a living saint. She rose each day at dawn, did yoga and sacred dance, meditated, and joined the other women of her ashram for worship. She hardly ate, able to live mostly on the spiritual energy her devotional regimen released. The years passed. Not long after her thirtieth birthday, the visions began.

Horrible and frightening, they vexed her. She thought they must be of hell. She saw fire, desolate, charred ground, and poisoned air, water, and soil. She saw burned corpses and landscapes silent because the life on them had been stilled by poisonous air. She sought counsel from the Abbess of the ashram where she had lived since age ten.

Your vision is a fearful one, she said. Such a fearful vision can only be known in a fearful place. My counsel is that you go to Pemakö.

Jeevitha knew a little about the area. It lay in territory disputed by China and India in the north, near Tibet. She remembered, too, it how tantric lore held it as a land of danger but also of vast spiritual possibility.

Ponder what I have suggested, the Abbess told her. Remember, the time may be wrong for you to depart to this place and I may be incorrect in counseling you to go to Pemakö. Search your heart.

Jeevitha fasted, though she hardly needed to eat anymore, and remained in seclusion. No revelation came to her, no dream or voice of a deity telling her to make the journey. Yet she knew when someone spoke truth from wisdom and knew the Abbess had given her the right counsel. She emerged from isolation and prepared for her pilgrimage.

The ashram provided her with money and two changes of garments. She would walk the five-hundred miles, her goal a temple deep in the territory where the answer to her vision lay.

On her journey north, things changed. One she began to desire food more. She needed to eat three meals a day. She slept in the forest and bathed in streams, though she often boarded at the houses of pious villagers and farmers. Occasionally, she stayed at inns.

The Abbess had warned that the journey would be dangerous. One time a group of men met her on the road, nodded to one another in a conspiratorial fashion, and approached her. When they drew near, however, they stopped and stood, dumb and confused. Jeevitha walked through them and continued on her way. A tiger sauntered out of the jungle one morning, walked up, sniffed at her, and ambled back into the thicket. Deer walked with her. One night when it was particularly cold, she found a deer bed in some tall grass and slept between a mating pair of the animals, surviving through their warmth. She found it difficult to maintain her regimen of prayer and meditation. She came to see how different environments called for a different approach to spiritual practice. The journey was the important thing in her life. She modified her devotions accordingly. Covering twenty miles a day, she was able to complete the journey in a month and one week. When the land rose upward and she saw the blue forms of mountains, she had to slow her pace as the air thinned. As she climbed into the alpine reaches of the north.

Reviews for Black Denim Lit #2

[Black Denim Lit · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

My favorite issue so far.