Aurealis #118

By Michael Pryor (Editor)

In our March issue, Aurealis brings you a haunting descent into otherness in ‘The Excuses We Make For Our Children’ by Rebecca Fung, a mannered excursion into the alien, and a journey into the heart of horror with Nuzo Onoh’s ‘Ogali’. Our robust non-fiction includes ‘They Did What? Contrivance in Speculative Fiction’ by Stuart Olver, and Gillian Polack has more to say on 19th century author, John Lang, and his ghosts. And with our massive, comprehensive Reviews section, looking at both big and small press Spec Fic titles and our consistently stunning internal art, Aurealis #118 is the stuff dreams are made of.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chimaera Publications
• Release date: Mar 9, 2019
• ISBN: 9781922031754

Book preview

AUREALIS #118

Edited by Michael Pryor

Published by Chimaera Publications at Smashwords

Copyright of this compilation Chimaera Publications 2019

Copyright on each story remains with the contributor

EPUB version ISBN 978-1-922031-75-4

ISSN 2200-307X (electronic)

CHIMAERA PUBLICATIONS

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the authors, editors and artists.

Hard copy back issues of Aurealis can be obtained from the Aurealis website: www.aurealis.com.au

Contents

From the Cloud—Michael Pryor

The Excuses We Make for Our Children—Rebecca Fung

Ogali—Nuzo Onoh

Dog Nebula—Subodhana Wijeyeratne

John Lang and the Hidden—Gillian Polack

That Did What? Contrivance in Speculative Fiction—Stuart Olver

Reviews

Next Issue

Credits

From the Cloud

Michael Pryor

Tracy Chevalier writes during school hours. She aims for 1000 words in longhand and then edits the work and keys it into the computer.

Louis Sachar writes at least five drafts before he shows anyone.

Joyce Carol Oates prefers to write in the morning, before breakfast.

Ian Rankin writes in front of a blank wall. It helps him if the house is empty, or everyone is asleep.

Patricia Cornwell can write for 14 hours a day on a new book, only pausing to eat cottage cheese from the container.

Kate DiCamillo writes only two pages a day.

Dava Sobel likes to ‘get up at four and go to work in [her] jammies’.

When he’s in the middle of a novel, Colum McCann sometimes prints out a chapter or two in large font, staples it together like a book and takes it to Central Park. He finds a quiet bench and pretends he’s reading a book by someone else.

Anne Rice uses 14-point Courier.

Hilary Mantel takes a shower when she gets writer’s block.

Philip Roth writes at a lectern.

Flannery O’Connor shifted her desk so it faced away from the window.

Cormac McCarthy writes on an Olympus typewriter.

Before she began a writing session, [Sidonie-Gabrielle] Colette would first pick fleas off from her cat.

Blanche D’Alpuget once said that she printed out her first draft then deleted the original file from the computer. After that she forced herself to type it all again from the printouts.

When a narrative arc starts to appear for Margaret Atwood, she experiments with the order by printing out chapters and moving them around in piles on the floor.

Graham Greene wrote 500 words a day for five days a week. This meant he could write a novel a year.

Malorie Blackman writes in her attic.

Leo Tolstoy’s wife Sofia edited and transcribed Anna Karenina and War and Peace for him.

There is no magic formula for writing. Find the ways that work best for you.

All the best from the cloud.

Michael Pryor

www.michaelpryor.com.au

Back to Contents

The Excuses We Make for Our Children

Rebecca Fung

I took a plate of cakes to Mitsu, who finally stopped crying after three days of flooding tears. I wasn’t sure which was worse, the incessant sobs and the wailing or the eerie silence. But I didn’t get to choose.

She barely acknowledged the cakes—and Mitsu had always been the soul of good manners. That soul seemed to be sucked dry now. I sat down next to her. She was staring into the distance, at everything and nothing.

Something had to be said. It would have been trite to say I was terribly sorry. That’s something you would say if you were running late or you broke someone’s favourite cup. I couldn’t say I was glad for her—but at least now she had some resolution. Where would you even begin to tell someone you’re glad that they’ve found her son’s dead body washed up in the nearby river?

‘I had to identify him,’ she whispered. ‘They came and said they found my Haru, but I had to identify him anyway. He didn’t look like my Haru anymore!’

I reached over and pressed her quivering hand.

‘It was ghastly. He was so beautiful, you know, his skin smooth like a ripe peach. And then when I… his skin, his flesh, I won’t forget it. His face—what was left of it. He was in agony. Why wasn’t I there for him?’

I shuddered. I had loved Haru almost as if he were my own and the thought of his mutilated face haunted me. ‘It’s terrible—but after being in the water so long—his face would change. That’s a fact. But he probably didn’t feel any of those things.’

‘He did,’ said Mitsu. ‘I’m no fool; he felt every second of it. Those kappas, what did they do to him? I think of something worse every hour. How did they lure him into the water? Did they make him promises and then tear them away as they tore off his nose? Did they laugh as they chewed at his body? Did they push him under the water and taunt him as he screamed for mercy?’

‘Stop it! Kappa? What are you talking about? How do you know—did anyone see?’

I knew about the kappas, of course. It was impossible to grow up by the river and not talk about them. Kappas were imps of the river, mischievous as children with the strength of two men and, as river folk, we grew up with all sorts of tales about them, tales both funny and scary at once. Mitsu was my best friend and we’d always had the same attitude—it was best to take the basic precautions but the extreme stories—ones about kappas luring people to their deaths and torturing children in unusual ways—were the strictly laughable stuff of fairytales.

‘I saw that body, and it was the work of a kappa. A mother knows,’ Mitsu insisted.

There was no budging her. I’d known Mitsu all my life, from when we played as children as we grew up and when we went to dances together in the village. We’d lived in adjacent properties for years. I’d seen her husband give her three beautiful children, and I’d comforted her when he died and she’d said all the right things when my good-for-nothing husband left me. We knew each other inside out and I knew when she got hold of an idea it would be hard to get it out of her head.

‘What about Naoko and Aki? You have two other children. They need you to be thinking normally for their sake, not wild things about kappas.’

‘Hah! So do you think I’m crazy for believing in kappas! Is that it? I’m not crazy. I’d be crazy if I let go of Haru.’

‘Not crazy, Mitsu. But you still have two children.’ Two more than I have, I thought to myself.

Mitsu read me well. ‘Riko, I want you to look after my other children if anything happens to me. I know how much you want children. You would be good to them.’ She shook her head. ‘I know there’s something missing in me now—a hollow feeling—it’s all wrong inside. That feeling won’t go away.’

‘Pull yourself together! For your children’s sake.’

‘Promise me anyway, Riko.’

‘I promise. You promise me that you’ll stop this and think about your children.’

Mitsu nodded, but she didn’t promise.

* * *

When I went home, the first thing I did was find him. He was sitting near the creek. I checked that no-one was watching. While my land was large and generally far from prying eyes, you never really knew who would decide to go for what they would describe as an ‘innocent traipse’ around there, and might see.

Might see the kappa, that is.

‘Tell me it wasn’t you,’ I demanded.

The gleaming eyes looked up at me.

‘Tell me!’ I cried. ‘About Haru! It wasn’t you, was it? Mitsu said… she mentioned…’

His whole demeanour was obstinate. His scaly, wet, squat little body was a force that seemed to root itself in the ground and be unmovable. He was full of contradictions. Squat but light-footed and fast moving. He hardly said a word and yet I felt we connected more and shared more than those who had poured a million words to me. He refused to comfort me, and yet he gave me more comfort than any creature in this world. I’d found out