#NewWeird

[kekwcomics]

INTRODUCTION

Hi, it's time for a new, long-overdue introduction!

I'm KEK-W, a UK-based writer of comics, films, TV and fiction.

My recent comic-book work includes JUDGE DREDD, ROGUE TROOPER and TYRANNY REX for 2000AD, as well as the Historical Science Fantasy series THE ORDER, and the acclaimed DARK JUDGES: FALL OF DEADWORLD Dark Horror series featuring JUDGE DEATH. I've written for AHOY Comics, Image Comics, Commando, Misty & Scream, Battle, Storyworlds, etc, etc in a variety of genres and style.

Meanwhiles, here's a coupla cool recent prose books by me.

THE RECONSTRUCTED MAN is a deranged short Historical-Horror Conspiracy Thriller novella about a 300 year old man on the run

THE NEW ABNORMAL ("An anthology of the Uncanny and the Odd") is a collection of short stories of varying lengths: The New Weird meets Post-War British Sci-Fi meets Banal Horror meets Soviet SF.

They're available via the merch page of my Bandcamp:

It's cool, indie shit. Leave the mainstream behind...

[unagocciadipioggia]

La Scuola dei Demeriti - Nota dell'autore (on Wattpad) https://www.wattpad.com/1342106126-la-scuola-dei-demeriti-nota-dell%27autore?utm_source=web&utm_medium=tumblr&utm_content=share_reading&wp_uname=unagocciadipioggia&wp_originator=3obVHy5DUZK85sPqSs0knk3X2bocA04AMw1wApW8B8NczBRgSEAAJPcWMXrfDLXtraNRIbXpNvWrjSHCOrdvKKkZFmUravNYIgtfmqfAdthJ3S14N%2FA7Byn82qoXbQAu 

TRAMA: Tutto ciò che conta è la Perfezione. Avere un corpo Perfetto, muoversi in modo Perfetto, reagire in modo Perfetto. C'è chi Perfetto ci nasce e chi, invece, deve recarsi ogni settimana al Centro di Accompagnamento della propria città e ritirare le pillole che gli permetteranno di diventarlo. Le pillole sono una garanzia: chiunque sarà preciso e puntuale nell'assunzione diventerà Perfetto; chiunque non lo farà rimarrà Imperfetto e dunque andrà seguito più da vicino e rieducato nella Scuola dei Demeriti. Proprio in questa scuola verrà spedito Trentacinque, un bambino che giura di avere assunto ogni pillola agli orari prestabiliti. Eppure, non è Perfetto: continua ad essere ipersensibile ai rumori, soprattutto a quello della corrente elettrica, e non riesce a leggere nulla senza i suoi occhiali. La parte peggiore? Dalla Scuola dei Demeriti possono andarsene solo dieci studenti all'anno: quelli che avranno accumulato meno demeriti. Eppure, nonostante arrivino centinaia di studenti e solamente dieci se ne possano andare, il numero di iscritti alla scuola rimane sempre lo stesso. Le persone più vecchie scompaiono, chi si piazza troppo basso in classifica pure, altri svaniscono senza apparente ragione. Che fine fanno? Trentacinque sarà uno di loro? O riuscirà a sfuggire alla scuola e ai suoi Sorveglianti che sembrano averlo preso di mira? Userà o verrà usato dalla carta che legge i pensieri e che permea ogni cosa: dalla busta di accettazione alla scuola all'orario delle lezioni? E i moduli robotici che gestiscono ogni cosa saranno nemici o alleati?

[coyoteskenning]

Chapter 3: Hit and Run

Anna floored it. 

"Do you think Nixon has a reincarnation?" 

"What?" 

"Richard Milhaus Nixon, 37th president of-" 

"No I know who Nixon is." 

Anna scowled at the GPS mounted on the windscreen.  

"Then-" 

"I don't think anybody admires Nixon enough to want to be him. Red, this road look right to you?" 

Red pulled the phone from its cradle and let their eyes trace over the map displayed on its screen.  

Their nose was still broken, and their face covered in bruises; they didn't let it show, but they felt like shit.  

"This address doesn't look right. I think you fucked up the zip code." 

Anna looked out of the window at the desert landscape pouring by. "Who even gets fucking mail out here? I mean, is it coming on a fucking horse?" 

"You know we're in a car right?" 

The cool automated voice came from Anna's phone as Red finished keying in the correct address. "ROUTE RECALCULATING." 

They remounted it on the windscreen. 

"Should be right now." 

"Shit, I mean, it's all gotta be wackjob Mormons out here, right?" 

"Better than a wackjob Satanist?" 

"No I - shut the fuck up. I mean, I don't wanna get shot at if we pull up. They'll probably think we're tax collectors or something." 

Red looked out at the blank road ahead of them. There was no other cars on the road. No buildings. Nothing but the car, two girlfriends, and desolate wastes as far as the eye could see. It was kind of pretty, though. Put them in mind of Mars. 

"Do you think the IRS hires sexy trans people now?" 

"Get chasers to open the door more, right?" 

"How often would that really be a factor?" 

"More often than you'd think-" 

They hit a cattle grid; Boleskine whirred for a second as the entire body shook, and Red swore and dropped their phone. 

"Slow down!" They said, scrabbling to the side of their chair for it. 

"No." Anna put her foot down, changed gears; watched the speed needle twitch up a few more gradings. "I wanna get here before the sun goes down." 

"It's 3pm!" 

Anna jabbed a finger at the phone. "2 hour drive to your destination." 

"Have you actually checked to make sure that he's still there?" 

"No, you check. I'm driving." 

Red managed to retrieve their phone, looked at the incarnate app. "Oooh." 

"What?" 

"oooooh-" 

"Fucking what?! What is it?!' 

"5 miles from your destination." 

"What?!" 

Anna grabbed the phone out of Red's hand. "Give me- What? How- the address was right like, an hour ago!" 

"He's travelled 2 hours in one?" Red raised an eyebrow. 

Anna looked at the map. "I guess he could have driven across the lake? That'd cut it down." 

"Or teleported?" 

"Neither of those were in the spec, anyway." 

"Slow down, he might be waiting by the side of the road or something." 

"What, he'll flag us down?" 

"Yeah."  

Red looked at the road. "Like, you know Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas-" 

"We're not high." 

"Could be." 

"What?" 

"Idk, send an @ to of the guys I know in the discord, ask if he wants to bring us some-" 

"We're in the middle of nowhere!"  

Anna vaguely waved a hand around. "That app had him miles off the road, I hope you know I'm not pulling off and getting stuck." 

"Well we can't DM him because he's not in the server, so what?" 

"Look, just keep a look out. I'll keep my eyes on the road, you look for any...fucking, hitchhikers or whatever." 

There was a silence for a few minutes, filled only by the GPS occassionally chiming in to helpfully remind them to continue driving on the only road for miles. 

"I mean, Nixon won 49 states, right?" 

"That election was rigged." 

"But no he had popular support. I mean, there was even the old bumper sticker, right?" 

"What?" 

"Don't blame me, I'm from Massachussets. Because it was the only state that didn't-" 

"Look, even if he had admirers in fucking, 1973 or whatever-" 

"72 dumbass" 

"1972, he doesn't now! And besides, even if you look up to a guy, doesn't mean you want to be him." 

Anna looked at Red. "I mean, Nixon was pretty miserable, right?" 

"I've seen people 'carn as people who fucking killed themselves!"  

"Yeah but. Like. Not in a sexy way." 

"Speak for yourself." Red held up a pic of Nixon on their phone. "I'd fuck those cheeks." 

"Why-why did you have that pic saved-" 

"Seems self evident." 

"Also, did you just say carn?" 

"Yeah. I'm inventing new slang. I'm on the forefront of things. I'm an influencer-" 

"Shut up. It's incarnate. That's already a shortening of reincarnate, you are not shortening it further to fucking - Italian food-" 

"That's carne, dumbass."  

"Same root! Meat, flesh, et cet!"  

"Et cet? Who's the one shortening words now-" 

Another cattle grate, another Red phone drop. 

"I said slow down!" 

"Look, if we pass a guy, I'll turn round! There's no cops round here!" 

"This road isn't wide enough, dumbass. You'll get stuck!"  

Anna moaned. "I need a cigarette." 

"Well, pull over if you're gonna get one. I'm not ending up in some sand dune-" 

"This isn't that kind of desert. Dumbass." She imitated Red's tone on the last word. 

Red stuck out their pierced tongue at Anna, who struggled not to break into a smirk.  

"Made you laugh." 

"Did not." 

"Would you clap Nixon's cheeks?" 

"You clapped L Ron Hubbard's cheeks!" 

"Damn right! And I'd fucking do it again. Answer the question." 

"If we meet a reincarnation of Nixon are you gonna fuck him?" 

"Well now that you've said that, I have to." 

Anna started corpsing. "He'd be racist!"  

"Hot." 

"GOP voter!" 

"Hot." 

"Probably transphobic!" 

"Ooh, hot. I hope he calls me a bull dyke-" 

There was a loud thud as the car hit the child running out in front of it, hurling his body across the hood and shattering his frame against the tarmac behind.  

"FUCK!" 

"What the-" 

"PULL OVER PULL OVER PULL OVER-" 

"I'm trying to!!" 

Anna hit the brakes and swung the wheel; as Red has predicted, it hit the edge of the road, and came to a messy, juddering stop.  

Annabelle Boleskine in neutral and peered at the spiderweb patterns on the shattered windscreen as Red frantically tore off their seatbelt, kicked open the door, and sprinted back down the highway towards the bloodied body lying in their wake. 

It was a kid, as the size of the figure ragdolling across the chassis had made clear seconds ago; maybe 10 or 11 years old. He was Latino, with dark skin and hair, neck broken and scalp split open in five places to show red and white of skull. Blood was weeping out of every orifice; his twisted posture held one arm below him on the wet tarmac, another stretched out in a motionless claw on the road. He wasn't breathing. 

"He's dead! ANNA! YOU FUCKING KILLED A KID-" 

Anna came, at a slower pace, stomping along. Her face was coldset, but she was pale, and her hands were fumbling at her bag for cigarettes.  

"CPR." Her voice was quiet. "Can we-" 

"Fucking look at him! CPR? He doesn't have a fucking ribcage! He looks like a-" 

"Shut up! Shut up. Look-" Anna knelt besides the body. She felt for a pulse. Nothing. His eyes were closed, already starting to bruise livid where his face had slammed into the tarmac. 

"He jumped in front." She said, quietly, not looking at Red. 

"What?! No! You hit him! You were going at 90mph and not looking you fucking hit him! You killed a fucking kid, Anna!" Red was starting to tear up. "What are we going to do?!" 

Anna pressed the back of her hand, now obviously shaking, into his cheek. She didn't seem to know what she was doing. 

"Anna you -" Red's voice caught. "You can't heal him." 

"He - I -" Anna fought to regain her composure, then when she next spoke, she was cooly measured again. "I had my eyes on the road. He jumped out. I saw him. You didn't-" 

"Anna..." Red stared with hollow eyes. "You.." 

They were both interrupted, with a start, by a wheeze from the child.  

Anna jumped back in horror, and landed on her butt on the road as she let out a little cry. Her eyes were wide as she watched him start to twitch, and move.  

Air was dragged, with a horrible ragged sound, into ruined lungs. Torn muscles tried to pull on shattered bones. The head writhed on a broken neck. 

"Fuck! Fuck, he's still alive?!" 

"I didn't- I didn't- heal-" 

Anna was trembling harder now.  

Red heard that last word, and looked closer. They saw what was happening before Anna did.  

Beneath the boy's skin, bones were moving. His skeleton was reassembling; knitting itself back together. Ribs that had visibly punched through skin on a blood-soaked shirt sank back down like control rods into the diagraphm, that began to pump as the heart beat strongly. Seeping blood stopped, and cuts closed. His breathing, at first gasping and gurgling from a throat filled with froth, become desperately alive. His hands scrabbled at the ground, eyes still closed as his unconscious body began to pull itself back together. 

"We. Are. So. So. Lucky." 

Anna, trembling, managed to claw the cigarette packet from the handbag. "Is that- him then? The- healer?" 

"Oh shit, yeah. Let me look, one sec." 

Turning away - with relish, frankly - from the spasming, gasping little boy, eyes now open but unseeing, neck agonisingly bending back into place, starting to moan between gasps as vertebrae repaired themselves, Red jogged back to the car, and retrieved their phone.  

The dot matched up perfectly with the child; they watched the blue dot, representing them, drift over across the greyish representation of the road, and overlap with the pulsing orange incarnated dot as they moved back to Anna and him. 

He let out a scream of pain, head bending back as his spine arced. He cried out in Spanish, rolled over into the foetal position, spasming as the last of his wounds healed. 

"What is he-" Red started. 

"I don't-" 

"It...didn't....work..!" The boy's voice came, in English this time. 

"What-"  

"Oh, so did he really..." Red looked sheepishly at Anna, who didn't look comforted. "Sorry." 

"It didn't work!" He screamed, burying his face in his hands as he achieved full mobility. He barely seemed aware that they were there. 

"Hey, kid. You...did you...are you ok?" Red tried. 

He moaned something in Spanish. 

"Do you know what that means?" 

"I don't speak Spanish!" Anna snapped. She stood up, her hands now still enough to pull a cigarette from the packet. She put it in her mouth, and moved to put the packet away and retrieve her lighter. 

The boy moaned, and suddenly reached out, grabbing at Anna's boot with a bloody hand. 

Anna gasped, and instinctively jumped back, out of his reach. Red moved forwards in response, taking his hand in theirs as he mumbled something incomprehensible. 

Anna ran the back of a troubled hand through her hair, box still gripped in its palm, and moved to get the lighter for the cigarette in her mouth...before her eyes focused inwards and down on it, and widened. Her lips fell open, and the not-a-cigarette plopped out, and fell to the floor. The box fell from her other hand, hit the ground, and spilled its contents.  

Matchsticks.  

A single matchstick, that had been a cigarette about ten seconds before, was laying on the ground, still wet from her mouth. About a hundred matchsticks had fallen out of the clearly marked cigarette box, that had been full of cigarettes about twenty seconds before.  

Anna stared, eyes wide, as Red turned to look, kneeling by the boy's side, one hand knitted with his left, the other on his hair, and saw. Saw her goth girlfriend, gaping open-mouthed, at a spill of matchsticks on the road.  

"He-" 

"I don't..." The boy managed, weakly, eyes closed. His forehead was pressed against Red's cool hand. "I don't like...smoking..." 

Anna's eyes were still wide as saucers. "Who is he.." She said, in a low voice. 

"Kid. Kid. Who...who are you incarnated from?"  

No response but a weak cough, and a gasp of pain as a result. A little blood trickled over his chin, from a still unhealed cut just under his lip. 

Red, keeping one hand on the barely conscious boy's face, picked up one of the matchsticks. They examined it in awe.  

"Transfiguration...healing of self and others...fast travel...who's that?"  

Anna shook an unknowing head. She was starting to collect herself, although she kept making mournful glances at the lost box of former cigarettes. 

"I don't know either, but some pretty major medic I'd bet, or something." Red looked down at the boy. "Hey kid, you're pretty powerful." They playfully slapped his chest; he cried out, and they cringed. "Sorry, sorry."   

"Red...your face..." 

"Huh?" Red touched their face, their fingertips soaked red from his bleeding. No bruises. No broken nose. They twisted their shoulder, so recently painfully reset. Nothing.  

"Man...that's something, huh?" 

They looked down at the boy, who seemed to have drifted back into unconsciousness, head pressed against Red's side.  

"Well, if he won't tell us..." Red took out their phone, clicked through. Tapped out a few lines of code, then gently pressed the boy's limp thumb to the screen. 

"I mean, do you wanna take bets?" They said, as the progress bar rolled on the screen. 

"Not in the mood." 

"No, c'mon! I mean...maybe he's fucking, carn of Jonas Salk or something." 

"Jonas Salk could turn cigarettes into matchsticks?" 

"Well, I dunno. Representation of better public health, I guess? You know how weird these things can be sometimes. Probably some famous doc, like I sai-" 

Red froze, mid-expression, looking at the screen.  

"What?"  

"..." 

"Who is it?" 

"......" 

"Red, tell me-" 

"Jesus. Fucking. Christ." 

"What? C'mon, who is it?" 

"I just told you..." 

There was a long silence.

Anna grabbed the phone from Red, then stared at it with wild eyes.  

She took a second to read the name of the person the boy was the reincarnation was, then dropped the phone, and ran.  

[mrkylerose]

Today’s daily doodle is also inspired by @jeff_vandermeer123’s #Borne. #alcoholminnows for everyone! 😁 #dailydoodle #doodle #jeffvandermeer #newweird #surreal #horror #scifi #fanart #vandermeerfanart #southernreach #plant #person #biotech #biotechnology #bioengineering #posca #poscapens #ledaartsupply #sketchbook #scifiart #alcohol #cocktail #fish #minnows (at Brooklyn, New York) https://www.instagram.com/p/CQMRKkLB908/?utm_medium=tumblr

[changterhune]

Symbol of the Three Eye Society, a noetic services provider association active from 1349 AD to 1813. Formed by a group of wizards, alchemists and philosophers in Bavaria, the society worked specifically towards building what they called “The Throne of The Astral Lords.” Through a mix of astrology, primitive astrophysics and forbidden mathematical studies the Three Eye Society worked for many years largely in secret. Their demise came when an angry mob stormed the castle they’d occupied for 300 years, killing everyone inside before setting fire to the castle and razing the smoking remains to the ground. #chang terhune #newweird #weirdtales #weirdhorror #horror #scifi #sciencefiction #graphicnovel #novel #novels #tribalmalfunctions #changterhune #monstrobot #disastrobot #weirdcreatures #strangecreatures #cyberpunk https://www.instagram.com/p/B_F1EUpg7p4/?igshid=1n9c836z64u35

[dudenukem]

Been trying a more stream of consciousness approach to some new pieces. So far it’s been pretty fun and way more colorful than I expected. Hope you guys don’t hate it! . . . . . . #collageartist #newweird #popsurrealism #darksurrealism #dorksurrealism #illustration #psychedelicartwork #psychvoid #psychocrusher https://www.instagram.com/p/B0i2zO8B_vd/?igshid=17a9yimyvjcly

[chpearce]

Book mail! Amazing covers, amazing books by Jeff VanderMeer. Authority (Book #2 in the Southern Reach trilogy) is one of my favourite books in this crazy world, and I can't wait to read Dead Astronauts. 🤯 👩‍🚀 🌈 Signed copies, too, and that message is gold 🐇 - thank you Jeff VanderMeer and @midtownreader! #jeffvandermeer #deadastronauts #authority #southernreach #southernreachtrilogy #borne #bookstagram #booksofinstagram #farrarstrausandgiroux #sff #newweird https://www.instagram.com/p/B6KpYwRAIsg/?igshid=144vhzcp4t9iy

[hardworlders]

Mandala | In the Beginning - Chapter 38: Gradie in Dreamland

"Hope is a memory.”

A dreamlike thriller where nothing is what it seems, Mandala is about an odd group of assassins, an unlikely group of friends, and the meeting of the mundane and the magical. 

New Episodes every Sunday!

[markv8-blog]

🤔 Cosa diavolo ci fa un occhio dentro un piatto colmo di zuppa? 💥Aiutino: potrebbe essere una storia horror, ma non lo è 🧐 E allora cosa sarà? Non rimane altro che scoprire tutta la faccenda andando a leggere il racconto sul blog 🚀 #blog #raccontimalsani #raccontibrevi #scrivere #weird #writing #stories #italia #instaread #instawrite #strano #paranormale #neweirdart #newweird https://www.instagram.com/p/CdLITN5MsTr/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[paulsemel]

Though it's his fourth short story collection, in my exclusive interview with writer Richard Thomas, he declares that "“Spontaneous Human Combustion" is the best place to start exploring his sci-fi / fantasy / horror / new weird oeuvre. 📖❓

[rusagi]

Y como tu amor y cago el infierno... #Devendra #Banjart #Carmensita #Guanajuato #folk #newweird #LTD (en Guanajuato, Mexico)

[kekwcomics]

I have a new album out called DAGON ALLEY.

It's available here: https://kekw.bandcamp.com/album/dagon-alley

It's spooky and brooding, a soundtrack to a lost suburban Horror film, and will probably appeal to people who enjoyed my prose Horror books or my work on Judge Death and the Dark Judges in FALL OF DEADWORLD.

DAGON ALLEY is part of what I call my LOVECRAFT'S YEOVIL cycle of work (there's an art / photography book of the same name currently in production).

It's partially inspired by hidden parts / wrong-angle views of my home town - how it can suddenly reveal itself to me in new, unexpected forms - and my lifetime love of low-budget Horror films and crank literature.

A warped and malignant picture postcard of Yeovil, twinned with Innsmouth. The ink has run, has slid off the surface of Reality like a wet, finger-smudged Polaroid, leaving the image unrecognisable and speckled with mould. Paranoia and a sense of creeping, small town unease. Doors appear in walls, the roads no longer match the map. A 70s painting by Ian Miller.

File under: New Suburban Weird, Horrorscape, Post-Rural Uncanny, Gorestep, Dero Electronics, Spook.

[jwdonley]

Part 3 of my serialzed #occult #noir, The Stitchman, is now live on #Wattpad !

[coyoteskenning]

Chapter 4: Interview with the Angel

Pamaros pressed an elbow into the roughly hewn rocky arm of its lunar throne, and gestured as if leaning its head on one hand.

It wasn’t, of course – the wispy plasma edges slowly rotating, gyrating, burning eye-wheels-within-wheels ‘head’ didn’t even touch its darkened bronze gauntlet hand – but it orientated it as if pressed into the chin of an invisible skull, containing within it its actual head.

The first question transmitted via the probe that sat in the moondust in front of it came from a representative of NASA, so permitted because they had organized this mission, on a tight timescale and at great expense.

“Is there anything we need to add to our physical laws or understanding of science?”

I WOULD NOT SAY SO.

“…Not even concerning this, spiritual world you’re talking about-“

YOUR SCIENCE HAS DEVELOPED TO DESCRIBE AND EXPLAIN THE PHYSICAL WORLD. WHERE IT BLEEDS – MYSELF, FOR EXAMPLE, OR THE KNOWLEDGE OR SKILLS EXHIBITED BY INCARNATED SOULS – YOUR SCIENCE WILL INEVITABLY BREAK DOWN. YOU CANNOT EXTEND YOUR LAWS TO IT. NO EXTENSION IS NECESSARY. IT IS NOT A FIELD IN WHICH YOUR, MEN OF SCIENCE, CAN SPEAK.

The format of this interrogation was strange, but had been divined by the specially appointed council for the task after only a few weeks of work. Pamaros had told them ‘speak, and I will hear.’ Initial attempts at simply speaking on Earth had not worked, and had in fact made the people standing outside yelling at the moon look quite silly. Despite misgivings, it was ultimately judged that the best course of action would be to land an unmanned probe on the Moon, that would broadcast – what should be – silent speech into the airless void there.

To the physicists’ absolute horror – or in one case, awed joy – they had seen Pamaros on the camera calmly watching the buggy approach its throne, and when they broadcast a hail, received a response that rang deeply in all their heads, a bass thrum at the base of their skull that hummed up into words in their ears and dissolved still up into buzzing signal noise in their scalps.

The next question came from a theologian, of Christian descent.

“Do you serve God, or a god, or gods?”

NO.

“Did you once serve a God?”

…

WHAT IS IT THAT YOU MEAN BY GOD?

“Were you once bound to orders by a higher force? What shape did it take? Tell us of it.”

I AM NOT BOUND.

“I didn’t ask if you are.” This theologian had long exceeded his allotted term, but this particular question had caught the interest of everyone in the room enough to allow it. “I asked if you ever were? Were you created? Are you an angel?”

‘ANGEL’ IS NOT A WORD I HAVE EVER USED TO DESCRIBE MYSELF. IT IS AN, EXTERNAL, DESCRIPTOR.

“So you are not an angel of God, in the sense Abrahamic faiths talk about?”

THAT WOULD DEPEND ON THE BOOK. AND THE. VERSE.

The theologian was getting irritated now. “Sir. Do you serve God as I believe in Him? Are you a Holy being, or something base? Of matter? An extraterrestial, perhaps? From whence did you come? And why-“

.

That final stop was a loud thud into the skulls of everyone in the room. It was a telepathically transmitted period, something like a book slamming shut. They still felt its presence, staring at them silently, but the dark boiling in their stomachs told them it would be a very, very bad idea to push this topic.

The next question came from a lawyer.

“Are the reincarnated the same people as the deceased?”

THAT IS A MATTER OF OPINION.

“If a reincarnated person lives long enough, will they become identical to the deceased?”

NO.

“Will they regain all their memories?”

NO.

“Are they, essentially an amalg-“

“Hey, don’t hog it!”

There was a shout from off camera; someone shoved the lawyer away, pushed their way to the front. The explanatory text on the bottom still showed the lawyer’s name and occupation for a few moment as they started speaking, before showing that they were a diplomat.

“Will you intervene in human affairs?”

I HAVE.

“…More..?”

NO.

“What powers do you hold?”

I AM NOT BOUND.

The next was another physicist.

“I am the reincarnation of the physicist Galileo Galilei. I incarnated twelve days ago.”

I CAN SEE THAT.

“I know things that Galileo would never have known, however. I have received…knowledge, pertinent to fields that were invented long after his death. I have received skills that he did not hold. How can this be?”

I AM A BEARER OF KNOWLEDGE UNTO THE PEOPLES OF THE EARTH. THE DEAD ARE MY. EMISSARIES.

“So they receive this information from you?”

I HAVE CREATED THE CONDITIONS FOR IT TO BE REVEALED.

“Why?”

I CHOSE TO.

“Why did you-“

.

Next, and final, another theologian.

“Is there a Nirvana?”

WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT?

“Some release? From the cycle of reincarnation? An end, to this repeating?”

.

.

.

The angel moved its hand down casually from its ‘face’, so that both hands were placed on the arms of the chair. It lazily raised its other – left – hand.

There was a flash of light like a gunshot, streaking out across the black of the lunar vacuum, and fragments of blown-apart probe went tumbling up out of the orbit of the moon, gone past escape velocity into the sky.

As the billowing clouds of dust settled, the moon’s face was now etched, amongst billions, with one more crater.

Back down on earth, the humans, once they had recovered from the cringe of three sharp telepathic knocks to the skull, that left their guts boiling like they’d been shocked by an infrasound predator’s roar, fell into a furious argument about who had said what, about how they should have asked about karma and sin or hell, about whether they’d angered it with that final question, about what had happened to the probe, and about if that money had all been wasted. This only intensified when it was found – admittedly not to the surprise of many – that their recorders hadn’t picked up a word of what Pamaros had said. Immediately, they began disagreeing on the exact wording of what had been said. Within minutes, several distinct accounts of the interview, to be disseminated to different competing media organisations and different opposed governments and interest groups, had grown up.

But away from this, one scientist – the one who’d smiled in joy when Pamaros’ voice had fallen in through the vacuum, rather than recoiling in startled horror like all the rest – had rushed out of mission control and swung herself onto the balcony outside, to see the pale dimpled penny full moon, hanging bright and ordinary and intact in the sky, same as it ever had been every single previous night of her life, and breathed a sigh of relief.

[studiofeliciano]

Sock Bush, a Doodling comic.

Sock Bush, a Doodling comic.

Sock Bush, a doodling story by Alex Feliciano. It is around sunset that always puts Larry in a sleepyhead mood.

My Inspiration

As the day turns and the impending closure it near. I feel the weight of another wasted day. I rush to my desk to beat the moon who will soon illuminate my failing use of time.

A nearly unrealistic graffitti artist who likes to take naps and draw dreams. When I…

[sunkeepersolarpunkmusic]

So glad to see that the In/Out List has predicted Dystopias to be OUT for 2018 and New Weird Fiction to be IN (cus New Weird is less negative and more creative!)! But mostly the Dystopias OUT part! GOOD RIDDANCE, NEGATIVE FUTURES!

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2017/03/what-new-weird-and-what-makes-weird-fiction-so-relevant-our-times