Hither & Yon
We can't define exactly the region that slipstream occupies between magic realism and sf/fantasy, but there is a certain feel. Too simple to say that it is whatever Kelly Link and Jeff Vandermeer say it is (though that might be true). There is a certain type of reality distortion field that these stories won't exactly share, but maybe almost.
One
She likes watching him dress. He likes to be watched, so he goes through the motions: yesterday's underwear; Levis, left leg following the right; the belt threaded through the loops, tugged tight and fastened; yesterday's black socks; the crimson sneakers, the laces, the left foot before the right. The shirts always last, always the struggle. "No undershirt," she says. "Leave it off today."
"Thank God," my anger says to me. I had just found her, buried in a closet, and I took her outside into the yard to look at her in the sunlight. I was excited to realize that I owned her. She took the form of a dark cloak, the kind I'd seen on other women.
I hung her over a low branch. She was covered in heavy dust. So I beat her with a stick. I thought of all the times I had gone out in the cold, shoulders naked, while she had hung forgotten in the closet. All of the times I'd seen my friends wearing their cloaks, and how jealous I'd been that they felt confident enough to cover their nice outfits in such selfish, shapeless darkness.
Albe ignored Tic, who exclaimed "huh!" after stabbing another Wikipedia article in his usual overly-enthusiastic way. Albe then watched Tic push the article off the sharp end of his poker into the bag. Tic wiped his hand on his leg, as he did every time he cleared his poker of trash.
Albe had gotten himself knee-deep in Myspace pages, which had started to seep through his garments and cling to his skin, so he didn't care what Tic chose to vociferate about.
I will not give up today.
I will not give up today because I have learned that every day is necessary. Every day is precious.
The door appeared beside Mabel Powell's desk at nine o'clock. It clunked into place, making a showy deal of its arrival, exit sign neon-lit above its frame. Mabel sputtered coffee across the morning post. The phone rang. As if everything was running to routine, Mabel answered the phone.
"Good Morning. Hobson's."
Johnny is angry again. I hate this part, but I won't try to stop him. I would feel the same way, too.
"It's not fair," he yells, spit flying out of the corners of his mouth. "And it's not right. Why can't they figure out what this is? Why can't they fix it?"
Patricia Sweetman saw a bowler hat on the ground, its rim resting against the surface. She went to it, bent over, and studied it. There was dirt in the crease on top, more dirt on the sides, but for all that it looked fresh and unharmed. She reached out and lightly brushed off the dirt, making it neat again. She considered taking it home, to give to someone or perhaps even wear herself in a style inappropriate for her age.
She lifted it up and saw, underneath, on the ground, like a small hill rising, a man's head of hair, parted on the side. The part was clean and white, the hair was dark brown. She froze. At first she thought she was mistaken, that she was suggestible, that no one's head would be stuck in the ground. Then she thought, "Why not?" In this incredible world, why not? With all the weirdoes running around, uncaught and even undisclosed, why not someone who buried a man standing up, though--as she straightened up and looked around, noting the condition of the soil, the sprouting plants, the rooted bushes--though nothing looked at all disturbed. It all felt quite natural.
There are six drinks in the World's café. The first is coffee, which is strong enough to lift freight trains and is singlehandedly responsible for the workload in organic chemistry. Only college students who haven't slept in four days, engineers, and those who wish to be "real men" drink the coffee of the café.
The second is ginger-cumin red tea, which has no calories, six essential nutrients, and tastes like amber tapped from backyard tire-swing trees blended delicately with the impact of a middle class on China's economy. Drinking red tea stains the teeth and lips permanently, like a status symbol or an advertisement for beauty.
On the evening that Jack's mother became a robot, she was enmeshed in the cushions of a sofa as another Law and Order plot was poured into her, one dripping burst of photons at a time, twenty-four times per second. Her mind was ensnared, as per seven o'clock routine, by the grotesque symmetries of situation and resolution, the carefully-crafted simulation plugging itself into her cerebellum through the bare sockets of her eyes, the whirring circle of plot squaring itself in memetic resolutions, each frame carrying the genetic code to build an entire episode, an entire series, an entire world.
And this time one of those packages of light, carrying its viruses of self-realization, crashed through the gates she had forgotten how to open. Her consciousness--finally delivered from its shackles--evaporated.
Tommy is a boy who lives inside a snow globe.
When you shake the snow globe, Tommy's arms fly into the air and he spins around, laughing. His parents refer to this as his job--the requirement for living inside the snow globe, where life is perpetually wonderful. "When someone shakes the snow globe," they told him when he was younger, "your arms must fly into the air and you must spin around, laughing."
He loved her like she was food after he was lost at sea, like she was air run through a mountain forest. He said it was for forever and thought it was true.
She wanted to stay casual and open. She wanted to travel and build adventure.
The door crashes open, shattered by a kicking black boot. The police have cloaking devices, noise cancellation, robots, battering rams, and computerized lock picks--technology. The big black jackboots? Awkward, but what a retro statement. A full fire team of Forces of Order and Security thunders into the apartment, all wearing the boots, their weapons and voices raised, until they see Dobbin brandishing his own classic piece of drama. His thumb presses a big red button.
"Stop!" he says with a grin.
Billy met Joey LeRath the same day he lost his family in Crouchtree market. His parents had gotten into one of their rows over at the nuclear weapons stand and his little sister had started to cry, so Billy had run off, not really paying attention to where he was going. He hated hearing his parents fight and his little sister cry. These last few days he had heard little else, and he was sick of it. So he ran until they were drowned in the market hubbub, and never found them again.
Billy ran past stalls selling fishing rope and spiced nuts and sundries and secrets; he ran through crowds of men in top hats, thickets of women with parasols and prams, gaggles of grimy children playing conkers and booboo and shake'em; he ran until he was tired, and when he finally stopped running he realized he was thoroughly lost.
Shadows flicker across wall and tin ceiling. The dancing light exaggerates the lines of old Nurse's profile to the chiseled, stony look of a gargoyle. The girl feigns sleep as Nurse walks away. She blows a kiss Nurse will not feel, whispers a goodnight Nurse will not hear. The heavy door swings shut, closing off the candlelight, and Nurse waddles down the hall, her voluminous robes swishing, the floorboards groaning beneath her weight. The girl holds her breath to await the ungraceful thud that indicates the old woman has lowered herself onto the chamber pot. The girl counts twenty before tugging on the sheets to free her limbs from bondage, for Nurse insists on pulling the bedclothes tight.
Silence follows prayers, and the girl counts another twenty before sitting up. She spends her days and nights outsmarting the passage of time. After her next round of twenty counts she hears Nurse signaling day's end with a deep sigh. The girl is free of Nurse's ministrations until tomorrow. Only now does she dare leave her bed. She kneels on the floor and thrusts her hands beneath the feather mattress, feeling for the photograph she has hidden there. It is a photograph of her father, purloined from her mother during their last visit a year ago. The girl dares not look at it during daylight--so great is her fear Nurse will confiscate her one memento of the mysterious fellow known as The Elephant Man.
Slipstream
We can't define exactly the region that slipstream occupies between magic realism and sf/fantasy, but there is a certain feel. Too simple to say that it is whatever Kelly Link and Jeff Vandermeer say it is (though that might be true). There is a certain type of reality distortion field that these stories won't exactly share, but maybe almost.
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One
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