Charles Martin's Blog, page 34
August 5, 2014
My Phat Status – Nobility of Art
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August 4, 2014
August 1, 2014
Attention Writers: Literati Needs You!
Literati Press Comics & Novels is in the midst of our strongest year of growth, largely due to aggressive rebranding of our site as a platform for web comics, flash fiction, and thoughtful arts and entertainment coverage.
We are entering the second phase of the site’s shift to an ad-driven model, and are adding new writers to provide content fitted to our arts-oriented and local-centric readership. Though our publishing wing has a national reach, we’re keeping the website’s focus local to support the community that has supported us since 2010.
We are open to a wide range of story pitches, but the following subjects represent the vision we have for literatipressok.com:
1. Independent film (we would prefer a focus on local productions as well as a monthly or weekly tease for films shown at the OKC Museum of Art’s Noble Theater)
2. Local art coverage (with a focus on events, but also artist featurettes)
3. Pop culture as social commentary
4. Flash fiction
5. Web comics
6. Book Reviews (local and non-local external titles. We don’t review our own stuff because that is lame)
7. Short fiction for the Literati Presents series. These stories are written to a theme announced twice a year.
Though we have experimented with serialized works, we find that the audience is hard to maintain, so we prefer that all works be self-contained even if there are recurring characters.
A knowledge of Associated Press Style is critical. All pieces must be edited and ready to run before submitted. Deadline is four days before publication to give our editors time to review and fine-tune. If we feel a story does not meet our standards or is not relevant to our readership, we will politely decline to publish.
Before submitting a story idea, please read through some of our posts to get an idea of our tone. We do not write for children, and we do not publish romance or erotica.
We are thrilled with the progress of Literati and are eager to to expand our vision. If you think you will be a good fit for the team, please contact our associate editor at rebecca@literatipressok.com or our creative director at charles@literatipressok.com.
July 30, 2014
In The Town Where All Things Are Possible: Part 24
Need To Catch Up?
Underneath The Town Where All Things Are Possible, Alexandria plunged into the darkness of the underground sewage system. Behind her, she heard the Man Who Held The Town Together banging the heavy door of the vault of wishes, trying to push the door free of the cart wedged against it. She also heard the elevator groan awake. She assumed it was going to retrieve the killer.
Sulfur and methane smells overwhelmed Alexandria as she slowed to a stop. She pulled the neck of her shirt over her mouth and nose, re-gripped the box of dangerous wishes and peered into the darkness. Faint hints of light could be discerned, one dim beam directly in front of her and another glow to her left. All the rest was black. She heard water flowing, but it seemed distant. Something small, probably a rat, was tapping its claws against concrete as it scuttled around nearby.
She walked on, one careful footstep after another, choosing the light directly in front of her. She could hear that she was approaching the flowing water, feeling the moisture in the air. Her foot found the edge of the concrete before her. She paused, sliding her the soul of her shoe along the side, then dipping her toe down to search for a step, but she found none. The water was below her, somewhere.
A hum arose, weary but building. A lightbulb popped awake to her left, then another, and another, lighting up a long tunnel. She stood at the edge of a thirty-foot drop into an underground stream.
Alexandria gasped and backed against a wall. A colony of bats fell from the ceiling, circling the tunnel and fleeing past Alexandria. She froze and clutched the box tight while the flurry swept past her and disappeared along a side tunnel.
Her breath calmed and she opened her eyes. She examined two side tunnels where the light had appeared. The one before her was on the other side of the underground stream. To the left, another tunnel was carved into a massive stone wall. The river had burrowed out an opening in the wall’s base where it streamed out and along the bed, disappearing into another stone wall where a third tunnel followed the water on the far side. A steel bridge was the only way across the expanse. Though the promise of light was enticing, she knew the stream led to God’s Blowhole, so she chose to follow the water. She walked to the bridge to cross to the far edge.
The drop beside her made her equilibrium swirl. She held the box tighter, as if it was an anchor. The steel bridge creaked under the weight of her first step. She leaned heavily on the bridge, testing its strength. The rusted metal groaned, but held. The elevator rumbled in the distance, then fell silent. She knew the killer was underground with her. He knew the tunnels. She had to hurry.
She took another step, softly. Another. The steel squeaked with every shifting weight.
Shouting bounced through the tunnels. The Man and the killer. She couldn’t make out what they were saying, but perhaps it was buying her more time.
She quickened her pace as she reached the far edge, her last two steps clanging against the steel. The shouting stopped.
She was on the far side, now skirting along the wall, passing the middle tunnel on her left and moving alongside the stream toward the tunnel dug into the wall. Then she was through, in darkness once more and surrounded by stone. She pushed forward, still hearing the stream, perhaps a waterfall further on. She hurried for a few steps then forced herself to slow down, remembering how close she’d come to stepping off the path’s edge. With each step, she slid her feet tentatively forward to ensure they’d remain on solid ground.
Several long minutes passed before the walls opened up beside her. She could hear the stream directly beneath where she stood. And from behind, another sound: the clanging of running feet on the steel bridge.
Her toe found the edge of a drop. To her left, artificial bounced through a doorway, illuminating a small patch of the concrete walkway and casting weak shadows on the walls around the open area.
The light fluttered as something moved in front of it. Soft footsteps crossed the other side of the chasm, opposite her walkway. She saw a shadow moving along the far wall. Alexandria remained still, taking shallow, quiet breaths as she listened to the footsteps and watched the shadow.
“Alexandria!” the Man called. “Run!”
Fabric rustled behind her and shoes stepped into a lunge. Alexandria ran to the right, feeling fingers grip her shoulder. She jerked free and ran down the descending walkway. She wanted to slow, terrified of falling off the edge, but could hear the killer at her heels.
Footsteps crossed above her as the Man’s shadow sprinted along the far wall. Lights popped to life ahead of Alexandria, beaming out from another tunnel cut into the rock. Alexandria glanced up and saw the Man curving around a rounded wall in front of her, about ten feet above her walkway. He leaped off, over her head and crashed against the killer. They pounded against the wall. Alexandria spun around, seeing the two men tangled only a few feet behind her. The killer winced in pain as blood dripped from his scalp.
“Keep running!” the Man called.
The killer turned against the wall, then kicked against the Man.
The Man fell backwards, arms flailing, grasping at air as he tumbled off the walkway. He twisted his body to reach for the ledge, his fingers streaked across the concrete in a last, desperate attempt.
But failed.
He was swallowed whole by the darkness below. Alexandria screamed, wild and uncontrolled. A pitiful wail that faded into a sob. The killer looked over the ledge as they both waited for the sound of the Man crashing into anything. But they heard nothing. The Killer’s legs buckled slightly. He rubbed blood from his eyes, then looked to Alexandria.
Alexandria shot back around and sprinted down the lit tunnel, choking back sobs and clinging to the box.
The tunnel plunged for thirty feet until reaching stairs that led upwards—the wrong direction, she was certain. She took the only other option, a smaller, unlit tunnel that led down toward the sounds of rushing water.
Footsteps were behind her. The light followed her into the tunnel, showing a sudden right turn. Faint light bounced into a long expanse where the sound of the stream returned, along with a fine mist. She thought she could hear the waterfall.
She also knew that the Man’s body was somewhere below. She stepped close to the edge of the walkway and peered down. Aside from the glimmering reflection off of a few wet rocks, the bottom was just an empty void of shadows.
“Jeffery?” she called, her voice wavering. “Jeffrey, please, answer me.”
She took a deep, trembling breath, closed her eyes and listened. No breathing below, no footsteps behind, only rushing water.
She pried her eyes open again, but found that the light from the distant tunnel had went out. She proceeded carefully along the path.
The water was below her now. Her foot touched another steel bridge. She ventured another step forward, leaning her weight on her foot, hoping the bridge would hold. She continued.
A clang and the bridge rattled from the other side of the bridge.
“You’ve got spirit, little girl, but no more running.”
A beam of light exploded in Alexandria’s face. The killer moved the flashlight away as her eyes blurred and refocused. She looked back to him, standing just ten feet away. She read the “Hope” scar branded into the side of his face. The water flowed just underneath the bridge and underneath another stone wall.
Alexandria looked behind her to the tunnel beyond. She glanced over the side of the bridge, barely discerning rocks along the stream, but no sign of the Man’s body.
The flashlight blinked out and his footsteps clanged against the steel bridge. Alexandria rolled over the bridge’s handrail and plunged into the stream.
Bitterly cold and foul waters swept her forward. She thought only of the box, her arms hugging it tightly while her legs kicked her above the waters. The flashlight burned alive and swept across the stream. Alexandria turned, meeting the killer’s dumbfounded gaze as she sped toward the stone wall.
Another figure emerged from underneath the bridge, limping on one good leg toward the stream.
“Get your head down!” the Man shouted before he dropped into the rushing water.
Alexandria held her breath and dipped below the water just as the stream pulled her beneath the wall. The current jostled her around. Her shoes couldn’t grip against the smooth stone of the stream bottom. She freed a hand from the box and reached for the walls, but her fingers slid against the slick walls. The rush of the waterfall approached and she began flailing her arms for anything to cling to.
An arm wrapped around her waist from behind, pulling her against his chest. They hurtled forward.
The light of God’s Blowhole appeared just as the lovers tumbled down into its depths.
CONTINUE …
July 25, 2014
You Might Go To A Funeral
It is in the morning time that your mind will wander and turn around and sink into supposition and long, dragging run-on sentences. It is usually in the morning that you will think of the particulars.
You think of the way you can remember the past, because it happened, but you can imagine the future, because it hasn’t.
It is in the morning that you spend lots of time thinking about subjunctive language and how if you “would have” done one thing you didn’t do, then you “could have” done some other thing you never will.
It is like this in the morning before a deviation from normally scheduled life.
You will obsess about the twists in your plot. You will think about the thing you will do later and the things you did that have gotten you to do the thing you will do later and what complications have arisen.
You will think of the word “perspective.”
Sometimes you go to a funeral. It’s for somebody you know, but not particularly well. Say, the grandparent of a former spouse, for example. You decide to attend because these people became your family at some point and, since the divorce, they’ve remained a part of your life. They’re just that kind of people.
You might leave at sunup and travel east on the interstate for a couple of hours. You’ll be alone in the car. You would have called your ex-wife the day before to see if she wanted to ride with you but she’s coming with her boyfriend—which is fine, you got no beef with the guy. But since she won’t be with you in the car you would decided to forego the ritualized comic shrieking when you crest the wooded hill on I-40 and the billboard of terrifying Jesus comes screaming out of the trees with his message of peace: FEAR NOT.
But the pre-funeral luncheon doesn’t start until 11:30 and you’d probably grossly overestimate the amount of time it takes to drive out here (wasn’t it four hours last time?). So you’d get to town at ten a.m. knowing your help is not needed in preparing food for this part of the ritual.
You might stop at a gas station and buy a coffee and two bottles of water and then drive way up the hill to the state park and sit and smoke and watch as the small town below meanders its way through the morning.
You may think of the word “languid.”
You’d think it suits the view and your mood while watching slow trains drag through the middle of town. You could see a train’s unrelenting creep to a stop and think the train is doing a human thing.
You might think of the word “languish.”
You would think the heavy train is “languishing” after passing through the hills hauling lumber and coal. Other fuels, other materials.
You might be tempted to draw from this a metaphor about the religious ceremony you’re about to attend, but it’s a tired and hackneyed metaphor that you’re careful to avoid.
You will think of the word “language.”
You should think of what kind of things may be said when you come down the hill. You may try to think of what you could say to people. Imagine the things people might say to you. Some of them will already know you pretty well. They care about you and the turns of phrase they will use are familiar turns of phrase, the questions they will ask are based on a knowledge of your life that they will bring into the conversation with them. Their language will be soft and kind. Familiar.
You might spend ten whole minutes thinking about the word “family.” You could spend hours.
Other people will probably talk to you, too. People who don’t know you well at all and who you have barely even met. Maybe the pastor of the Baptist church will chat with you, since that seems to be a skill set that ministers usually have. His language will be false-familiar, but in a pleasant way. He’ll use small talk. “Small talk is little language,” you will think. You will think, “Little language is a good way to discuss small talk.”
There will be babies there. Two of them, at least. You might look forward to seeing them because you really love children even though you plan to never have any of your own. You will probably try to hold both babies, but not at once, because that will make you nervous and probably it will look weird.
“Baby talk” is what people say about the things people say to babies.
An hour may pass quickly while you’re at the top of the hill smoking cigarettes and drinking the hideous coffee from the gas station and you may be menaced by wasps that lurk in the rafters of gazebos and pavilions in every park in Oklahoma. You may watch a buzzard land on the other side of the rock wall that separates the park area from the steep dropoff toward the town below and you may feel nauseated by the sight of a buzzard, for they are disgusting to behold and also is there carrion on the other side of the wall and is that why a buzzard is there? You may not smell anything and you may not see a dead animal. The thought of it may turn your stomach anyway.
You might get into your car and drive down the hill and see a woman who is wearing more layers than necessary walking up the hill and you will wonder if she’s trying to get exercise or if she’s simply trying to get somewhere. You will see a Mexican family sitting in the grass by the road on the way down the hill and you will wish your Spanish was much better than it is, so that you could stop and talk to them. But then you will think that it may be racist to do that. Maybe even to wish it. Maybe it is a function of white privilege to want to stop and talk to strangers only because they are brown-skinned.
You’re too hard on yourself. Your wish for better language skills comes from your history with co-workers and friends. You want these strangers to somehow fill the place left by those co-workers and friends who live someplace far from here.
Maybe that’s racist, too.
This is the language that you use in your head. It is called “self-talk.” Your self-talk is the constant questioning of your own motives. You thought you were getting healthier and better and stronger and more responsible, but you feel the same as you used to.
You might drive slowly through the town. It is very small. The streets are very narrow.
A fire hydrant leaks at one corner, but lazily, like the way you are driving through the town, no hurry to get anywhere. The water is falling into a ditch that runs alongside the road. The ditch is full of slowly running water. The ditch has become a dirty creek.
You may pass the shop and taqueria where you ate last time you came to town. This is the first time you will drive by it today, but later you will pass it again and think of going in but you will worry that maybe they only take cash and you have no cash.
You might park in the lot across the street from the church. The lot is not for the grocery store, per se, but it is grocery adjacent. You may see the people going into and out of the store and you may wonder where the free time comes from. Do these people work from home? Are they all school teachers on summer break? Do many of them work at the cracker factory or the chicken houses on overnight shifts? What is the life of a small town in eastern Oklahoma? Why won’t somebody else write an article about that in National Geographic so that you could read it and have more familiarity? You are not a journalist. You would never go to these strangers and ask them questions about their town and their life.
You certainly wouldn’t do that today.
Today you might, for example, be attending the funeral of somebody who has been loved by people you have loved. Today you may cry a little bit, but not in an obtrusive way. You may feel awkward and then feel ashamed for making some family’s funeral ritual somehow reflect on your perception of their feelings about you. You may do your best to be a decent man, one who, sure, has some regrets and, of course, might have handled certain things differently if he had it to do all over again, but still is ultimately a kind and loving person, who wants only to be helpful and loving and authentic with these people who have shown you kindness over the last several years.
Please remember to take off your sunglasses when you go inside. Please remember to shake hands with everybody. Introduce yourself without stuttering, please, you can do this. If your hands shake a lot it is probably because of all the coffee, just keep your hands in your pockets when not greeting people.
Afterward, hug the family and ask if there’s anything you can do. Help your former spouse by putting some of her things in your car and taking them back to the town where you both still live.
Tonight go to bed at a decent time and don’t let yourself think too much about your failures and shortcomings and character defects. Try to be quiet, get some sleep. You may try counting to a very high number. In the morning take a shower and then go to work and do not talk about the day before because it is your own story, and you tell too many of your secrets, constantly talking to the people at work or the people you hang out with. It’s okay to have some secrets, buddy. You might want to keep them for later.
July 24, 2014
Hillbilly Philosopher Teaser
The great Jonathan Hubbell is on the verge of finishing the pilot episode of the animated story of two friends escaping the isolation of small town life. If you are a fan of Adult Swim, then you must check out the teaser for the upcoming pilot episode slated for completion in August. I am so thrilled for Jonathan. I cannot wait to lose him to fame and fortune, then recapture him towards the end of his tragic second act, then lose him again during the following reunion tour.
Hillbilly Philosopher Preview from Hillbilly Philosopher on Vimeo.
July 23, 2014
In The Town Where All Things Are Possible: Part 23
Need To Catch Up?
In the Town Where All Things Are Possible, Alexandria’s fingers tightened around a box containing “Dangerous” wishes from August of 1832. She met the killer’s eyes as the lift rose to the street level. She could hear the whispers of townspeople circled around the Greek’s grocery store, just out of view. She also heard the Man Who Held the Town Together banging against the door of the vault below, where he was trapped.
Alexandria was on her own.
“I have ten more minutes,” Alexandria called to the Killer.
“Just enough time for us to walk to the cliffs,” he replied as he looked down the elevator shaft. “I have been instructed to give you a dignified death.”
His eyes flicked away from her to the crowd, but Alexandria’s view was still blocked.
“I have ten minutes,” Alexandria repeated.
“You’re time is up.”
The lift continued to groan as Alexandria approached the street surface. She looked around for a button, a switch, anything that might stop the elevator, but there was nothing. She closed her eyes, steadied herself, and reconsidered her plan.
Alexandria’s face rose above the street and she saw the crowd rustling about her in a semi-circle that spanned the face of the grocer storefront. The killer waited beside the lift, formal and ready like a hotel concierge. The lift rumbled to a stop.
“What do you have there, little girl?” the Killer asked.
Alexandria opened her eyes, looking down to the aged and yellowed cardboard box. Her eyes lifted to his eyes, then the brand scared into his face.
“Hope.”
“Leave it here,” he said.
“No.”
The killer showed a blade in his left hand, turning it so the sunlight bounced off the bloody steel up to her face. It was the same knife that she buried into his back.
“Leave it here.”
“I have ten minutes,” Alexandria said. “You can’t touch me.”
“I can kill you right here,” the killer said, raising the knife slowly, then pressing the edge into Alexandria’s neck. She refused to flinch as a thin line of blood trickled along the blade. “I gave you until five out of kindess. The town won’t stop me from skinning you right here, right now. Put the box down.”
Alexandria looked past the killer into the grocery mart. The Greek wasn’t singing. She looked across the crowd, then to the alleyway, seeing the very edge of the poster with the magic and cryptic scene of a transsexual and her hunter.
“What happened to the dancing woman?” Alexandria asked.
“What?”
The killer turned, following her eyes toward the alleyway, but kept the knife pressed to her neck.
“The woman dancing along the street, there is a burning tire, then a man running after her,” Alexandria said. “Tell me what happened to her, then I will follow you.”
“Why does it matter?”
“Did you kill her, are you the man running after her?” Alexandria asked.
The killer lowered the blade from her neck.
“No.”
The killer nodded his head behind Alexandria to a squat, middle-aged man standing amid the crowd. She remembered the blur of the hunter, remembering his form, finally deciding that the killer was telling the truth.
“What happened?” Alexandria called to the man.
The crowd looked to the man as a sadness seemed to sweep across all their faces.
“He was my son. He…” The middle-aged man paused. “She was sick. I wanted to bring her back to the Town, to let it heal her. I told her that she must dress as a man, that this town is not big enough for her kind. She refused. I chased her not to hurt her, but to plead with her. When I returned, the poster was there, to mock me, I suppose. To mock my failure.”
Alexandria turned back to the killer.
“Tear it down,” Alexandria said. “Tear it down and I will go with you.”
“You got your answer, now put down the box.”
“Tear it down,” Alexandria repeated.
The killer studied Alexandria, then looked back to the alley.
As soon as his head was fully turned, Alexandria kicked his right knee with her heel. The killer buckled and growled in pain. Alexandria sprinted away, but the crowd bunched into her path. The mayor stepped out from the crowd, holding out her arms. Alexandria turned and fled a different direction, but the crowd swayed in front of her.
“No more of this!” the mayor shouted.
Alexandria turned back to the killer. He stood and limped toward Alexandria. The wound in his back had reopened and his black shirt was soaking with blood. Alexandria scanned the crowd, looking for its weakest point. She found Tessa and Gerald. Tessa gave Alexandria a subtle nod. In her hand was a blue flower.
Alexandria ran toward Tessa. The killer jumped into a hobbled sprint. The lift rumbled and clanged. Alexandria turned, with Tessa and Gerald at her back and saw the Greek waving his arms to get her attention. He pointed to the descending grate. The killer lumbered toward Alexandria, the knife at his side. Alexandria juked away and the killer struggled to turn after her. Tessa strode to the killer, lifted the flower, and blew at it’s petals. A white puff exploded out from it. Tessa, Gerald, and two townspeople fell to the ground. The killer stammered away, nearly falling. He dropped the knife and wiped the pollen from his eyes. He swayed and tripped to his knees. He looked up to Alexandria, pushed himself to his feet, but fell back to his knees.
Alexandria ran to the lift and jumped down the shaft, crashing against the grate with the box spilling out around her. She looked up to the sunlight and saw the killer’s face appear just as the metal doors swung shut.
Below, the lights flicked on in the tunnel. Alexandria collected the cards back into the box. The Man was still trying to push the door to the vault open, now able to stick his head out of the crack.
“What’s happening?” the Man called to Alexandria.
“Plan B,” she replied.
She held the ripped box tight against her chest, ran down the tunnel toward the Man, but turned down the side passage, into the dark labyrinth.
CONTINUE…
