Kzine Issue 21 Read online

  KZINE MAGAZINE

  Issue 21

  Edited by Graeme Hurry

  Kzine Issue 21 © May 2018 by Kimota Publishing

  cover © Dave Windett, 2018

  City Hounds © George Sandison, 2018

  Pure Poetry © Lars H Hoffmann, 2018

  In The Canal © Anne E Johnson, 2018

  Ilysveil: Twilight Of The Radiant Dawn © J. H. Zech, 2018

  The World Of Harry Overton © Jamie McNabb, 2018

  Randy Pulaski Vs The Demonoids © Matthew Lyons, 2018

  Note: An editorial decision has been taken to retain the spelling and vocabulary from the author’s country. This may reduce consistency but it is felt it helps to maintain authenticity and integrity of the story.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of the copyright holder. For editorial content this is Graeme Hurry, for stories it is the individual author, for artwork it is the artist.

  CONTENTS

  CITY HOUNDS by George Sandison (15)

  PURE POETRY by Lars H Hoffmann (12)

  IN THE CANAL by Anne E Johnson (10)

  ILYSVEIL: TWILIGHT OF THE RADIANT DAWN by J H Zech (12)

  THE WORLD OF HARRY OVERTON by Jamie McNabb (12)

  RANDY PULASKI VS THE DEMONOIDS by Matthew Lyons10)

  Contributor Notes

  The number in brackets indicates the approximate printed page length of the story.

  CITY HOUNDS

  by George Sandison

  The council must have installed it overnight. I don’t ask my neighbours what they think and instead look at it from different angles, hoping it will somehow reveal its purpose.

  Hajid says something to his wife in Turkish, then says to me, “You asked for this? They bring it because it helps our block?” I shake my head. I’ve got no idea.

  Its lines speak of utility. It’s clearly part of a job lot, hauled in from some depot in Essex, no doubt manufactured in China, India, Taiwan or some other place far enough away that only economics can make sense of the distance it has travelled. It’s grey, not quite black, already looking weatherworn on its first day out. Maybe a meter high, squat, nearly cubic. It looks rough, like concrete stuffed with aggregate.

  I leave them standing there, the shift workers and unemployed who see 9am differently to me, and head to work. From the door of our block Hajid calls across the grass, over the object, “How much do you think it cost?”

  * * *

  They’re finally building on the lots near the station. Boarded up wastelands that have been home to buddleia and dandelions, crumpled cans and fag ends, detritus only. Years they’ve waited. Now superstructures are thrusting out of the ground at a frantic pace. Windows covered in blue plastic loom over the street turning the junction into a gulley. The ground and sky are further apart, separated lovers forgetting what it was that made them close.

  There’s a lost wide boy on Ridley Road, expanding to fill an empty pitch opposite the African music stall. He shuffles on the spot, hunching his shoulders, twitching his fingers over imaginary decks, dancing to the afrobeat. He looks like he heard about the rave 15 years late and has been searching for it ever since. A young girl records him but he doesn’t notice, or doesn’t care.

  My city is the same as me. Or at least that’s how I see it; maybe it disagrees. I don’t let the sounds of the street in, not since I lost the meaning of it. Bus engines roaring, music spilling out of shops, the people shouting down phones, across the seas, the quiet pleading of the homeless. I listen to music as I walk, tens of thousands of songs shuffled to present no kind of narrative, no emotional consistency I can discern.

  Maybe that thing at home is some kind of store and come spring they’ll open it up and turn it into a garden. Or it’s a lock up, a little bubble of security we can rent to make up for all the things that get stolen. Or a utility substation, prosaic and dangerous. They’ll all have theories by the time I get home. Lucya will think it’s a bomb. Some part of the great plan to kill us all she’s so sure is underway.

  At my desk I work in peace. Logistics. Moving things from point A to point B. It’s magic, smoke and mirrors by a man who never leaves his desk. Could be nothing is happening of course, that I’m creating activity only. I still get paid. I send a hundred emails and receive two hundred replies. The first law of administration: duplicate. But all the messages are happy today; everything is working.

  It’s late in the day when I see flares of light. They’re close, closer than my computer, and the lack of depth to them disorients me. Hazy arcs of yellow sweep across my field of view like headlights, then pass. And I’m trying to place everything where it should be: The street outside the window, the computer inside the office, the walls obediently between the two. It passes quickly.

  * * *

  Jenna is waiting for me at a table. She always manages to get one.

  The febrile contractions of rush hour are over for the day and we breathe a collective sigh of relief as we force our way out of the sweaty mess of trains and into the sweaty miasma of bars.

  Her almond eyes rest on Ghanaian cheekbones as broad as the horizon. She’s six foot of bad behaviour, an alchemical combination of curves and haught. The hacks and demons in here will do whatever she asks. It’s all about pride if you play them at their own game, but they fall for a pretty face every time. Jenna’s happy to use hers as a weapon, I guess.

  I say, “Hi,” and throw myself into a chair. Jenna says nothing, eyes flicking over the crowds. Big blind is mine today. I bet large. “Spoken to your family?”

  “Like anyone cares,” she replies. I do, but they’re just a concept to me. I was born here; this is all I know. “Hi, as well,” she adds.

  “They can’t be stuck there forever.” A band plays at the back of the bar, the weaving figure of the singer appearing from behind Jenna’s head. It’s a heady drone they make, music to wallow in. “I think my eyes are playing up.” She nods at me, and I see her throttle some barb before she can speak. “Yeah, sorry,” I tell her, “so what’s the latest? Any luck?”

  She shakes her head. “What would you want if you were them?”

  I shrug. “Same as you, a way out.”

  “Fuck it, I’ll curse them. The old-fashioned way.”

  “How do you curse a civil servant?”

  “There’s always a way.” She trails off, looking over her shoulder, around the bar, as if she’s looking for spies. I look past her. The night is bright on Kingsland Road, distorted reflections of shop fronts changed into bold primary colour snakes of light trapped in the puddles.

  She already seems suspicious when she says, “I need to tell you something.” Outside the gutter spews rain to the streets with heavy splats, leaving it to lie there, wallowing in great pools because the drains have long since given up.

  Some ludicrous part of my brain thinks she’s about to try it on with me so when she leans over the table to whisper in my ear I nearly miss it because all I can focus on is her skin, the tickle of her hair. “My name isn’t Jenna Mensah. It’s Asari Akerele.”

  She plants herself back in her chair, slumped with sudden exhaustion. “You changed your name? To get out of Ghana?” She shakes her head. “To get in here?” She nods this time, so I say it out loud, “Asari–” but she hisses me into silence before I can finish.

  “Never say that out loud again. Anywhere.” Her eyes entertain no dissent. “It’s why I can’t get them out. I was hoping the
case worker would find the dead end in Ghana and give up. Look at the case on its other merits. There’s enough there, happens all the time now.”

  “I thought they were arseholes?”

  “They’re constipated arseholes. The backlog is so bad they have to let some through, so you try and make it easy for them.”

  “Lubrication?” She grimaces at me. I give her a You started it smirk. Then it all starts to fall into place. “Are they even your parents?”

  She shrugs and says, “They are to me.” She reaches over to take my hands and for the first time in years I look at the scarring properly, see how shockingly white it is against the rest of her. “You’re my brother, they might be yours too.”

  I squeeze her fingertips quickly, feeling the tightness of her skin, the lack of elasticity that makes them different. “Can’t wait to meet them. What do you need?”

  She smiles at last, runs a hand over my cheek, and says, “A few things, you can’t get them here. I was thinking your drivers could help.” She catches my look and adds, “Nothing illegal. Things for the spell.”

  I don’t question her. She takes her magic seriously.

  * * *

  The sun breaks through the clouds to illuminate Alexandra Palace, the glass atrium casting reflections that pierce the train carriage. The passengers squint at the flashes but stare at the view anyway. For a few seconds the landscape masquerades as a painting, the pinks and oranges of the clouds, the suddenly vibrant grasses on the hill, the glinting palace, all beautiful.

  I am clattering north, back to my homelands, if you can call the Home Counties that. There is a lightening in my chest that I always get as I leave the city. The bittersweet sense of leaving a lover, of walking away from an intense relationship, prevails.

  I check my mail as I travel and read the reply from Karim, my friend in driver despatch. All of Jenna’s ingredients are on their way, if the drivers are to be trusted. They’re being paid well for their time so they should be. I wonder what they’ll think as they visit farmers and ruined castles to collect herbs and flowers. How strange must a question be to make someone ignore money?

  I text Jenna to tell her it’s all arranged and turn back to the view. The day is clearing up, the clouds scattering under the renewed attentions of the sun. We pass over the viaduct at Welwyn and this time I look west across the valley, towards the Roman baths safe in their bed underneath the A1. It is all green and brown, the muted colours of the earth.

  A taxi ride from the station leaves me at the front door, putting the key in the lock, lifting the catch as I swing it open because it always sticks. I know this house. Klara is in the kitchen, putting laundry in the machine, but she smiles up at me effortlessly.

  She says, “Hi, Simon. You look well,” full of the endless charm of her profession. She doesn’t waste a single movement as she loads the machine, hefts the basket and walks down the corridor to kiss my cheek. “She’s watching Come Dine With Me, sorry about that.”

  “I’ll forgive you this once,” I reply, and enter the sitting room.

  Mum is wrapped in her usual mess of woollen blankets, harlequinade colours that clash with everything else here. The TV spouts on but I can see she’s not really watching it. Instead she runs her hand over her crystal ball, in her lap like always, and gazes at the shelves behind the screen. Her deck of cards is nestled between old hardbacks, the leather box bold between spines made pale by a lifetime of sunshine. She took her magic seriously as well.

  I tell her about work and how I am, including all the little details just in case she might hear some of it. She moves her mouth, chewing nothing as I tell her about the thing that’s appeared in the front garden. The show finishes whilst I do, the adverts roll by and the news comes on afterwards.

  The headlines are the usual mix, The US waist deep in a disintegrating Middle East, bizarre moral assertions from politicians on how we, The British, feel and portents of doom. The last piece we hear before I mute it is about Ghana, the US’s increasing involvement in the fight against terrorists there. The industry of civil war is booming.

  I turn it off because it’s all I can do, and say to mum, “Jenna is still trying to get her parents out of detention as well. She’s got a new plan, I’m helping her with it.”

  She grips her crystal ball tightly, her arm shaking as she tries to lift the weight, and says, “I know… I know… Jenna’s strong. Bring her here.”

  I can’t remember the last time mum asked me for something. I say, “Sure, I’ll bring her to visit.”

  She smiles at me and says, “Yes.”

  * * *

  I get a headache as we pass Potters Bar, a migraine all hot spikes and bright lights. It passes quickly. Outside the sun is setting, shadows growing bolder as it retreats. The landscape shifts and blurs until it sprouts houses like scales. The silhouetted buildings grow taller and cluster in packs until soon I am safely ensconced in the city again.

  I travel in a fugue of music, thinking about my mother. The last thing Klara said to me as I left was, “She’s been worse recently. Something is troubling her.” She didn’t say what though, and I left her tucking the blanket round my mother’s legs.

  I find myself in the streets near home. I pass an old woman, 5 feet of coats and scarves, leaning into someone’s front garden to steal branches of laurel. She barely seems aware of the world around her, or the turning heads. Her city is the same as her; she knows she’ll be left alone. I toy with the idea of asking her what she’s doing, but don’t. I wouldn’t get an answer worth having.

  Instead I phone Jenna and tell her about the lady. She sighs and says, “This place gets to me sometimes.”

  “The owners will be pissed when they get home, I guess.”

  “Forget them,” she replies, “Whatever she needs it for won’t work. Nothing here is good for magic, all this interferes.”

  I say, “I had no idea it was so sensitive,” rounding the last corner before I reach my block.

  “It’s old, of the earth. How much earth can you see?” I’m about to answer when she adds, “and what do you think is underneath it?”

  Powerlines and water pipes. Oil and runoff from the road seeping into the topsoil. The plastic arteries of the city. Probably sewers and rail tunnels underneath that, maybe the occasional river. I am suddenly aware of standing atop a great structure, an inverted pyramid that reaches far into the earth. I ask her, “How do you know she needs it for magic?”

  My hand is on the gate when she says, “Are you at home? Can I come over? I need to ask a favour.”

  “Sure.”

  “Thanks.”

  She hangs up and I walk towards the door of the block. Hajid and Asha are walking out along the opposite path. I wave at them, as always, and Asha waves back until Hajid grabs her arm out of the air. He doesn’t look at me.

  * * *

  Jenna looks shaken as I let her into the flat. She heads straight for the kitchen and puts the kettle on, rubbing her arms and shivering.

  “What’s up, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “Ghosts I can deal with,” she says, and makes tea for both of us. She adds sugar to hers, so something’s up. She shucks off her leather coat, the battered one that makes her look like an ancient book, revealing goose pimples all along her arms. They surrender at the point where skin meets scars, where it all turns white and pink, fleshy injured colours.

  “Have the packages arrived yet? Karim said they were all posted in the last week.”

  She nods, says, “They did, they’re perfect. My flat smells amazing, makes me want to keep it all.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’ve got to try Simon, don’t you get that?” She gets up and paces round the kitchen, fiddling with handles, flapping the photo of everyone at Glastonbury a few years back. We look so young.

  “So what’s the favour?”

  “Money. I need money.” She says it to the fridge, only turning to look at me when I don’t immediately reply. “
I lost my job. Some new visa rules planned for next year, they’ve decided to restructure now whilst there’s people to recruit. Way they see it, next year there won’t be any competent Brits to hire.”

  “Like there are any now.” She smiles weakly. “Shit, Jen, I’m sorry. How much do you need?”

  “Just a couple of hundred, to see me through the next couple of weeks. I should be sorted by then.”

  “Of course.” I get my phone and transfer £500 to her account. “No rush on paying me back either.”

  She starts to say something then gives up on it and hugs me instead. It’s not like her, to be so emotional, to show such gratitude. Something about the squeeze at the end worries me. But then she’s grabbing her coat and making for the door. As she leaves I say, “Mum asked after you. I was wondering if, maybe, you could come visit one day? It might help her.”

  “That would be perfect,” she replies. “Let me sort things out, maybe weekend after next we can go?” Then she’s gone. I have time to wash the mugs before I hear another knock at the door. Barrington, normally heard before seen, stands there looking restless, unhappy. “Hey,” I say, “what’s up?”

  “I need to…” he wrings his hands, trying to grind out the white lines of dry skin against his Jamaican brown, “Your friend. That wasn’t me that said that, that was some raas–” He looks lost for words then finishes, “Just tell her I’m sorry.”

  And he walks away, back to his flat. I call after him, ask him what’s happened, if he’s alright, but he keeps going until he reaches his front door, quietly puts the key in the lock and slips inside.

  * * *

  Sometimes I dream about mum. We’re always walking in the countryside, somewhere I know but don’t recognise. She’s telling me things that I can’t hear, like the words break apart until they’re sounds mingling with birdsong. I know she’s telling me something, something I already know, but it’s hidden from me even as she says it.

  I always feel sad when I wake. Like I’m letting her down.