Science Fiction/Fantasy $14.95 Meeting A thief, languishing in prison for stealing moments, escapes and becomes a chronometric fugitive. Women wait in a long, endless line, night and day, without knowing what is at the beginning of the line. An other- worldly marble called the Ustek Cloudy passes through the hands of FREE Ambrose Bierce, Amelia Earhart, and D. B. Cooper just before they the each disappear off the face of the earth. Whether they are called Dog Girl fantasy, magical realism, science fiction, or brilliant parodies, the sto- ries in this collection — the first from Gay Terry — blend the real PROMO and the fantastic in an imaginative and mischievous way. Written in the tradition of Ray Bradbury, Angela Carter, and Edgar Allan Poe, these contemporary fables present remarkable characters trapped in unusual situations. – Gay Terry has published stories in the Fortean Bureau, Lady DO Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Twilight Zone Magazine, Full Spectrum 2, and other publications. She lives in Brooklyn, NOT New York. gay terry COPY nonstop press • new york ISBN 978-1933065-20-5 51495 > 9 781933 065205 [email protected] FREE PROMO – DO NOT COPY the stories nonstop press • new york GayMeeting Partington Terry Dog Girls MEETING THE DOG GIRLS Stories By Gay Partington Terry FREE Copyright © 2011 Gay Partington Terry PROMO First Edition: 2011 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher. Some of these stores first appeared – in: Twilight Zone Magazine, the ezine Deep Outsiders, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, DO Full Spectrum 2,and Fortean Bureau. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, NOT and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Editor: Luis Ortiz COPY Production by Nonstop Ink ISBN 978-1-933065-30-4 Trade Paperback ISBN 978-1-933065-31-1 Mobipocket ISBN 978-1-933065-32-8 Epub Printed in the United States of America www.nonstoppress.com Nonstop Press Contents Introduction.......................................................................................................5 The.Line.............................................................................................................8 The.Promise......................................................................................................11 The.Holy.Sisters.of.Shedir............................................................................15 FREE The.Prison.Of.Kronos....................................................................................22 Spirit.Gobs...................................................................................................... 26 Slowdown.In.Paxville......................................................................................31 PROMO The.Queen’s.Instructions............................................................................. 39 The.Tale.Of.The.Glass.Man............................................................................41 The.Goddess.of.Outen.................................................................................. 43 Now.You.See.It...............................................................................................46 The.MacGuffin................................................................................................56 This.Is.Not.A.Pipe..........................................................................................66 – Barbara.Hutton.Toujours..............................................................................72 DO The.Importance.of.Cheese...........................................................................84 Unto.Others.................................................................................................... 92 NOT Breakthrough.................................................................................................102 On.Orly’s.Border............................................................................................112 Episcatory.......................................................................................................119 COPY Timepiece.......................................................................................................122 A.Gray.Matter................................................................................................125 Douglas.Dhubhagain....................................................................................129 There’s.Always.a.Monkey............................................................................134 The.Backward.Man.......................................................................................143 It.Takes.a.Universe.......................................................................................144 Precious.Hairpin...........................................................................................155 Icon..................................................................................................................163 Meeting.the.Dog.Girls..................................................................................173 The.General’s.Tears..................................................................................... 184 Grasping.The.Bird’s.Tail.............................................................................. 188 The.Ustek.Cloudy..........................................................................................199 FREE PROMO – DO NOT COPY FREE PROMO Introduction – DO ve been writing off and on since grade school. Here s a very ’ ’ = early example: I NOT Where Where is the mountain? COPY Where is the hill? Where is the tree and the whippoorwill? Where is the fish? Where is the bear? I think they’re around here somewhere. I had a long way to go and it got a lot worse before it got better and still has a ways to go. I say “off and on” because periodically, I d give up writing and ’ do things like: play jacks, read unrequired books in college, watch Sesame Street with my children, or perfect my pie crust. I gave it up for reasons like: persistent frustration; the need to see that my small children didn t kill each other; and because I read things by Marquez ’ 5 and Millhouse, listened to Bob Dylan and Steve Earle, and concluded that I d never be remotely close to that good. I tried to channel my ’ writing urge into diaries but I don t have a firm grasp of reality. So ’ the diaries aren t diaries, they re ... well, I don t exactly know what ’ ’ ’ they are. I gave that up too. (“The Goddess of Outen,” “The Backward Man,” and “The Tale of the Glass Man” are all part of an illustrated autobiographical novel [unpublished]. You can see how that goes.) I always went back to writing. I d start making up stories in my head and eventually put them ’ on paper. Or I d take a class from someone I really admired think- FREE ’ ing they d tell me I was wasting my time. But they didn t. Shawna ’ ’ McCarthy, Thad Rutkowsky, and especially Patricia Eakins and Carol Emshwiller – when people like that encourage you, you develop hope. PROMO Now I m in a writing group with some really smart skillful writers ’ and they haven t thrown me out so I keep plugging. ’ In terms of process, I don t mean to imply that I have voices in my ’ head but it almost always starts with a character. They say something, do something. I try not to push them too hard. Sometimes they push me around. (Mostly they push me around.) The ones that have a story – go out into the world (and sometimes come back). DO Some of them don t have a story. They have a place, maybe some ’ friends or acquaintances and a small life. They might putter around NOT but it doesn t amount to anything. I cram them into envelopes and ’ drawers (and occasionally the trash). I feel really bad about this be- cause I m strongly attached to some of them, but what can I do? I ’ COPY don t understand it – they insist on coming out and then they just sit ’ on the porch and talk, or walk around aimlessly, or take bus rides. I suppose I m so attached because these are the characters that are most ’ like me – or would be if I had a porch. I get a lot of inspiration from the F train, sitting in Madison Square Park before Tai Chi class, from middle-of-the-night muses, the chil- dren in my life (not necessarily all young in age), and from an abun- dance of slacker moments that I m loathe to admit to. ’ 6 Is this the part where I mention people I want to thank? Here goes: M & Pop, Howie, Travis, Zoe, Becky, Mike, Adriana, Evan, Landon, Miss Thompson (fourth grade), Miss Roland (HS), Shawna, Patricia, Thad, Bob, Gabriel, Patti & Patti, Bert, Linda, Sophia, Master Chen, Alex, Margaret, Ada, Barbara, Maria, Florence, Gabriella, Luis, and Carol Carol Carol. Gay Partington Terry Brooklyn NY FREE PROMO – DO NOT COPY 7 FREE PROMO The.Line. – here is no beginning, no end to the line, just women wait- DO s Ting. The women are beautiful in a disheveled sort of way. A slick of sweat illuminates skin in sunlight and moon glow whether NOT the complexion is dark or pale; the powdery dust adds glistening tex- ture. We don’t look around much; we wait. Though there are many of us, we’re all too exhausted to be companions to each other. Once in COPY a while we move forward ever so slightly. The children