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    Metaphorosis January 2018
    Metaphorosis January 2018
    Metaphorosis January 2018
    Ebook128 pages1 hour

    Metaphorosis January 2018

    By Melissa Kojima, Katherine Perdue, Michael Gardner and

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    About this ebook


    Beautifully written speculative fiction from Metaphorosis magazine.

    All the stories from the month, plus author biographies, interviews, and story origins.

    Table of Contents
    • The Seer at Sunset Hills Shopping Plaza - Katherine Perdue
    • Jewel/Gem Offering - Emily McIntyre
    • This Side of the Wall - Michael Gardner
    • Memory is a Rumor - Yaroslav Barsukov
    Cover art by Melissa Kojima.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMetaphorosis Publishing
    Release dateFeb 1, 2018
    ISBN9781640761001
    Metaphorosis January 2018

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      Book preview

      Metaphorosis January 2018 - Melissa Kojima

      Metaphorosis

      January 2018

      edited by

      B. Morris Allen

      ISSN: 2573-136X (online)

      ISBN: 978-1-64076-100-1 (e-book)

      ISBN: 978-1-64076-103-2 (paperback)

      Metaphorosis

      Neskowin

      Table of Contents

      Metaphorosis

      January 2018

      The Seer at Sunset Hills Shopping Plaza

      Katherine Perdue

      Jewel/Gem Offering

      Emily McIntyre

      This Side of the Wall

      Michael Gardner

      Memory is a Rumor

      Yaroslav Barsukov

      Copyright

      Metaphorosis magazine

      Metaphorosis Publishing

      January 2018

      The Seer at Sunset Hills Shopping Plaza — Katherine Perdue

      Jewel/Gem Offering — Emily McIntyre

      This Side of the Wall — Michael Gardner

      Memory is a Rumor — Yaroslav Barsukov

      The Seer at Sunset Hills Shopping Plaza

      Katherine Perdue

      A woman’s been murdered!

      That was Theodora Yates for you: always jumping to conclusions, bless her heart, and that conclusion most often of all. But there was no talking her out of it once she’d made up her mind, so I said, without bothering to ask any questions, Then we must go to the Seer at once!

      My granddaughter, Katie, she didn’t think much of us going to the Seer. She grew up in this new world: it was no more magical or difficult for her than breathing air. Once, she asked me, Granny, how much did you just pay that woman for something they’d give you for free at the library? Or you could do it yourself. I’ll teach you how to Google if you want. She waved a tiny glowing screen in front of my face.

      You can’t Boolean with Google, I said, deeply offended.

      Granny! She stretched out the word so that I would understand her exasperation. You don’t even know what that means!

      No, I don’t. But it’s what the Seer says, and I trust her.

      Katie wasn’t exactly wrong about the library. Theodora and I used to go round there every time she got it in her head that someone had been murdered, but there were a great many things that the librarians believed were none of our business. And what about the police, you might wonder? Well, they were worse than the librarians. They always just called Katie to come get us and take us home. We never had problems like that with the Seer.

      It was a hike to get there. The Seer worked out of a strip mall just off the highway on the edge of town, and I didn’t drive anymore because of my cataracts. We looked into getting one of those new-fangled automated cars, but it turned out you still needed a license to operate one of them, though I couldn’t guess why. The doctor took my license away years ago. Theodora’s doctor told her she shouldn’t drive; the exact reason escaped her. She still had her license though. Her doctor was nicer than mine and took pity when she said she needed it for emergencies, since she didn’t have any family.

      Going to the Seer about a murder never qualified as an emergency, so we took the bus halfway and then we walked, even though there was no sidewalk. A couple of cars honked at us, but I shook my cane at them and they kept on going.

      Theodora told me about the murder on the way. It seemed a car had been left parked in her driveway overnight.

      The same one as last week? I interrupted. Theodora lived near campus. Students were always leaving their cars anywhere they could fit them and you know the sort of hours students keep. About noon or one o’clock, they would stagger back and drive off, unless the car had been towed. You wouldn’t believe how persecuted they proclaimed themselves to be if the owner of the driveway had the effrontery to tow their car!

      But Theodora never called the tow truck. She always assumed that the owner of the car had been murdered.

      Last week? Was there one last week? No, I don’t think it’s the same.

      Don’t you think it’s just another student?

      No, I do not, said Theodora with a particularly forceful thrust of her cane. I had offended her and she wouldn’t say another word to me till we got to the Seer’s.

      Strip malls are always dreary, but Sunset Hills Shopping Plaza took the cake. The empty husk of a now defunct supermarket dominated the row. Closed for Renovation, the sign said. I knew that’s what it said because I read it back when it was new. All you could tell now is that one of the letters printed on it might have been an ‘R’.

      Next to it was Video World; vacant, of course. Then a vending machine selling camera film. We’d seen the truck come by to restock it. Sunset Hills was the kind of place that drew lost things like that. Lost people too. There was always a huddle of them in the mornings and the evenings near the old supermarket, waiting eagerly to press around the occasional pickup truck that stopped there to take aboard a lucky few. Migrants, I assumed. People who’d left their homes behind but never quite found one here.

      At the end of the row there was a Chinese restaurant that was still in business, although I’d never seen anyone go in it. And across from that was the Seer.

      We didn’t know her name. She said she didn’t tell anybody. Knowing a person’s true name gave you power over that person. No one had power over the Seer.

      She had a wooden sign that swung back and forth eerily and creaked a bit — when the wind was right. It was purple with a moon and some stars rising above a crystal ball with an open palm beneath it. And, decorated with gold-trimmed purple cloth: a computer monitor. She had all that in neon on her window too, and the words: Psychic, Palm Reading, Digital Second Sight, Computer Repair. The Seer did a bit of everything.

      We went in the plate glass door and through a beaded curtain into a room where the air was thick with incense and the walls were all lined with dark curtains. Mystical symbols were painted on the ceiling and there was a black-light to make them glow. We headed for the back room, which was an ordinary office with a desk and a computer, an antique flat-screen with an ancient keyboard dating back from the time when people thought all computer equipment had to be grey. There was a couch for clients and a straight-backed chair that the Seer put in just for Theodora because she couldn’t sit on a couch with her back the way it was. The Seer knew we didn’t need any of that nonsense in the front room. When we came, it was for real magic.

      She stood up as we came in. I foresaw your coming and made tea, she said solemnly and went to pour it for us. She had a security camera set up in the parking lot, so she did a lot of very localized foreseeing. I think she knew Theodora and I knew, but we never said anything about it. We didn’t want to take away her fun. And we liked having the tea ready. I take it there has been another murder?

      Yes, I said. Terrible affair. Theodora, tell her about it.

      Well, said Theodora, with a bit of a quaver in her voice. I don’t know that there’s so much to tell. There was a car left in my driveway last night. It’s still there.

      She says it isn’t the same one as last week, I added.

      Theodora gave me a glare. "Don’t be spiteful, Nancy.

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