Archived entries for Uncategorized
History of a Future
Renée Reynolds first appeared in Party Like It’s 1984 and, because she is just so darn talented, we decided to include her in our new book. This second publication from HAL is a collection of short stories that are all about the bad things that make life in China kinda worth it! Sadly, you don’t get to see inside the book yet but if you check out Renée’s wonderful poem below you’ll know why she’s in the new book! We think Renée’s poem is almost as keen as Renée herself!
If you’re like us and can’t get enough of this girl’s awesomeness then check out the rest of her work on HAL as well as her new story Satellite American on Unshod Quills.
By Renée Reynolds
Old people walking backward
Posing brides in funeral white
Styrofoam swan feed
Root-ward growing treetops
Million-dollar watches that don’t keep time Continue reading…
The Empty Map – Part II
Artwork: "Anatomy of a map" by Renée Reynolds
By William Ellis
At last, I said, “What secrets do you have to show me?”
She laughed: “No secrets, really. These are just a few things I have kept since I was young”.
“How much younger can you get?” I was pushing her a little, now.
“I mean”, she went on, without missing a beat, and still smiling, “from the time when I was a little girl, maybe six or seven years old. There is nothing special, but every time I see you, you always say that you are curious about how I lived”.
She opened the box on her lap. Inside, was a large plastic envelope, of the kind that can hold sheets of stationary without folding, and two smaller boxes: this was China after all.
She slipped out the large envelope first, and took from inside it a neat pile of shiny, brightly colored papers. They were small, a few inches across, rectangular, and, creased. Some were a solid color; most were multicolored, with vivid patterns of bands and waving lines.
“These are candy wrappers”, she said. “My sisters – my girlfriends – and I used to collect them. We would unwrap them very carefully so that they wouldn’t tear. We would spread them out and press them flat; we wanted them to be as smooth as possible.”
She set the papers on the tea table, then opened one of the smaller boxes. Inside were miniature plastic spoons that were not much longer than a toothpick: at one end, each had a tiny scoop; at the other end, each had a little molded shape: a horse-head, a body of a fish, a coin, a sun, a star, or some geometric design.
“We collected these too. They came inside another kind of candy. This was a kind of powder in a plastic package about the size of a matchbox. We would shake out the powder into our mouths. Each package had one spoon. I liked the spoons much more than the candy.”
She set the box on the table. I thought that I knew what she was doing: she was allowing me to inspect, against the poverty of her early life, her childhood yearning to find and keep safe some elements of beauty in the empire of drabness that is China.
The Empty Map – Part I
A word from the Editor:
And we’re back! HAL has had a troublesome albeit productive September, focusing hard on our forthcoming new release, due in November, and to be celebrated with the first ever (?) Sex, drugs and money-party in Shanghai. Confirmed contributors includes Josh Stenberg, Andrea Fassolas, Timothy Wang, Brian Keane, Dena Rash Guzman of Unshodquills and, inshallah, the elusive Mr Hellowatch. HAL research on the subject matter S, D and M has been somewhat, ahem, distracting, but we’re getting there, snowshoes on.
But I digress. We now turn our focus back to our dear digital readers, and as a special Mid-Autumn Festival treat we proudly present you with the first installement of The Empty Map by Mr William Ellis (Biography here). Look forward to part to on September 12th.
Enjoy, and have a great holiday (for the China contingency – we will be thinking of you poor western fans come Monday morning)!
Love
B.
The Empty Maps – Part I
By William Ellis
I met her twelve years ago, in Daci Temple, in central Chengdu. The temple was tumbledown then, and smaller than now. The afternoon was grey, but it was summer, hot and humid. She came up behind me very quietly and tapped me on the shoulder. When I turned, she was standing with her hands clasped in front. Her dark hair was straight and long; she wore a halter top and the kind of short shorts that only Asians can wear without looking like trailer trash. Sandals, a small bag over her shoulder, small nose, pointed chin, pretty face, and very smooth skin, slightly tanned – still rare even now for Chinese women, but that was all: nothing else seemed remarkable then, except her British accent. She said, “my Chinese name is Li Jie, but you may call me Diana”.
She told me that she had listened for years, as often as she could, to the BBC – something then illegal. She wanted to practice her English, and wondered if I wanted to learn Chinese. She stood very calmly, smiling in front of me. Behind her rose the main building of the temple: dark walls, swooping roof, tripods smoking with sticks of incense. I had just been inside and hadn’t noticed her. It was as if she had materialized from behind the Buddha.
Continue reading…
Guess Who’s Coming to Götterdämmerung
By Terry Faust
Harold Barnard’s bowl of breakfast cereal trembled. It trembled because Harold trembled. Harold trembled because the refrigerator shelf on which there should have been a gallon of milk was empty. Indeed, most of the refrigerator was empty except for the week-old boxed chow mein that sat in the crisper drawer. Its sour odor wafted up.
“No milk,” he muttered through clenched teeth. “Yesterday this thing was full of food.” He gave the elastic band of his twisted sky-blue pajamas an angry tug to straighten them. He’d just got up and everything was crooked.
Harold’s kitchen was large, with a high ceiling and a nook containing a blocky oak table. His wife, Barbara, sat at the table reading the morning news, replete in a navy blue business outfit. The kitchen was designed to look like part of an old farmhouse with a butcher-block counter, unused copper utensils hung from the walls, a tall sheaf of grain sprouting from an antique milk can and a stove and microwave framed in reclaimed bricks. It was nowhere near a farm, though the development land on which it set had once upon a time produced corn and soybeans. Morning sunlight poured in through the kitchen’s large windows.
“What?” Barbara inquired from behind her paper. She shifted on her straight-backed oak chair. She was pleasantly plump, with Botticelli curves.
“There was a full gallon here last night,” Harold complained.
“I heard Benny and Thor come in late last night.” Barbara said, as if that should explain everything.
“At goll-darned three thirty in the morning!” Harold cried.
“Language dear! They must’ve had a snack. Make some toast for yourself.” Barbara turned to a new section of her paper.
All that remained in the bread bag were two heels. Even the bread had been ransacked. He slammed the leftover bits into the toaster and pegged the empty bag at the pile of pizza boxes stacked atop the wastebasket. “All they do is eat! Especially that Thor.”
“He’s a god, Harold. What do you expect?”
“I expect him to help out a bit. Do some dishes once in a while. Take out the trash.” Harold glanced at the door to the basement and lowered his voice. “Maybe mop up some of the blood he tracks in. My gosh, have you seen the way he leaves the bathroom? If I have to unplug the toilet one more time…I’m telling you! The hair in the shower grate is bad enough but last week I found a human ear! Golldangit!” Continue reading…
Fort Bringham’ere in Brief
by Renée Reynolds
Fort Bringham’ere in Brief July 5, XXXX
Dear Mr. Just Wondering,
Thank you for your interest in the operations of Fort Bringham’ere. Do accept our apologies for requiring 13 months and a day to reply – foreign-correspondence clearance protocol sure can be a time consuming process! You will find all inquiries and concerns classified as non-confidential addressed in this notarized document. I thank you in advance for pardoning the necessary omissions.
Fort Bringham’ere (formerly Fort Gimme) Military Biosphere Reserve (FBMBR) is located in an undisclosed northern township. With a north-south length of 880 m, and an east-west width of 500 m, the FBMBR covers a total area of 440,000 square-meters (44 hectares).
Once known as one of the world’s largest city squares, second only to the Imam Reza Shrine in Old Iran, FBMBR includes the majority of the highest quality hiparian flats remaining in mainland China. Multiple species of hiparian-dependent life-forms, found in Fort Bringham’ere’s flats, are candidates for rare and special species listing at local and national levels, including the Dusty dead-vinehopper (Wuttanowe dustus), the Xi’s Peckerspot (Thatsanot livustus), and the extremely rare, Highway Blue Face (Cyaninan cryptivius).
Hello, HAL. Do you read me, HAL? HAL: Affirmative
Note: This is a true story. Some names have not been changed to protect the innocent.
Deep in the wilds of Western Oregon, HAL contributor and foreign correspondent Dena Rash Guzman was in the midst of a coffee fueled all night editing bender, with only the damp chilly summer air and some howling coyotes in the river gorge for company, when a text message from an unrecognized number appeared on her phone.
What’s the name of your publisher?
And do you have an email for them?
Though somewhat startled, Dena was not ever in the mood to miss out on a submission for HAL. She responded to the text.
You are likely thinking of HAL Publishing.
My email is dena@haliterature.com
They are in Shanghai but I am
Managing Director North America so
I can direct your query. Who is this?
A few moments later came this response.
You’ll be receiving a message soon.
And You Will Adore It: an erotic tale
By L.N.R.
Today I’m meeting him in an old office. I’ve been there before. White on off-white. A water cooler. A chair. Nothing unique or memorable. It’s the kind of place a man goes to hide. A place he can bring a nameless female to slip out of her black dress, lay across his cold, gray desk and wait.
“C’est jour de tempête, c’est jour de tempête, c’est jour de tempête…” This time it’s a poem by Julien Hommage. My master likes to remind people that he speaks four languages, one of them French. Usually poems make my stomach do little somersaults of embarrassment, but this is an order. “Memorize this for me,” his last e-mail said. “You will recite it on Wednesday in my office at 5 p.m. Mistakes will be punished.”
“Ton talon s’abat sur mon corps, frappe mon menton encore et encore.” My floor is almost done. Afternoon light illuminates the floor and I imagine cruel, heavy boots walking across it. “Ton talon s’abat…” I look at my phone, 4:17. I need to get dressed.
Sitting in the reception of his nearly empty office complex, I watch the nervous receptionist. She’s told me to go up the marble staircase several times but I am sitting, as commanded, on the left side of the couch, legs crossed, silent. I smile at her, keeping my face calm while my heart bangs out a very different story. The receptionist gets out her phone and stares at it intently.
Finally he appears at the top of the stairs, sees me and makes a quick gesture with his head. Shaking a little, I stand and try a confident walk, but I can’t control my knees. I stumble a bit on the marble stairs and his lips smile just enough that I can see his yellow, jagged teeth. We go up.
Monstrum Poeticum
By Tom Mangione
Poetry, you are a monster.
I was told to stay away from you.
I was told to head for the safe and warm:
To dip myself into the safe and warm
Toes-first, testing the waters of the safe and warm
Sliding in up to my waist, warming my navel in the safe and warm
Letting the pleasant tingle work through my innards as I slid deeper into the safe and warm
Until I was submerged, cut off from air, sucking a tube to breathe in the safe and warm
Incubating for an entire lifetime in the safe and warm
But I didn’t. Continue reading…
Submit!
Just like Charlie Sheen Shanghai was created from fairy dust, sex, drugs, money and a whole lot of crazy. Do you want to be as awesome as this guy? Well check out our submissions page for more details on our upcoming new book!
