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.

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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.
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The Family Business

By Lindsay Redifer

Nana doesn’t like it here. She hates the apartment, the toys I bought her, the decorations, the DVDs. I’ve tried to talk to her, to coax her out of her corner, but she just screams and kicks. Those shiny black shoes I bought her can do some real damage.

I really thought this would be a special time for her. My own kidnapping started just like hers, but it went so smoothly. How did Big John do it?

I leave her alone with some crayons and paper near her corner and I wander through the penthouse. It’s not mine, it’s my dad’s. The security system installed in each room is my own design, right down to the logo. It blinks and beeps at me now with little red eyes.

Maybe I should call big John. Not that he’d answer his phone. He’s too busy running his empire. He has over one thousand employees now, each specially trained to make a person disappear, to negotiate for a huge ransom and then carefully disperse the small fortune. He has no time for self-trained amateurs. 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).

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Groupthink Storytellers – Part II

Jeez Louise! This has been a crazy, strange week for us here at the HAL offices. First we get a huge response to our STORYTELLING GROUPTHINK meeting, with folks nearly crawling over one another to tell a tale. Then we get mysterious emails from mysterious writers, sitting outside of mysterious bars, who get mysterious notes from mysterious strangers who don’t tip their waitress (Please let’s all pitch in and send Jennifer 15% of that tab!). Now we get more Storytellers telling more stories! Will the madness ever end? Here are two more yarns for your listening pleasure! Enjoy.

Carrie Sanders: A Real Man

Robin Silver: Cream Puffs

Missed PART 1 of Storytellers? Check it out here.

STORYTELLING EVENT OCT: (Please note)

We are getting a lot of interest from people wanting to be storytellers at our storytelling event, so if you are in Shanghai and want a chance to join in please confirm with us at butler@haliterature.com ASAP. It might just turn into a competition to see who gets a slot, so act fast!

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.

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Groupthink: Storytellers

We write stuff. That’s what we do. We write and we read and we discuss stuff. That’s what Groupthink is. This week though we decided to go a different route. The route of our forepeeps. We wanted to get our olden timey on and do the whole “sittin'” by the fire telling tales thang”, and so we did. But HAL style.

Instead of a camp fire we sat around a table laden with cheep booze, getting hammered and chain smoking cigarettes of questionable authenticity. Yup, twenty people crowded around the tables at Crocus telling true tales. Real live stories! None of that fiction crap the kids are so crazy about these days. So sit back and enjoy these recordings from our evening of storytelling.

Oh, and just when you thought it couldn’t get any sweeter HAL is putting together the first ever Storytelling Event in Shanghai this coming October! We are looking for Storytellers, Musicians of all kinds along with Artists, illustrators, painters  and digital artists to join HAL in putting together an event that combines all these elements in a celebration of storytelling. Interested in joining? Email us at butler@haliterature.com

Click on the links below to listen to Groupthink live storytelling!

W.M.Butler: Extra Cracky KFC

David Hampson: Declare Your Pork Pies

Kitty Harlow: Mum, Dad, an Arabian Prince and an unspecified amount of Cocaine (We withhold, for now, from you this brilliant piece, it will instead be performed live in Shanghai soon by beautiful Kitty, stand by for updates on HAL events).

Check out more Groupthink storytellers.

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.

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The Emerald Necklace

By W. Nat Baker
For a long time Conrad said nothing but just stood there and stared at the cable. He read the first line again, “Auditors arriving Shanghai next week STOP.” His throat felt thick and dry and his hands moist and clammy. He leaned against his desk to steady himself. He read the words again. He needed more time, he thought. He had to think this out. He needed more time. He had one week, no more.
“Handle this for me,” he heard his boss say, “It’s been three years since we’ve been audited so plan on spending most of next week with them. Just show them what they want to see and take them through the books.”
“Yes, of course,” Conrad stammered, “it’s just that I had no idea that they were coming. Why didn’t London notify us so we could prepare?”
“Consider it lucky they gave us this much notice. Last time I got one day’s notice. They’ll just go over the books, make sure that everything’s in order, verify export orders, find some minor deficiencies to justify their job, write up a report, and leave. It’s nothing to worry about. It’s just routine.”
“Right,” Conrad replied.
For the rest of the afternoon the words “Auditors arriving Shanghai next week” struck his senses over and over again like a wailing siren that wouldn’t stop. “Nothing to worry about,” his boss had said. If only it were that simple he thought to himself. If only it were that simple.

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