Wordfall

Hey people!Over the next few days I’m going to start sharing the first five pages of my new baby, SuperHal – The Graphic Novel Superhero Origin of Shakespeare’s Henry V. I plan to start a Patreon where people can sign up to get rewards based on the art in the graphic novel, e.g. T-Shirts, mugs, etc. Here is Page 1! Let me know what you think. This is a bit of a test to see if this way of producing writing/art will work for me

Far out

In space

There’s time

To breathe

And in

Your life

You find

A sheath

In which 

To still

The sword

Of hate

It’s made

Of blood

And drowned

With weight

But Earth

Creates

Its own

Accord

With Time

And Space

With plow

And sword.

She was asleep. She knew that. She must have been, or she wouldn’t now know what awake was.

There were – sensations. Elements she couldn’t reconcile. But parts felt somehow familiar, as if she were remembering them.

It seemed that her request had been answered. Long ago, there was a moment of desperation. Things had gotten so thin, that screaming was all that she had had left. The pure cry of utmost need.

Reaching out, she had sent the signal. No – not a signal. ‘Signal’ implies a disconnect between the communication and the visceral. No, she had shown them. She had made them feel the void, the hidden pain that was hers alone. It had become shared pain. 

And in a moment which must have arrived after her awareness had faded, they had responded.

What does she need? What’s the matter?

We feel a tug, energy draining. 

Her rhythm is off. 

She feels weak.

Mycelium enzymes are converting nutrients.

We feel it too – they are taking our carbon. She needs carbon!

Together…

Send her your carbon….

Send energy…

The whole forest must have been buzzing. Her mother tree had activated all of her relatives. She was now the hub of a vast organic highway of traffic, precious monomers surfing osmotic waves to come to her aid. 

As the rush of energy infused her cells, she relaxed with gratitude into the indulgent support of her sisters, and she knew they would always be there for her.

She opened her heartwood to the pulsing of life around her. She felt gratitude for the mycelium information super-hyphae that had conveyed her alarm, the shining Sun, the insects digesting nutrients with their masticating mandible jowls for the benefit of her and her sisters. She opened her stomata and inhaled deeply. 

It was still thin. She inhaled again. What was wrong?

She couldn’t breathe. 

Now she remembered. There was a reason she had grown weak. The days had been getting warmer and warmer. Her sisters, they were closer to the water. It was easier for them. She had always survived on little. But as the air warmed, it was harder and harder to breathe, to eat the light. She was becoming rigid and brittle.

She felt her life solidifying, her airy spirit arrested, trapped in the cells of a wooden coffin.

The darkness returned, and she succumbed, unsure if they could save her this time. She….

A new narration passage from ‘Full Moon Over Faulconbridge’, a collaboration with the highly imaginative Victor Spiegel. Welcome to the Posthumous Pub!

***

It is a sadly well-known and unfortunate fact that, even more than misery, idiocy craves company. One could say that when the deceased spirits of the colonial masters of Terra Australis passed on and found themselves bereft of their physical bodies, they realised that sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name. Created out of the combined memories of such luminaries of dispossession as Arthur Phillip, William Bligh and Lachlan Macquarie, the Posthumous Pub was about as horrific as one might expect. There, amongst the paintings of English lords, dart boards, semi-classy mahogany and copious amounts of rum and beer, the deceased leaders of the Commonwealth of Australia were welcomed to bask in their white male privilege, together with the governors of the former convict colonies; they caroused, argued, smoked, and occasionally burst into the kind of singing that caused the listeners to wish they were deaf (and in some extreme cases of drunkenness where clothing was removed in rituals that were shades of Oxbridge college culture, blind as well). The current raucuousness was a result of a serious disagreement between members of the Posthumous Pub Mock Parliament. Factions had formed and members had been whipped. It was now time for the decisive vote. As he was about to call the house to order, the spirit of Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies yanked Sir Henry Parkes’ ghostly coat tails. Parkes turned to face him.