Indholdsfortegnelse for Issue 28 i Popshot Magazine

A place of ice over ice, of white over whiteand beauty in absences. There was a time when the only soundwas the wind calling its ghosts, when the skyline was set clean as a scar on glass, when your heartbeat slowedwith the cold, when your dreams brought in a white birdon a white sky and music that could only be heard from time to time on the other side of night.Now the horizon’s a smudge; now there’s a terrible weightin the air and a stain cut hard and deep in the permafrost. Breakage and slippage; the rumble of some vastmachine cranking its pistons, of everything on the slide;and the water rising fast, and the music lost.…

The owners have played the same songs on repeat for so long now I don’t hear music anymore, just the scrape of utensils on tempered glass, words tossed back and forth between mouthfuls and the calm, rhythmic clinking of Reuben’s dishwasher. Music, I guess, of its own sort. The bell above the front door rings and voices inside conjoin in a choral mutter of welcome, friendly but worn. Sarah twists around the counter towards a red-rimmed linoleum table, coffee pot in hand. I swivel on my stool. Outside, Kamloops is waking up. She asks what I’m thinking about. “Nothing,” I say, “Just life.” “More coffee?” “Read my mind.” I’ve been coming to Reuben’s Diner every Saturday for the past nine years. If I miss a day my whole week’s thrown…

“Fuck trees,” Cassandra Darnet, President of the UN Economic Council said as she scowled at the devastated wastelands of the Amazon basin from a hill studded with charred tree stumps. “We got a shitload of energy around us. Sun. Waves. Wind. It’s everywhere. We can stop being dumb, lazy bastards and make oxygen ourselves!” It wasn’t the statement most historians would wish to quote verbatim, but it was one of the most important ever uttered. Those expletive-laden words marked the start of a global revolution of the human system known as the ‘Post-Natural’ age. “Error in oxygen capture chamber three,” said Rena in her frustratingly calm voice. Eric grappled himself upright and wiped dribble from his chin. Data scrolled across the blurry retinas of his sleep-crusted eyes. His brain felt…

You rose,like a cloud that rose above a column of warmed air,and the red kites that rose through those thermals,you rose,like the ashes that rose from the flames that rose,and the air that rose from the base of those flames,you rose,like floribundas that rose from the soil and moisture,and the nutrients that rose to crown those plants,you rose,like the new houses rose from their foundations,and the community rose to commend the courageous,you rose,like the night workers rose as the nightingale sang,and the pious people rose to sing in praise of power,you rose,like the fists rose up in solidarity from the crowd,and the placards rose in protest and principle,you rose,like a mother who rose assuaged to feed her newborn,and a father who rose at night to calm his crying child,you rose,like…

You know, I do have other talents.It’s not just fruit and flowers and corn;although you’d never tell;always pictured in what I think ofas my Festival attire: Flowing gown,sandals, some sort of rustic crown.It would be nice occasionally to be shownIn a good sharp suit; Armani or Chanel.I do Creative Business Planning on the side.Women only. Don’t be surprised.Even goddesses move with the times.I know you’ve moved on, toless specific gods. Or none.You knew where you were with me.I do the seasons. I admit, there have been lapses.(Ireland 1845–51, not all my fault).It’s a big responsibility and I can’t be everywhere at once.I expect you thought I’d gone.Oh no! I’m still around. Remember,I only do the northern hemisphere,Not even all of that.It’s getting harder these days.Little things slipping out of my…

Before I started my map I had thought that I knew this place by heart. I could name every street that had cobblestones, I had walked the forest in leafy summer and empty winter, I knew where the cat lady lived and had returned a hundred and forty-five books to the library. But still I had to compile the unknown: I measured the scale between neighbour and fiend and noted the blurry lines between last year’s field and this year’s crop. Writing reality made me uneasy as all I saw was the past that had turned into fiction. To put everything where it belonged I had to exaggerate and diminish and leave blank and displace and navigate so that nothing would overlap on my map. The lines I drew looked…

After the doctor left, and the sedative finally wrestled my wife into a shallow, restless sleep, I sat down on the edge of my daughter’s hospital bed to tell her about the family plot. I took Daisy’s hand and shook her gently awake. Her eyes opened and closed in time with each step of the lazy line stumbling across her heart rate monitor. “Dais?” The bed creaked. My wife stirred but didn’t wake. “Can you hear me?” Daisy forced open her heavy eyelids, smiling despite the pain. My mother appeared in the corner, flickering like a bad lightbulb. Our eyes met and I motioned toward the door. This was something I needed to do alone. Mum blew me a kiss and passed through the wall, into the hall. I pictured…

He digs through layers of soil and sediment to reveal the tiny remnants of her. She’s been buried for so long, the earth refuses to let her go. There are sweat beads on his forehead, mud smudges his fingertips and gravel specks lodge deep under the thin moon of his nails. He sweeps the dirt from where it gathers in the curved dip of her hips. Brushes the dust from her femur and her tibia, then pauses for a moment to cup her heel bone gently in his palm. He remembers how she never liked to wear shoes. Remembers the soft sound of small feet on bare wood floors. How it echoed all around when she ran while pleading with him to be a dinosaur again. Chase me, Daddy. Chase…

Within the shadow of the watchful oak on top of the hill, the earth was stirring; soil forced upwards, something breaking through. It could have been mistaken for a curious mole pushing towards daylight. But the thing wasn’t pushing through the soil, it was the soil. It was an arm of dried mud in a sea of dried mud. Fingers formed at the top of the limb, slowly flexing, slowly, reluctantly, remembering. Next there was a head, lumpen and featureless, a neck, a shoulder. Another hand emerged, the fingers on this one grasping at the air. The shape birthed itself from the ground, arms pushing the torso upwards, a badly-drawn human in clay. Its legs emerged, jointed at the knee, and it tore itself away from the surface. It was…

You're not going to believe this,but it's true. Dialling into YouTube I listened to a man talkingabout his strange and exotic belief as if he'd recently resurfacedfrom a primordial swamp containing a live Ichthyosaurand what he said was fact. Looking just like Alan Whicker - neat, pencil moustache, hair gelled back like he were warya lock might fall strangling his diction, he spoke with militaryprecision explaining his views' vantage point, how to defeat the enemy of ridicule, combat mortar and bazooka shells using vigorous logic. The poorchap holding the microphone I'm certain had to suppress a smile.But he might not be entirely wrong. Living day to day I've often hesitated,afraid of that dangerous precipice.…

The acorn Standing in the middle, In the middle of mytwenties, Everything I know, gliding in and out of my orbit.My futures come close enough,that I could reach out and touch them, if I wanted. If onlyI knew which ones I wanted, if only I could decide. Whatcould have, should have, might have been Falls into thebottomless pit And I’ll never know What happened in theend. But here I am, Here Ihave always been Standing in the middle Feet planted,rooted in earth, getting stronger Standing tall, branchesstretching upwards, always Unshakable, that’s me.…

Oh my darling - how I have broken your heart, I have bruised your skincut down to your veins,crushed your soul for the food on my plate. My sweetheart-I adore your beauty, I’ll bask in your glorywhile I burn out your features,and poison your bedding, so I can fly like a laughing owl. To my poppet – I truly believe in us, like a distant dream though,a doomed romance destroyed by one of us,and I’ll write you love letters on your torn apart carcass. Oh my baby-I have given up. So, I’ll leave it to our childrento save this worldand steal their innocence to absolve myself of guilt.…

Dahlia didn’t know what to do about the daisies. Daisies overflowed from old kombucha bottles and recycled jars. The delicate blooms crowded into wine glasses and teacups, stems twisting out of mixing bowls. It looked as though a boyfriend in a romantic comedy was proposing. But this wasn’t the sort of thing Dahlia’s boyfriend would do. In fact, Todd hadn’t been over for days. He was allergic to daisies. Dahlia ran a hand through her hair, catching a stem tangled there. She pulled it out, cringing from the brief sting of its removal, and looked into the cheerful yellow centre rimmed with white petals. It was so cute. She added the daisy to a bunch in the salad spinner and taking a boiling kettle off the stove, poured hot water…

What broke your back first, Atlas? Was it the weight of the world itself or the heaviness of its peoples’ guilt? How did it feel to watch them fly away–out of your orbit– moving on to choke out Mars instead? After suffering through so much, how was this to be what brought you down? Countless storms have pelted every inch of your ever-weakening arms. Yet still you held on. Eventually, every coursing river in that world became corrupted–seeping through your fingertips and pumping polluted blood throughout your increasingly fragile frame. Yet still you held on. Then came the nuclear fire–tearing lesions across your already calloused hands. I thought their momentary dominion over the atom was to be your undoing. Yet still you held on. I recall how I laughed when…

We don’t touch any more. At the beginning–well, you can’t remember how it was. But I will never forget. Those first days, it was hard to say where I ended and you began. You were the most mine thing I had and yet, always, only ever yourself. With you, there, weeping at existence, something in me woke up, never to sleep again. You were tiny and I was vast, but you saw me. You made me real. Named me with your cry. And now–now, we are more of a size. You surround me with your words, but your eyes are elsewhere; I have become invisible. It knocks me flat, what you have become. So bright. So loud. So big. Full of hungry hope and fear. So far beyond anything I…