by Alex Miles
GLORY AND SPLENDOUR: TALES OF THE WEIRD
ALEX MILES
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1st Edition
Cover idea: Johnny Mains
Cover design: Neil Williams
Published by:
Karōshi Books
ISBN: 978-1470190859
Glory and Splendour
Alex Miles
Introduction © 2012 The Editors
Foreword © 2012 Michel Parry
All stories © 2012 Alex Miles
CONTENTS
Introduction
Foreword
Glory and Splendour
The Judge
Deep Stitches
Hitting Targets
Life Beggar
The Lotus Device
INTRODUCTION
Karōshi Books is dedicated to bringing out new works of fiction and non-fiction by new and unpublished authors. An imprint of Noose & Gibbet Publishing, Karōshi Books is jointly run by Johnny Mains, Peter Mark May and Cathy Hurren. We are delighted to offer Glory and Splendour by Alex Miles as our first publication. Alex is an exciting new talent, whose ideas and concepts are bold and assured; his writing easily belies his twenty-five years of age. We hope you enjoy this debut collection that heralds a major new voice in weird fiction.
Johnny Mains
Foreword
Many horror writers trace their literary awakening to their discovery, at an impressionable age, of a particular horror author – for my generation it was usually H.P. Lovecraft. They would read one of his stories in a fortuitously acquired collection or anthology, get hooked, and it would all snowball from there.
Alex Miles came to weird fiction via a slightly different route. A keen reader from his early teens, he successfully resisted the lure of horror paperbacks with startling covers. The writers who entranced him were people like George Orwell and the Czech author Franz Kafka. Also influential was the surprisingly grim fairy tale world of Hans Christian Anderson. Academics don’t consider these horror writers, of course, but look at what they wrote about: totalitarian futures where dissidents are fed to hungry rats, desperate individuals who metamorphose into giant beetles, and young girls whose red shoes keep on dancing, even after her feet have been cut off...
Different route, same destination.
‘Horror’ is, I think, too limiting a label to pin on Alex Miles. In the six stories in this, his first collection, you will find Dystopian SF, fantasy, surrealism, black humour, satire and, yes, moments of shocking horror – sometimes all in the same story!
One of the things which impressed me most when I first read these stories was the power of Alex’s visual imagination. The title story Glory and Splendour, in particular, contains imagery that sticks in the mind like a leech. The set-up is unpromisingly restricted – one person stranded alone in a house – yet Alex manages to imbue the situation with an apocalyptic grandeur which verges on the epic.
In his introduction to The Dark Domain, a collection of stories by the Polish fantasy writer Stefan Grabinski (1887-1936), Miroslaw Lipinski notes that Grabinski referred to a certain kind of fantasy writing (including his own) as psychofantasy or metafantasy. He devised these categories to differentiate works which place greater emphasis on “psychological, philosophical and metaphysical concerns” from more banal, less ambitious writing. I would say that Alex Miles’ work fits very comfortably into Grabinski’s classification.
With their melancholy narrators, stifling bureaucracy, betrayers and betrayed, and the descriptions of decaying, collapsing cities, several of these stories read more like the work of a disaffected Eastern European than a young man living in present-day England. Maybe it’s Kafka’s long shadow. Certainly it is hard not to read a story of state-sanctioned retribution like The Judge without thinking of Kafka’s well-known story, In the Penal Colony. The subject matter is similar, the execution quite different. In every sense.
One story which could never be mistaken as being anything other than English in origin is Hitting Targets. In contrast to Alex’s more serious stories, this is a blackly humorous satire on estate agents, gaming geeks...and serial killers. Alex himself describes it as ‘comedy horror.’ It amusingly hits targets as deserving as modern box-ticking business practices and jargon (with which Alex seems alarmingly familiar), and ineffectual PC PCs. It reminds me somewhat of the scabrous satires by playwright Joe Orton. Even the names of the characters seem Ortonesque. Alex assures me he’s unfamiliar with the murdered playwright and I believe him.
An intriguing character who crops up in more than one of the stories is the ‘little mystic pedlar’ who figures prominently in Life Beggar. A fixer and facilitator (plot wise too), the Pedlar can provide anything you desire...for a very high price, of course. He’s a bit like a darker, more malevolent version of one of those mysterious proprietors of magic shops and shottle bops in stories that once appeared in magazines like Unknown. The Pedlar turns up again in The Lotus Device, and, if I’m not mistaken, he also makes a brief but essential appearance in Glory and Splendour. He’s a character readers will want to read about again.
In these days of ever-constricting consolidation and so-called rationalisation in mainstream publishing, Johnny Mains, Peter Mark May and Cathy Hurren are to be congratulated on taking a chance on both a new publishing venture and a fresh new voice and imagination. The genre badly needs independents like Johnny, Peter and Cathy...and individualists like Alex Miles.
This is a significant first book.
Michel Parry
GLORY AND SPLENDOUR
I dipped my hand into the crimson paint and with a single stroke of my palm, I smeared it across the mirror. Within that narrow, smudgy streak the lights brightened, the colour intensified and I saw my face as it was meant to be. All my sores and abscesses vanished. It put flesh upon me. My skin lost that grey tint. The mirror lied to me that I was handsome.
I remembered the first time Mother told me her stories: why we could not go outside and why the view was so beautiful. I remembered the last few months when she lay on the sofa facing the ceiling, only a little light seeping through the boarded up windows to show her frail form. We were both sickly creatures. I think she knew she needed to convey the seriousness of our position.
“Sweetheart, don’t go outside. Don’t go.”
“Why Mother? I am tired of not knowing. I really don’t understand.”
“Don’t go. You will die if you go out there. I forbid it.”
“Sooner or later I will go. Tell me?”
“Don’t go outside. I will tell you. Wait while I breathe.”
She paused. I could hear her inhaling deep and rhythmically for a few moments and then she spoke, halting for breath between each sentence. She told me this story over several days, in many short sittings. She was often too weak to talk. I have taken the liberty of removing the worst of her ramblings and contradictions.
“Long ago your father and I worked under the Master of this house. He valued only one thing: beauty. Nothing else would make that man smile. I remember how he hired only the most handsome servants, wore only the dandiest clothes and cut off all his dogs’ tails because he found them ungainly. Every piece of dust in the house ca
rried the punishment of a beating. I know he fancied himself a great artist and his frustrations fell downwards onto us.
“I remember the Master looking down onto the city with a sneer. Dirt and filth-encrusted hovels sat at the base of the hill and out of the slums, huge ugly factory pillars scraped against the toughened sky. Some rottenness was corrupting the soil, plants and air; that made the view disgusting to anyone, let alone him. He would empty his discontent onto Samuel, the butler of the house, your poor father. Samuel was the closest thing the Master had to a friend.
“‘Curse this city. What can I do with this? Is this it? Is this what life is meant to be?’
“Samuel would ask if there was anything he could get the Master.
“‘Someone who can appreciate me. A patron would be nice. Two would be splendid in fact.’
“‘A good pork meal would maybe cheer you up in the meantime, your Grace?’
“‘Sooner or later today’s pork meal will be yesterday’s pork meal … yes, yes, it will do for now.’
“Samuel would come down into the cellar and work the staff up into a frenzy. He was hard on them because he had to be. The meal would be perfect. Everything was always perfect.
“I do not know much about the evil that infects this city; no one ever did. There had been a gradual rot in the land for some time, but something far away had inflamed it. A sinister poison seeped across the ground. At first only the rumours came, but then the stories turned into an exodus of unfortunate people passing through. They all told jumbled and conflicting tales of devils, cults and decay, but all agreed the fester was heading here.
“In their stories their lands grew no crops, except plants with boils. Poison rained from heaven and seeped out from the earth. Those that ate from the land became infected with a wasting plague, making their bones as rubber and their skin bubble with boils. Each wave of refugees grew more diseased, more desperate, more mad and more numerous. Samuel played for the long game and he stockpiled any canned goods and preservable foods he could find. The cellar filled up with many years’ worth of food.
“Within a few days a plague was upon the city. The boils appeared everywhere, indiscriminate of hygiene, age and health. Out of windows came pitiful, unheeded screams of the abandoned dying. The servants were ordered not to leave the house.
“For the healthy, the worst of all the curses was the appearance of the town; they became nauseous at the spectacle of it. The sky became a revolting, murky pool of brown and green. A constant rain began to fall, causing the sewers to overflow and vomit up their contents. The animals and trees warped and became disfigured, the insects multiplied and the boils spread across the bare land and onto the buildings. Looking at this would leave the observer in no doubt that within a few weeks the city’s population would be dead, and this knowledge came close to driving the inhabitants of the town insane. Some ended themselves because of it.
“The news came that the last train out of town would leave the next day. Samuel pleaded with the Master not to let this opportunity slip, but he was ignored until he offered the possibility of travel to the capital. The Master, seeing an opportunity to re-launch himself, gave permission to buy the vastly expensive tickets.
“That evening a knock came at the door and I tried to shoo the visitor for fear of contamination. You can see clearly through our glass door, but it blocks all sound and the visitor took no heed of my gestures to send him away.
“The Master angrily chastised me. ‘Let him in, fool. This is the man I sent for.’ So I nervously opened the door. There stood a little crumpled man in an old brown suit.
“‘I heard you wished to do business,’ said the little man. ‘What would you like from me?’
“‘What do you call this? You are years late.’ The little man shrugged and gave blunt excuses. When the Master got angry the little man threatened to leave unless he got to the point. ‘What I want … What I want is, dear sir … I don’t trade in anything but art.’
“‘My friend, we are in the same business. I too trade in beauty.’
“‘I very much hope it comes to my standards.’ The little man rolled his eyes. He showed the Master the city through a shard of glass and everything appeared as normal. Then he turned it round and through the shard the sky appeared blue, the trees stood upright with lush leaves, the sun appeared clear and the crumbling walls were resurrected. Everything resembled the city in some parallel beautiful way. It was the most gorgeous thing I had ever seen.
“‘My God. What is this technology? What do you want for it?’
“‘Oh, but I want to give you more than this. I want to give you the recipe.’
“‘Yes, yes. Name your price.”
“‘Well, it is very costly … rumour has it you may have tickets out of town?’
“So the vile deal was done. By the next morning we were given a barrel of the wretched paint and told to paint every window of the house. We only painted the inside of the windows, so we would attract no attention from those outside. It was unholy stuff: until it was painted on it was blood red and smelt sickly sweet. Two servants vanished that night. I do not know the recipe, but people vanished in those days, for many reasons.
“As I painted, my eyes cried at the sight: it was entrancing brilliance. The city seemed a glorious miracle when we saw it through our windows, a maddening deception: the world’s purest lie. When it was done, we owned the most magnificent view in the entire world.
“You know, I sometimes think everything was worth it to see that view, it made me happier than anything. It seemed so pure, so real, just the idea that such a perfect world could exist made the suffering bearable. But a lie that helps us through the day is still a lie.
“We finished the whole house and the Master was delighted. ‘Now finally I can paint a scene worth painting. Let the world rot outside! Their rainy days are our sunny days.’ The train left and the last inhabitants had the choice between a long walk or to stay and weather the storm. We stayed.
“The curse grew deeper and the remaining people began to die. Only the diseased remained with no more than a handful of healthy and even they seemed infected with some hysterical madness. Weird creatures appeared amongst the rubble of the town with a hatred of the people, but I never saw them, for windows displayed them as children to us.
“Those windows are devious, never trust them. We saw through the window a woman on a swing, but we discovered in reality she had hung herself. ‘Our house always looks on the bright side now, damn it!’ laughed the Master.
“Despite falling in love with his new windows, the Master was not content. His paintings could not capture the deep beauty. His servants crept away to escape the dying town and when the plague entered the people of the house, he threw them into the street. The house fell into a state of disrepair.
“‘Curse this house. I finally get a landscape worth painting and the building collapses around me.’
“‘We could still leave sir. We can paint the glass anywhere.’
“‘Haha. I have a much finer idea.’
“The Master had a pair of reading glasses that he refused to wear, but he dipped them into the paint and when he put them on he squealed with childish delight. ‘Now finally! Everything is as it should be.’ He was happy for the first time in his life. He greeted the last few miserable servants in the corridors. He began to like painting the magical windows, yet his pictures were nothing like what I saw. In front of him would be the calm lie the windows told, yet on his canvas were pictures of horror. He produced the most eerie and death-filled scenes, but he declared them ‘masterpieces of tranquillity’.
“Outside the ground became soft like flesh and ebbed disgusting liquids. A smell came from the rottenness at the centre of the world. The plague covered everything. The last civilians and remaining servants left the town. Samuel and I only stayed because I was heavily pregnant. I don’t think anyone else in the town could have stayed. The sight of the town seemed to give those outside self-destru
ctive tendencies. ‘Never mind,’ said the Master, ‘I don’t think I need quite so many servants anymore.’ Samuel bolted all the doors and windows so no one would pass through until it was safe.
“Despite his upbeat nature, the Master still moaned of the intolerable smell.
“‘There is nothing we can do, your Grace.’
“‘Pah. You are so negative. There is an obvious solution.’ He dipped his hand into the paint and smeared below his nostrils. The effect seemed to elate him, and to Samuel’s horror he went on to smear it on his eyes, tongue and ears.
“‘There, see,’ said the grinning Master, throwing away the glasses. ‘All solved. Will you not take some too?’ He reached out to smear the paint on Samuel, but Samuel backed off.
“‘With your Grace’s permission, I will decline.’
“The poor conditions gave us sores and lost us strength, but the Master took the worst of it. He stank as he never again washed or changed his clothes. He went about the mansion cheerfully asking for the servants who had long ago made their escape and praising them for their worthiness. He talked about imaginary grand events in town he wished to attend and how he had fulfilled his dream to be an artist. The house fell into terrible disorder, but he did not even know.
“One day we discovered him lying on the filth of the floor; he had found some rotten meat, covered in larvae and he was chewing into it heartily. ‘The best I have ever had. Congratulate Cookie.’ He never stopped smiling, and used to fall to the ground in hysterical laughing fits. He kept trying to convince us to put the paint into our eyes; he explained how the paint took away the world’s troubles. His state got worse over the months, there were many more horrible things the Master did, but I do not wish to repeat them. He was a devil. He had his fun.
