He has no harness, no ropes, nothing. He does not call out for help, either. He must have gone rock-climbing alone, relying on his years of experience and instinct to survive.
Four hundred feet below him are wind-beaten rocks, desert sand, exposed sections of stratified earth, fossils of long-extinct vertebrates, and remnants of civilization. And bearing down on this man and whatever lies below him is gravity, the stuff that’s supposed to keep his feet firmly planted on the ground while allowing him just enough space to stand upright and balanced on two legs.
Four hundred feet below him is the dull yellowing of arid land. Dunes and weathered canyons will open up to receive him once he lets go of the rock that he’s clutching with numbing hands.
Three hundred feet away on another outcropping of sandstone, there’s another man riveted by the plight of the man hanging on the cliff. It is safe to call the man with the binoculars Justin, because that’s what the tiny embroidery on his windbreaker spells out. Justin’s ring finger has a white section of untanned skin around which a wedding ring is supposed to reside.
Through the wide-angled eyepiece of his pricey Swarovski Optik SLC 8×42 HD, Justin observes the man clinging to a forlorn rock by the side of the cliff.
Holding his breath, Justin frantically tries his radio to call for help. Static hisses on every channel. Seconds pass. Justin debates whether to continue watching the man or go to find help. He decides on the latter and quickly prepares to climb down from his windy perch on the rock.
Justin’s foot gets caught in a small crevice, the inconspicuous boundary between two sedimentary rocks that is continuously widened by weathering. He loses his footing and tumbles. In that split-second before his head hits the rock, he attempts to cushion his fall with his right hand. The gesture does not break the fall. His head hits the rocky mound. Unlike in the movies, there is no dramatic thud, just the barely imperceptible sound of finality. Justin does not die immediately, but the blow to his head is fatal. He loses consciousness.
Minutes pass.
The man still holds fast to the rock that keeps him from plummeting down the cliff. He gets to decide when to eventually let go. He is still unwilling to let go. He still has enough strength to remain hopeful, if he is the type of person who believes that hope can change what is otherwise a calculated turn of events.
The man on the cliff holds on—for how long he can grip the rock does not matter at this point. He is going to die.
Justin’s body attracts the vultures. One swoops down. Then another follows. The grisly carrion birds touch down beside the body, fold their wings as if in supplication, the unique pose of the defeated. The vultures bend their necks, bow their heads, begin to peck away at the dead, take what they can before moving on. The long, long age of blight rambles forth.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Grateful acknowledgement is made to the editors of the following publications in which the early versions of these stories first appeared:
“The Wire Mother,” CONFRONTATION MAGAZINE 116, Fall 2014.
“Leviathan,” FAST FOOD FICTION DELIVERY (Anvil Publishing, Inc., 2015).
“The Ghost of Laika Encounters a Satellite” was a reworked segment of the story “The Dogs,” which first appeared in CHARLOTTE VIEWPOINT, September 2013.
“No Little Bobos” (“Chelsea and the Bobo Doll”), VOL. 1 BROOKLYN, April 2014.
“The Playground” (“The Children”), BOSLEY GRAVEL’S CAVALCADE OF TERROR, October 2010.
“Those Almost Perfect Hands,” EXPANDED HORIZONS 21, August 2010.
“Jude and the Moonman” (“Moonman”) first appeared in PELLUCID LUNACY: AN ANTHOLOGY OF PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR (Written Backwards, 2010) and was reprinted in PHANTASMACORE, April 2012.
“Pet” first appeared in PHILIPPINE SPECULATIVE FICTION 7 (Kestrel Publishing/Flipside Publishing, 2012) and was reprinted in UNCONVENTIONAL FANTASY: A CELEBRATION OF FORTY YEARS OF THE WORLD FANTASY CONVENTION (2014).
“Zombie Sister” (“Zombie”) first appeared in SOUTHERN PACIFIC REVIEW, November 2012 and was reprinted in UNO KUDO volume 3, October 2013.
“Beautiful Curse,” SMOKING MIRRORS (Connotation Press, 2013).
“Day of the Builders,” BEECHER’S MAGAZINE 5, Spring 2015.
“The First Ocean,” THURSDAY NEVER LOOKING BACK: AN ANTHOLOGY FOR THE END OF THE WORLD (the Youth & Beauty Brigade, 2012).
PHOTO CREDIT
Part I. “Animals”: Goliath the Elephant Seal, at the Vincennes Zoo, Paris (1936) by Acme Newspictures, courtesy Gift of The Age (Melbourne, Vic.) and the State Library of Victoria.
Part II. “Children”: Children’s playground at Ithaca, Red Hill (1918), photographer unknown, courtesy the State Library of Queensland.
Part III. “Instead of Human”: Plate 33 from the illustrated PRACTICAL HYDROTHERAPY: A MANUAL FOR STUDENTS AND PRACTITIONERS (1909), by Dr Curran Pope, courtesy the Internet Archive.
Part IV, “The Age of Blight”: Man standing in a spiracle on a lava plain near Laxamyri, Iceland (1893), by Tempest Anderson, courtesy the Yorkshire Museum (York Museums Trust).
The illustrations accompanying story titles throughout the book are details from Fortunio Liceti’s DE MONSTRIS (1665 edition) and courtesy publicdomainreview.org. “It is said that I see the convergence of both Nature and art,” Liceti is quoted as saying, “because one or the other not being able to make what they want, they at least make what they can.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kristine Ong Muslim has authored several books of fiction and poetry, including the short story collections Age of Blight (Unnamed Press, 2016) and The Butterfly Dream (Snuggly Books, 2016), two forthcoming full-length poetry collections from university presses in the Philippines, as well as We Bury the Landscape (Queen’s Ferry Press, 2012), Grim Series (Popcorn Press, 2012), and A Roomful of Machines (ELJ Publications, 2015). Her short stories and poems have appeared in such magazines as Boston Review, Confrontation Magazine, New Welsh Review, The State, and elsewhere. She lives in southern Philippines and serves as poetry editor of LONTAR: The Journal of Southeast Asian Speculative Fiction, a literary journal published by Epigram Books in Singapore.
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