Editorial
The passage of time truly is a bewildering concept when one wills to give it thought. Not in the way where it might lack sense, rather in the way of the human mind being unequipped to fully comprehend Time’s full quirks and reaches. A month, at times, might feel like a week. A month, often, might feel like the full extend of a year. A year, rarely, might feel like no time had passed at all.
No matter subjectives or unperceivable truths, there is objectiveness to the comparative length of a year. 12 months; 52 weeks; 365 days; 8,760 hours; 525,600 minutes; 31,536,000 seconds. Today’s is the 53rd edition of our humble paper. A year in the making, truly, and all of it impossible without the help of London’s artistic community.
In the darkness of the Neath still shine lights. In the galleries, the theaters, the smoked back rooms of restaurants. There, brighter than the candles, the creativity of artists radiates luminous iridescence. It is our great honour and privilege to capture a bit of this glamour, to print it onto our pages, to share it with the rest of our remarkable city.
It is my hope that the Gazette has provided you dear readers with at least some amount of entertainment and, perhaps, an amount of joy as well.
We shall, of course, continue further on, and discover new reaches for our as well as your art to blossom within.
Best of regards,
R.
Art of London
Sun-Filled Stories, Chapter Three
Part II
by Cassius Mortemer
“Here we go again…” he whispered. He tried his best to remember the road he took yesterday. He hadn’t been focussing on the way at all. He was too busy asking questions and watching the Devil’s reactions.
He had passed four horse statues (or the same statue four times?) and finally admitted to himself that he had no idea where he was going. Perhaps he should’ve looked for a guide instead? He sat on the edge of what might’ve been a broken statue. Or a fancy rock. He didn’t care, he was too busy moping.
He unfolded the little sketch he drew of the Devil. He had only met the man yesterday. Do the soulless normally get this attached to the devil that takes their soul? Do devils usually rush an Abstraction? He had a friend who got hounded by a devil for weeks before he finally attempted an Abstraction. The devil failed, of course.
A shadow passed over his sketch, making it hard to see. Someone was standing before him. The Author’s gaze shot up, and he locked eyes with a pair of sulphur-fire blue eyes. The man was grinning cruelly at him. It took the Author a moment to recognise the Churlish Devil, who had nearly made him an Infernal Hunt participant the day before.
The Author sprang to his feet but the Churlish Devil planted a hand on his shoulder, pushing him back down.
“Now, now, no need to rush…” he purred. “Where’s your little friend?”
The Author didn’t say anything. He couldn’t, he wouldn’t, he didn’t want to. The Churlish Devil tightened his grip.
“It’s not nice to stare,” he said. It almost sounded like a threat.
The Author attempted to weasel out of the Devil’s grip. An awkward roll of the shoulder, a little shimmy to the side. The Devil didn’t hold on, instead watching him with idle interest. Like a cat watching a lizard wriggle and run before he tears its skin off with his fangs. He grabbed the Author by the collar before he could get too far away.
“I seem to recall your little friend breaking something of mine…” the Devil said, pulling the Author close. The Devil’s chest pressed to the Author’s back, and his free hand grabbing on to the Author’s bicep.
“Please let go of me…” the Author said. The Devil leaned his face close to the Author’s neck and took a deep breath. Every muscle in the Author’s body was telling him that now would be an excellent time to run, perhaps. Only for self-preservation purposes, of course.
The Churlish Devil hesitated… then started laughing.
“He took your soul, eh? Ha! Didn’t know he had it in him.” He roughly pushes the Author away, sending him stumbling. He caught himself, barely.
“Well, I no longer have any use for you. But that doesn’t mean my time would be wasted…” the Devil said. “I’ll give you a five second head start. If you get away, you’re safe. At least for some time. But if you don’t…” the Devil only smirked. The Author didn’t waste any time. He bolted before the Devil could say ‘go’.
(Un)Holy Night
by Chronic Dreamer
Two of my friends and I raced to the city center on bicycles, all of us having started from various points around the city. The brown multi-storied buildings were primarily of the Tudor style; a few modern sensibilities accented the buildings, such as shingled roofs and windows on the lower levels bastioned by iron bars. Other than the three of us, the city was desolate.
I had been the last one to arrive which made me the last to have my wish granted by The Crimson Beast. The building — that The Beast had propped their tent on the lawn of — towered over us with white columns and cold trim. Bearing a wide berth, it pushed all the other buildings away with well-groomed green. The building accented a much smaller white tent housing myriad musical instruments and mixing tables in which waited the wishing fairy (previously The Beast). Her violet hair floated freely as if in water and she drifted free from the shackles of gravity. She listened to one of my friends, the one who was the second to arrive. The first to arrive had already received their wish, and they were kept as a liquid in a tall-necked, deep-blue vase.
I already knew this was to be our fate; it had happened to me the previous time I had made a wish. That time, I was unaware of the process and shocked to find myself melted into a liquid and kept in a bottle. I watched as the universe around me slowly folded in on itself, molding itself to where my wish became the altered reality. For those around me, this was instantaneous; for me, I had to wait for the eternity to end and circle back to the point where I had uttered my wish.
When my second friend melted into the eternal liquid, I stepped up to make my wish. I joked with the fairy of how we had done this dance before and how I wanted a different wish, this time. Before I could express my wish, and after I had made the off comment, angels in sharp suits came into existence, seized me, and flew me away by my shoulders. They ferried me to the foyer of a drab office building, the whole place in a tumult.
Something evil had been re-born because of my wish, I had overheard. Ordinarily, they would have perceived each and every time the universe looped, and kept that evil under their watchful eyes and in their made prison. My wish, they did not know about. The evil being, called Noah by the angels, had been able to escape its imprisonment. During the singular point in time, the gap between where the previous universe ended and my wish universe began, Noah escaped its bonds with its will of wrath and gave itself birth in the new world.
The other side of the foyer, next to the hallway of office rooms, faded away to reveal a dirt path that wound through a neatly kept wooded area. On the path trod an adult male holding tightly to a baby wrapped in a serene blanket. The angels cross the threshold, frightening the man and poised to execute the infant. My sense of morality was thrown into conflict. I did not want a baby to die, but I knew that if it is true evil it must. I am unable to decide its fate.
News of Art, Art of News
Prolific Paper Reaches One Year In Age
Which is, of course, both a truth and jest on this humble reporter’s part. The bottom line, of course, is information.
In the next year of The Goosey Gazette, a few changes and improvements:
The Gazette is now under the label of the Word & Press printing agency, who provide us with new possibilities of form.
The Gazette is still under the ownership of one R. J. Frogvarian, which guarantees a wealth of content.
The Gazette is still here to serve its readers, which guarantees integrity.
All in all, there are positive changes on the horizon for a humble growing paper.
Wish you all the best, London.
Ask Mother Goose
Dear Mother Goose,
Perhaps, it is good.
Resting
Dear Resting,
It is what it is, and it will be what it shall be.
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