Ò POetry by Mark Young Õ Art by Makaela Dokken Ô

It was the entrances

he remembered. Not

entering but / making

an entrance. The

pretence of it. Trying

to be someone else.

Or. Someone he might

sometime be. Make-

up & drum rolls. Dis-

guise the limit.

a speculative fiction, 9/5

Turning right, turning left, he wished he could interpret scuffs & broken brush. But let the victim call once more, move once more. He became openly abusive, criticised my work before junior members of the staff, even threatened to report me to the directors. Two small mouse-like animals had come scampering out, rushing around the laboratory until the cat caught & ate them. Why there were two, & so different in shape & size, where one would have done, I couldn’t imagine. But it is all one, & if at moments the facts seem to alter with an altered voice, why then you can choose the fact you like best; yet none of them are false, & it is all one story. It was to this heterogeneous building that the many cupolas & columns belonged. I am a student of such things. We had played too many games for me not to try this one, too. It won’t be pleasant at first, but afterward you will feel quite lovely.

(with assists, in no particular order, from Ursula LeGuin, Umberto Eco, Fritz Leiber, William Gibson, Samuel R. Delany, Michael Moorcock, Bruce Sterling, Philip K. Dick, Jorge Luis Borges & J. G. Ballard)