I’m very pleased to have a story included in the new issue of Parsec magazine. ‘Beyond the Tapir’s Eye’ takes place in the same timeline as my story ‘An Island for Lost Astronauts,’ which appeared in Interzone during the TTA Press years. My aim if to write a few more of these Rivertown stories before the end of the year, and landing this one in Parsec has given me a bit of a boost after a fallow few months. Very grateful to Ian Whates for picking it up and it’s nice to appear in the same magazine with Andrew Hook, as well.
An excerpt from ‘Beyond the Tapir’s Eye’ follows below.
‘We fled Rivertown when Rivertown drowned.
The first dream I had was of a river that grew into an immense eel and ate my family. I never had a family, apart from inside that dream. I was brought up in Rivertown as an orphan, the daughter of a woman who threw herself from the roof of one of the buildings of Altamont island. My father, so it was said, was a mad astronaut. Bek Manderley brought me aboard The Landfall By Midnight, because in my abandonment and vulnerability she found some rhyme to her youth.
Bek had assumed the role of our leader ever since the final buildings of Rivertown slipped beneath the waves. The Landfall By Midnight dragged our collection of barges, abras and skiffs. River captain with a taste for grandeur, fleshy woman amongst the starving, Bek taught me many things over those years. How to jolt eels from the water with a fishing prod. How to identify the mottled colouring on the white belly which indicated toxicity. How to navigate the dangers of wind over tide, and how to gut a man with a power-blade when he thinks he has the upper hand. She was wanton in her behaviour, fierce in her exterior, kind beneath it all. Our saviour, our light. She always said: the churches of ancient times belonged to the people not the buildings, and physical presence of our communities would always be secondary to our characters. Yes, Rivertown drowned, and so we brought Rivertown with us, on the fleet of ships that carried us from the lost islands. The Landfall By Midnight acted as our flagship, dragging our ragged flotilla by chains as we cruised the meaty waters of East City.’
Absence Club 