Void Galaxia [Serial]

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Always wanted to write a long-running serial with immersive VR and a chapter called Baudrillardian Group Fun Time and another chapter called Waste Of The Witch and

here it is

brace for hauntological drift

a wisp between sci-fi and experimentalism

scenes that in another universe would’ve been trimmed down

an abandoned alien in a Nick Stahl skin suit

sudden acid zaum

Triton intrigue

science that buckles under a brain swap op

Notes on Anarchism by Jeff Fahey

Japanese MC to Scouse MC to near-future Californian decay

unmade sci-fi films

sex + voyeurs

Dada outreach

remade sci-fi films plus

L’Avenir stuck on a moon base that maybe some of the postmodernists saw coming

maybe not.

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Updates every Saturday and Thursday barring illness or weird mood.

Read Chapter 1: Bacon Face Xopop or go to the Void Galaxia menu page for the full list

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[Destiny] Chapter 45: Portal Perpetual

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The landscape surrounding Almodóvar Chicken wasn’t as barren or desert-like as it had seemed from the service station car park

not superficially

as over the first set of hills lay a small pueblo, white walls and dustbowl ground, abandoned

but not historically without hope

at least in the 80’s

cos when the service station was originally built – at the start of that decade, twinned with Almodóvar’s second film Laberinto De Pasiones – there had been plans to bring the place back to life, mainly through film tourism.

The idea wasn’t a hundred per cent clean, as it relied heavily on mimicry and low information tourists, but if those tourists had been unable to locate the castle from The Fearless Vampire Killers and somehow found themselves in the Portuguese countryside, then they could potentially be tricked into thinking this village really was the same place Sergio Leone had dragged Lee van Cleef and Gian Maria Volonté to duel object-erotically in For a Few Dollars More, with the pea-brained American fascist with no name lurking off at the side somewhere, ready to slap anyone with tits and a Sontag zine.

To buttress the deception

there were promotional signs copied directly from the pastiche-approximation of the real shooting location near Almeria, Spain, placed at the entrance to the village, boards with hero-size shots from the final shootout, other locations from earlier in the Agua Caliente scenes that had been recreated with a layman-eye substitute level of detail.

They’d even brought giant stones in from the nearby desert and made a circle out of them, plus two life-sized dummies modelled on El Indio and Da Colonel.

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[Void Galaxia] Chapter 7: Pluto 2280

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      When I got back to the Computerr Research Lab, my number was up, so I waved the Pluto 2280 game-card – the non-labelled side –  at the admin guy and walked deeper in. Straight away there was a problem: some kid was sitting in front of my screen, playing one of those classic half-bit, non-VR games. I checked the ticket. Yup, it was definitely mine. What the fuck was this little trog doing?

      ‘Hey,’ I barked, waving the ticket above his head.

      No response.

      ‘Time’s up. Finished.’

      Nothing, no head movement, barely even blinked.

      On the screen, there was a beach and a man running up some steps onto a promenade. Behind him, someone yelling, off-screen, then gun-shots. So loud I could hear them through the guy’s headphones. Which I decided to yank off.

      ‘I said, time’s up, kasu. It’s my turn.’

      He looked up, dazed. ‘Five seconds.’

      I spent the five seconds looking at his build. He was sitting down, but I could tell he was small. Arms pretty thin…chest covered in an over-sized Critters 6 t-shirt…probably no work put into it.

      ‘Five seconds gone, kasu. Get off.’

      He shook his head and kept playing.

      It was probably wrong to start a fight in the computerr lab, but he was pushing me, and he was skinny, and it would be over quick.

      ‘You deaf? I just told you to get off .’

      My hand pushed his bony little paw off the keyboard. He tried to slide it back, but I blocked, cuffing him on the temple as an exclamation mark.

      ‘It’s not saved, abuzere.’

      ‘Don’t care. Move.’

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A Visitor To A Museum // Ansgar Allen

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What do you want from me, observer, with this observe that there, see it that there below, grey obstinate what there that there, observe, then, not nondescript enough, say, surely never nondescript enough, that ever enough walked already beyond itself, and the extras. Cough grievously, enflamed that there and on that there, never behind there, never that not nothing, else, behind that there becomes, grievously mistaken. This way, never behind with coughing, these extras, they cough, about which say nothing, in advance only. Not nothing extra, observer, what say it then, that, nothing not extra, the extras who cough in advance only advance only. See what sea then that then saying when, or days, three out three back, see that sea then seen it gone.

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Ansgar Allen is the author of books including a short history of Cynicism, and the novels, Plague Theatre, Wretch and The Sick List.

[Void Galaxia] Chapter 6: Sounds Like A Death Cult

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The sky was streaked with green slashes [safe pollution, the media called it] as I got back on the train and out of Jiyugaoka.

      Just like before, all the seats were taken by a mix of school kids, mums with prams and geriatrics staring off into space, so I stood by one of the poles in the middle, thinking, semi-scrambling.

      Yosh was right. It had been over three months, almost four. Never usually took this long to send out new games. Even during the bosses’ strike last year. Shit, Ryu, what were you doing over there?

      A baby cried out from one of the prams, getting a quick, ‘there, there,’ from its mum before she looped back to her phone.

      Wah, forget Ryu, what was I doing? I knew Yosh, knew him when I’d started this shit, where he was from, who he was with, the shit he’d probably done in Ikebukuro.

      But, Yosh…he liked me, didn’t he? At least a little, and enough not to…not to what? What would he do exactly?

      The train stopped and more people got on.

      A man in a Silent Crimson 8 vest, carrying a guitar case on his back, moved in front of me and filled up most of my space.

      Fuck, no apologies, no gestures.

      ‘Hey…’ I said, firm but not aggressive.

      He shifted his feet, turning further away. The guitar case pushed against my chest, forcing me back a little. What the-…was he drunk?

      I steadied myself against the bar behind and examined the intruder. Two, three inches shorter, weak shoulders, skinny arms…

      Running off a lunatic hit of adrenaline, I moved forward, pushed the guitar case to the side and off his shoulder. The guy turned, annoyed, his mouth already open to call me something…then closed it fast when he saw how close I was.

      No words back on my side, just a focused glare.

      Tsukubashi’s potentialism.

      Kristeva’s abject.

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[Destiny] Chapter 44: Almodóvar Chicken

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The next morning, the reunited trio checked out of the unburnt hostel and headed over to Sevilla’s main bus station, aiming one more time to buy tickets without showing their passports.

Una tarea optimista at first but

with no air-con

30 degree heat

a queue of ten propped up behind

it soon sank into pale farce, Joanna trying to put a new plaster on Sila’s leaking arm wound as he said ‘too young to do passport’ to the ticket guy, and Søren picking at the dry blood scabs, whispering something in old Danish.

The final result, no tickets

no sympathy

and watery coffee in the bus terminal café.

‘Really, really don’t want to drive,’ started Sila, scratching his plaster, eyes on the Debordian hole in the station wall.

‘No car,’ replied Joanna, taking her coffee cup back from Søren.

‘… … … …’ in raw Danish.

‘It’s my drink.’

‘… … … … …’

‘You’ve already had half.’

‘… … … …’

‘That’s my finger.’

‘… … … … …’

Sila told them both to stop in Danish, pulled out his phone and stared at the blank screen. Then the hole in the bus terminal wall again. A local was bending down, placing a toy sledgehammer like a bouquet of aware that you’re dead lilies.

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[Void Galaxia] Chapter 5: Dragon Centre

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I stood with one elbow on the counter, next to a completely incongruous rolled-up stack of fiberglass, staring at the game posters on the nearby wall.

      Robot Diablo [Argentinian]

      Le Regle De La Jeu Medieval [French]

      Harem Survival 4 [Iranian-Guangdong collab, ridiculously popular]

      Kokoro no iron [One of ours]

      The last one had the best art, a pretty realistic image of a heart being crushed by a giant metal claw, but the concept…still generic. Young teens, robots suits, battles spilling over into high school girl changing rooms.

      I heard a noise from the door and looked over, but it was something happening in the corridor outside.

      Quick check on the back room doorway.

      No Yosh shape.

      Back to the posters.

      Ah, Harem Survival 4…the one that finally took the subtlety away…played by gamers with absolutely no sense of shame…

      Another noise from the corridor, followed by a rough shout of NOT THAT WAY, YOU SPOON.

      I tried looking out through the window, but there was too much promo stuff blocking the view. Just a head or two bobbing past.

      It was weird, the centre was fairly active, but none of it seemed to be spilling over into Yosh’s place. Like someone had drawn a magic circle in invisible chalk. There were one or two kids slumped on the VR dentist chairs in the corner, but compared to normal, the place was practically derelict.

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Black Candles // Karina Bush

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She watches from the incest pit gold cigarettes.

She is fractured in the head.

She fingers her fractured head. 

Pearls after pearls after pearls.

Flowers flying from the incest pit.

All tender in the pearly orphic dream.

She masturbates the goat.

The goat loves it he fills her cup.

She drinks the sperm of the beast.

The sperm glistens her insides.

Slips through the cell doors into her empty space.

She is part of the fleshy universe.

She had repressed this dream.

The feeding dream.

The non-ordinary state.

She has pregnant tits to rage suck.

She fucks the air fucks the world.

The skin is all that exists.

She anoints her in Latin.

In the stable where Gods are born.

She fucks the goat in Latin.

Continue reading →

[Void Galaxia] Chapter 4: Hiding Out In Moon Factory 7

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…dimmest court room I’d ever seen, darker than Tento’s Horror Dome, with Yaphet Kotto ordering me to the bench, without my lawyer, and before I knew it I was over there, staring up at him god-size above, blank-eyed, facially retrograde, listening as the alien-hassler recycled for the seventh time that I was guilty, amoral, hangable, and what did I have to say about that?

‘Still not true.’

‘Insufficient.’

‘I didn’t do anything.’

‘Precisely. You failed to help him.’

‘What? The noodles.’

‘Not good enough.’

‘But…’

‘Where’s your conscience, Keni?’

‘Who?’

‘You’re guilty.’

‘No…’

‘You truly are.’

‘I’m not.’

‘Don’t obfuscate.’

‘Ob what?’

Something at the back of the court started emitting beeping noises and my hand moved vaguely towards it.

Another few beeps and it stopped.

Kotto stared at me [and my hand] as if I were a necromancer then asked for an explanation of my actions that night. Stalling for time, I looked at the painting lurking behind, split into three panels, two men eating, something broken up in the middle, and then, accompanied by sudden industrial wires sprouting from the ceiling, the electronic screech from Tetsuo on the court speakers, my mouth opened and a new line crept out. ‘He wasn’t a man. At all.’

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[Destiny] Chapter 43: Ritualism For Old Time’s Sake

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With a bunch of drunk Portuguese guests screeching I’m not Spanish as a backdrop,

Sila sat down at the coffee-stained table

in the hostel kitchen

rubbed at the arm that he’d slept on funny the night before

and tried to read the Chinese on the carton with a substandard lemon pic. One word, lemon, obviously, but the rest of it

no idea

and even when Joanna intercepted his brainwaves and said no sugar lemon tea, there was no flinch or tut or bite back in raw Slovene, just a concentrated shift to the stairs leading down to the hostel entrance.

‘Staring will definitely make it happen,’ said Joanna, sucking the carton into disrepair then throwing the remains towards the bin [and missing]. Irritated, she got up and corrected the mistake, saying no to the Portuguese guy trying to hand her a tambourine.

On the couches, in the adjoining communal zone, the rest of the drunks stopped singing. For four seconds. Then started up with a new song, this one in more advanced Portuguese.

Joanna gave it one line before muttering, ‘vai, vai, vai, vai, vai, vai,’ and heading back to her seat.

Sila was still stuck on the stairs, mesmerised.

‘You need a telescope?’ she tried, unsure of her own line.

No response.

‘Okay. No telescope.’

Eyes half hazed, she turned and stared at the Santa Sangre poster on the wall for a good seven minutes, mind shifting in soft moves between the film and the director, the setting and a flight back home, family and insanity, a cartoon duck she used to find funny when she was small, that same duck with blood on its beak as a tiny blonde girl bit a human finger off, smiling, in a simulacrum of an adoption office, which in her logical mind she knew was just the façade of immigration.

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[Void Galaxia] Chapter 3: Ghost Park Ghost

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Turning another corner, I saw Ghost Park across the road and set course. The two teens from Saizeriya were there, drinking mega cans of Asahi, smoking with poor technique, their arms hanging off the swing chains like monkeys.

      I strolled over and sat down on the adjacent set of swings. One of the chains was hanging down lower than the other, but that was normal. As was the graffiti scrawled on the padded ground claiming, NO KIDS ALLOWED. Ha, it was true, the only kids who came here were the ones too young to patch in to Kanto Land…or those slippers-outdoors types, struck with luddite parents pining for the old days.

      Pushing off the ground, I let myself swing lopsided, eyes switching back to the two clowns.

      The taller kid, the sugar tin-throwing perv, had finished his can and was now crushing it awkwardly with his right hand. Mumbling something, the other kid swatted it onto the ground, gave a quick stamp, then kicked the remains at the slide opposite.

      ‘Way off,’ the taller one yelled back.

      ‘You didn’t fucking crush it right, kasu.’

      I pulled up the sleeve of my shirt and stared at them. Neither one of them had the balls to stare back.

      Fucking kids, always loud, always cans.

      They talked some more. About Ikebukuro and the things they were doing there. Or the things other people they kinda knew were doing there.

      Liars. Story-tellers. You wanna know about Ikebukuro, take a seat…take a swing, I’ll tell you.

      But what was the point?

      Fucking kids.

      Fucking Tsunashima.

      I turned away and pushed off from the ground, going back to Alien. That scene, Yaphet Kotto and the alien.

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