Oli Johns

[Void Galaxia] Chapter 1: Bacon Face Xopop

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Bullet hole seven inch Mostar wretch in fatigues call

warlord to public face uncle if fond of shoulder issue symptom bigger than other symptom cover up with moon base tech walk in slumped no lean on L’Avenir grin

point to VR stub claim association why zaum so zaum really grammar is syntax or opposite check data base with own eyes no not old form later when needed if loaded Khleb who Russian again in transit don’t you have a cocktail to spike

                                                                                                ya but

         not violent like the plumes yesterdirge what nitrogen

thought it was hydrogen forgot          

                                                                            two-thirds citrine max, scary should’ve worn bigger jacket

                               fuck in Bosnian dark forest that one sorry Bosniak

same tree cleaner sacrifice serious

                                              not now I’m

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Belgrade, Near Future

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‘Killed my family.’

Not strong enough.

‘Murdered them…my whole family.’

Weird. Off-tone at the end.

‘You…murdered…my Bosniak family.’

Slow. Too theatrical. Too family.

‘Murdered all of them. You.’

Better.

Scaling Keith David standard.

Continue reading →

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 41: Mate De Neptuno

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‘…Khlebnikov stripped it all but in the end stripped nothing, and that’s the real sadness of the endeavour, my viewing of it, at least, or perhaps not real sadness as real sadness came later with the schism of Hylea, whatever spelling you choose, and not state executions but self-executions, a retreat into other movements, Surrealism, Breton’s cocoon, Bataille’s bizarro sacrifice ring, but I don’t feel that sad about it now actually as I’m in futurism concrete, not tied to death in the human sense, which I shouldn’t say so loud when our doors are open the way they are, but in English, perhaps okay. No, don’t look like that, barkada, I’m not a monster, your blood is uninteresting to me, I swear, this place has a licence, can’t just go around eating people like the old days, gestalt days of Khlebnikov and Martinelli…sorry, Marinetti…I always get that mixed up, not sure why, but…there it is…other visions, parts, Mongolian futurism, 1928 to 34, fixated on Neptune and its alien blue hue, Ghanaian futurism, 1952 to 59, a hippy dream to colonise asteroids in the Oort Cloud, Tanzanian futurism, lion’s share of the 80’s, let’s all drift through the heliosphere in communal pods and write zaum poetry, Philippine Futurism, 1998-9, a short affair obsessed with Sun Rooms and psychological counter-language plus suffering, a retching of the Id, however you write it, obviously lasted as long as its main propagandists who…no, I didn’t know them…all starved to death in their own Sun Rooms, and other futurisms, my futurism right now, the inter-locking of other myths and so-called demons and selected humans with an open mind and…fuck, I think I’ve been drinking too much…should slow down a bit…go back to Khlebnikov the progenitor…or was it Martinelli…Marinetti…who started things…maybe Fourier…’

~~~

In sum total

both Joanna and Sila knew the terms Russian and Futurism, had vague associations with the word zaum, but the rest of it was a complete wash and

commenting or responding to the talkative, green-wigged aswang would be a waste of time, and a distraction from the fact that she’d lured them to her dimly-lit bar with almost no other customers and then proceeded to get slowly drunk in front of them

or pseudo-drunk, thought Sila

Ban joi, thought Joanna

Continue reading →

[Destiny] Chapter 40: Aswang Orbital

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Character-wise

Sila hoped the student wouldn’t be tetchy, wouldn’t say what with disgust, wouldn’t feel ill if a textbook wasn’t on the table when they arrived, and

most of all

wouldn’t laugh at every word he said.

Situation-wise,

he just prayed Joanna could keep Søren distracted for the next ninety minutes, stop her from coming over and rubbing against his arm.

There was a decent chance – they’d discovered that morning that she liked sketching, or liked observing Joanna sketching, yet there was no way to tell how long the fascination would last.

And sitting in a non-Starbucks cafe, with about fifty people around them, some of them low-tolerance tourists, it would be impossible to cover up the mess if she did start biting again. Ja, he had mitigated things slightly by parking them in the corner, with only the table to the left occupied, but still…

‘Your student is late,’ said Joanna, looking up from her Mega Man sketch, and then diving straight back down again as a tall bearded guy appeared with unsure-signal hand and asked Sila if he was Sila.

‘Yup, that’s me. Eros?’

The guy, Eros, nodded, said hi and sat down, pulled out a One Piece notebook and said hi again. Then looked left at Joanna and the girl.

‘They’re with me,’ explained Sila, deciding honesty was the less awkward way forward. ‘They don’t speak much English though. The girl, zero…doesn’t speak any.’

Continue reading →

[Destiny] Chapter 39: Am Not A Myth

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There were several visual cues to rep/carbon-date Sevilla

the giant waffle

the labyrinth streets

the church opposite a Starbucks or a Starbucks opposite a church

whichever came first

but the only places Sila had been the last few days were the hostel hidden in the side of an old building, the modernist bus depot currently making up the backdrop and the train station when they’d first arrived.

And a bookshop too, to get a Danish to English dictionary, but just like in Barcelona and Valencia and Almeria and Granada there were none, only Danish to Spanish, so each time he wanted to talk to his sudden daughter he had to look up the Spanish then translate that into Danish which he wasn’t even sure she understood as every time she spoke back it was brief and mumbled.

In the end, depressingly, he had no choice but to fall back on the phone, the thing all his high school friends would’ve started with.

Which didn’t help much.

Recorded audio fuzz or his own voice, both failed around 72% of the time. And the ones that did land got a yes or no in drizzled response.

Two thoughts came to mind, as the queue to the ticket booth ahead shortened.

One, as a mythological demon, maybe it was old Danish she knew?

Two, as a mythological demon in modern times, shouldn’t she know a bit more of up-to-date Danish?

And a wildcard third: maybe he was the first foreigner to attempt Danish on her and she couldn’t get past the out of phase errors?

Sila looked down at the top of the girl’s blonde head and found something new to say, typing it out quickly and then, a minute later, eking it out in the simplest possible sentence:

‘Are you looking forward to Portugal?’

The girl looked up and instantized the usual stare.

Continue reading →

[Destiny] Chapter 38: Lizard In Man Skin

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When Richard opened the door, Tak ignored the how are you, Silas Marner? and Feliz Navidad, and asked him straight if he’d seen that guy hanging around outside the Razor before.

‘Yeah…what?’

‘He was staring at me, just now. Do you know him?’

‘Which guy?’

‘African-looking, tall, fake-gregarious…’

‘Outside?’

‘…weird smile. Yeah. Standing by the stadium, the Razor.’

‘Okay, well…assuming you’re not drunk…he’s probably not a local. Don’t get many foreigners here in A Coruña, except yours truly. It’s a pretty sedate place. Not that much to do.’

‘A footballer…’

‘The guy outside?’

‘Yeah.’

‘For a provincial team…maybe.’

‘Or an English teacher.’

‘There is a small West African community over in Vigo, suppose he could be from there. It’s mostly Malians, I think, some Ghanaians too. But I never see them around here, so…’

‘Doing what?’

‘Who, the Malians?’

‘Yeah.’

Richard laughed, gesturing for some reason at the edge of the door that his left hand was still pegged onto. ‘Mate, haven’t seen you in ten years and this is what you lead with. You haven’t even asked about my wife.’

‘I know you got married. You posted it.’

‘That’s it?’

Tak squinted at Rich’s left hand, the dry skin on the knuckles, then phased awkwardly into a smile. ‘Sorry, mate. I was just-…the guy was a bit weird, looking at me. Congratulations on the marriage. Well done.’

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[Destiny] Chapter 37: Quiet Kind Of Fog

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The Barcelona simulation wasn’t the same the next day, it was greyer, a forensic shade of purple, with cops at certain corners, hawkers, non-descript, nebulous tanned whiteness, whispering threats that would’ve been Hungarian if he’d gotten close enough

and it took a further hour walking around the Museum of Modern Art for Tak to realise he couldn’t stay

not if he wanted to keep his mind on the right track

westwards

distant from the claws of Count Otius.

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He bought his ticket openly this time and sat down on one of the benches, looking at La Vanguardia online.

Made it four lines before he had to reach for his dictionary and as he searched

the demon girl floated back into his brain

telling him she was still there

still on the beach

blood dried

so why didn’t he come and say hi?

Tak repeated the usual phrase in five different languages, struggling on the Japanese version even though he’d always thought it was his best one

then went back to the news.

He read all the stories he was interested in and hissed at the business section, then went back to the dictionary and double-checked the headline words

blocked the demon girl speaking to him

again and again

blocked that fucking Dahli too

buffering in the background

halfway out of the sea in a seaweed smoking jacket.

Continue reading →

[Destiny] Chapter 36: Beach Fear

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The long route back to the beach did not pass through any panda fields or council estates or industrial ambush sites or forbidden zones of alien junk and beyond those four types what danger was there, really?

It took them a while to find the spot they’d left as it was a few hundred metres from the road, and, as they trudged like geriatrics across the sand to kill a little bit more time, Sila talked about what to do next, and when the best time would be to ditch the demon killing weirdo cos, although he hadn’t done anything explicit to them yet, he had passively forced them to hold his hand in Barcelona the whole day and never explained why, just said it was smoother if they all stuck together, and he hadn’t even talked to them most of the time

in fact

every time they’d stopped somewhere, like Burger King or the zine place, he’d simply opened his Spanish textbook and started studying

saying nothing

not even a request for one of them to test him on his vocab.

‘Only time he does speak is when he’s trying to talk us into something. Like that stowaway train debacle.’

‘I think he’s useful,’ replied Joanna, picking up a lump of wet sand and throwing it into the sea.

‘For what?’

‘Your cabinet mission. Demon killing. In other places.’

‘Places like three metres outside Ljubljana castle?’

‘One day, maybe. Why not?’

Sila picked up sand of his own, moulding it into a disc and trying to skim it along the surface of the tide.

It didn’t work.

just sank diagonally.

‘Look, I don’t mind the guy most of the time, when he’s not telling me to fuck off…but he’s too unstable. See what he did to that guy in Burger King?’

‘No.’

‘Yes, you did. He walked in and came back out with blood dripping down his nose. Must’ve beaten the guy up. Maybe worse.’

‘Okay. We’ll avoid Burger King.’

Continue reading →

[Destiny] Chapter 35: Tired Of Gothic

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According to Tak, the best strategy to avoid the conductor on the night train to Valencia was to stand with your bags in the carriage with no seats, wait till the guy got close then go and hide in the toilet.

‘It’ll work as long as we don’t move, long as we’re confident.’

‘In the carriage or the toilet?’ asked Sila, half his head still with the horse statue.

‘Come on, action time.’

‘I feel tired,’ said Joanna, looking at a platform bench with an old man pinned to it.

‘Remember, confidence.’

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Five minutes before the train was due to leave, as the three stowaways stood with bags at their feet, blank, drained and Delon, a door opened half a metre in front and the conductor stepped out.

There was a moustache, a grey uniform, an ossified sense of fatigue and when Tak tried to pre-emptively explain things in Spanish, the man simply pointed to the platform and said, ‘out’

not in Spanish

in English

which was the real blow cos Tak had reeled off at least eight distinct sentences.

‘Can I sit down now?’ asked Joanna, dropping her bag on the platform as soon as they were off the train.

‘Fucking pedant,’ said Tak, eyes still on the space residue of the conductor.

‘Upstairs?’

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Back in the main chamber of Barcelona-Sants Station, all the benches were taken and even if they did get one, they couldn’t sleep there or lie down as the guards would come and swat their legs with night sticks

which could’ve been worse

Tak said

if they were in the US

Detroit or Chicago

though he’d never been to either city and, to be fair, in the US they’d probably be able to at least find a shelter somewhere, a place they could get a bible, sleeping bag, hand-job, maybe soup

to be honest he didn’t know

he really had never been there

just guesswork from a Danny Glover film he’d seen.

Continue reading →

Black Sunday // Oli Johns

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Whim of your whim of a wet witch lit by hag-tag cinematography

desperate for coffin scene, beyond it

getting there

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[Bava Methodology]

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PARA-CONSENSUAL

PARA-CON

CON PARROT

 CON SENT TO PARAGUAY CON

CONSTANT PARALEGAL SENSUALIST CONTESTS CONSENT IN FULL BODY FULL NUDE COFFIN SCEN-

A TO B TO FULCI HITCHCOCK FULCI

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Bava Junior at twice-his-height wheel

scared of wheel

wheel that looks like Istituto Luce, turns like it

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Accept anything they give me

Not a marketing agency

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Steer with god hand, chin, elbow, forehead and lighting schematic

Eyebags wondering what it’s all about

Horror is for thing in corner

Cornered and arch

Shadow in pocket of bolder shadow’s shadow pal

Much to be ashamed of

Sorry dad

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