Issue 24 is nearing completion and through the mass amount of incredible fiction and poetry we've forgotten one important detail... Art! We don't have nearly enough artists submitting their work. 

If you are an artist of the surreal, experimental or otherwise interesting drop us an email at indigorising@hotmail.com and chances are your work will be included in Indigo Rising Magazine Print Issue 24.

Best of Luck to all you creators and the viewers that make it worth it.

Cheers,

Tannen Dell
Editor-in-Chief
Indigo Rising Magazine

The Clock
By Rod Hamon


     “Well that concludes the interview, Brad, unless you have any questions for us.”

     Brad, who was anxious to find out if he’d got the job, just shrugged his shoulders and mumbled, “Not really.”

     “In that case please take a seat in the outer office; we’ll discuss your application and have the result of the interview in half-an-hour.” He looked at his watch and added, “That will be at twelve, midday.”

     As the door of the interview room closed Brad heard laughter from within.


     He entered the bleak outer office and sat down, alone. It was a large featureless room without windows. He glanced up at the large clock on the wall opposite where he was sitting. “Half an hour – why so long?” He thought.


     Brad, who was in his late teens, would much rather have been on the beach with his buddies. Unfortunately life for him had reached an all time low. He had lost his last job just weeks after taking out a loan on a motor cycle; he needed this job badly.


     He gazed restlessly around the stark room, looked at his watch and then up at the clock. “Why is it that time always goes so slowly when you’re waiting for something?”

     He thought about the job interview. “The way I answered a few of the questions wasn’t that smart was it? But I couldn’t see the point of some of the questions either. ’Why do you want this job?’ they’d asked. What a stupid question. Why does anyone want a job? For the money of course!”

     Brad looked up at the clock again. Eleven forty! “Is that all?” He checked his watch. “This is such a waste of time, I wonder what they’re saying about me in there?”

     He looked around the stark room and thought.”None of the interviewers liked me much – that was obvious – so full of themselves. Who do they think they are anyway, deciding my future for me?”

     He glanced up at the clock again. “Damn it, what’s going on – the time’s going so slowly – this is crazy?” The second hand as it traversed the dial certainly appeared to be getting slower and slower.

     As he studied the jerky movement of the second hand, he noticed how long it paused before moving forward again. “I’ve never realized how long a second in time is.” To Brad, time’s arrow had never been this sluggish?

     He kept staring at the clock until it seemed to fill his vision. “Will the clock ever reach midday or will it continue to slow down? I know it’s just an imaginary thing but to me it’s real.


     It was now just one minute to twelve and the second hand seemed to linger ever longer as each second passed. He brushed his long blonde hair from his eyes and continued to stare.

     The second hand moved forward one second and then appeared to be frozen in time; motionless. It lingered for a while then reluctantly and lazily advanced – just one second. Brad stared in disbelief as the clocks hand again paused: this time for what appeared to be an eternity. He looked around the room and then back to the clock again. “The hand hasn’t moved at all!” he gasped looking down and checking his watch. It too was in some kind of suspended animation.

     He jumped to his feet. “What in hells name’s going on? Have I died or something?”


     “I’m not waiting here any longer,” he decided heading for the door leading to the interview room. Two of the interviewers were sitting behind the table while a third man was in the process of getting up. All of them motionless seemingly trapped in a time vortex – like wax figures in a museum. “Look at them – how ridiculous they look!”

     Nervously Brad walked around the table. In front of where each man sat was an interview form with questions and tick boxes. Brad’s name was at the top of each form but there were crosses in most of the boxes. “Mm, they don’t seem to have exactly taken to me do they,” he muttered thoughtfully.

     He grabbed a pen and then reaching between each of the motionless men changed the forms; wherever there was a cross he changed it to a tick. “Let’s see what these dummies make of that!”

     “Ah well, not much point in hanging around here,” he said heading out of the room. But as he entered the outer office again he looked up at the clock. It still had not moved. “This is really weird,” he thought sitting down and burying his face in his hands. “I wonder if the whole world’s come to a grinding halt. At that instant the door opened and one of the interviewers came in.

     “Brad, we’re ready to see you now; please come in.”

     He re-entered the room and was surprised to find that everything was back to normal.

     “Please sit down,” asked one of the men. He cleared his throat and began to speak. “Thank you, Brad for coming in today.” He paused uncomfortably and then continued. “Unfortunately…at this time… we are unable to –.” He stopped speaking abruptly as he glanced down at his interview form on the table. After a moment’s pause he craned his head to look over at the forms in front of the other two men.
With a confused look the interviewer began again, “Ah, it seems – you’ve – got the job!”

Another Wrong World
By John Conway


     His shock and interstellar meandering now behind him, Maxwell nudged through the patrons of the End-Of-The-Line Club, forcing his way to the center bar. It was the seediest tavern he could find--a backwater haven for non-human thieves and drug addicts, a hell-hole carved from the belly of an insignificant asteroid in a rubble-strewn orbit of Arcturus. No respectable sentient would set foot here. Finally Maxwell could lose himself in self pity and loathing.

     "Hey!" he shouted and motioned to the tentacled bartender. "A stiff Rigelian Rye."

     He slid onto the stool.

     How could he have been so stupid? With all his talent and after all his training ... he
was the best pilot in the human fleet. The shining hope! And he'd been proud--cocky really. "Deliver it?" he'd quipped. "I'll shove it down their throat and poke 'em in the eye as they swallow!"

     Yeah, right.

     He downed the Rye and asked for another.

     An exoskeletal creature perched itself on the stool beside him. It ordered an Ester Sal--a slimy bacterial cocktail favored by arthropods. The creature wafted the stench before slurping the sludge through its proboscis. Maxwell's stomach churned. But he stayed put. He deserved no comfort.

     "Nice ship you got," clacked the creature.

     "Yeah," he responded. "Best in the fleet. A real planet killer."

     "A beauty."

     Maxwell downed his second Rye.

     "Ya think? Take it."

     The creature shuddered in a motion that seemed to mimic a bipedal head shake.

     "Why not? It's only been used once," said Maxwell.

     "Long story. Had one. No thanks."

     Maxwell glanced at the bartender. "Can you believe this thing? It compliments my ride, but when I offer it in a gesture of interspecies friendship ..."

     The bartender blurted flatulently--perhaps a chuckle. "It's got its reasons." The bartender poured another Rye without needing a cue. "What's your story?" It slid the Rye toward Maxwell adding, "On the house."

     "You don't want to know."

     Conversations stopped, replaced by groans and creaking chairs.

     Another blurt. "Look stranger. Everyone's got a story. And around here, a drink on the house means you spill yours."

     Maxwell glanced around. So now he offended the even the lowliest scum. Crap. But did it matter? What did he really have to lose?

     "Okay," he said, accepted the house gift. He emptied it with one motion and wiped his lips. "We were at war with the Canopians," he began.

     "Canopus, huh?"

     Maxwell nodded. "We built a planet killer to end the war." His hands trembled. His mouth felt dry. "Can I have another?"

     "Stop stalling."

     Maxwell licked his lips. The sound of his pulse pounded in his ear. Sweat pooled on his skin. "Well--" He drew a deep, deliberate breath and clenched his fist. He could not endure the details. He would have to be brief. "Long story short, I was the gun man, but the Canopians developed a counter-space-warp kind of--"

     Maxwell heart lodged in his throat. He couldn't.

     The bartender wrapped its tentacle around the Maxwell's empty glass. "They turned you around. You blew up your own world instead," it said, nodding its squishy head.

     Maxwell blinked. "Uh ... yeah."

     "Love Canopus."

     "What?"

     The bartender raised its voice. "Hey, how many here destroyed their own world by mistake?"
Into the musty air protruded all variety of arms, legs, wings, stems, cilia and tongues.
Maxwell felt numb. "I don't ..."

     "Yeah, that trick is great for business. Tell you what ... one more on the house. Welcome to the Club."

Poetry by Jack Peachum

A Song For The Autumn Equinox
(Bugg’s Island Lake, Va.)

Hush, now, the man in the moon is speaking,
his voice a mere whisper over water:
"Here, we rehearse the dance of lightning-bugs,
flit of light among pines,
by the capped well the cicadas have stopped singing,
seven-year-locusts departed–",
and soon, the moon herself rises into autumn,
bearing the summer in her arms.

Far From Home
Nights on strange roads,
headlights scan the future,
a two-lane blacktop twists up and away–
the moon’s a spy peering in the window,
stealing a peek from the shadows of pinewoods
– a glow behind the hills– what source that light?
Somewhere, a dark cabin awaits– the fire’s gone out–
and death is the caretaker.

Insomniac
Don’t move– be still in that dark anodyne!
A simple act of closing one’s eyes, entering time’s death,
where heartbeat of the dream is all that matters
– pulse quiets, mind steps aside–
to be awake now is slow measure of counting the hour,
and sunrise a commuter whose train is always late.
Oh, how fortunate the sleeper, breathing softly,
arriving in a country far away!

Poetry by Ben Parker


Convocation of the Moth


“Numerous angel of the night
                                        like us you are lost.
Reluctant lords of the constant light
                                     we greet you.
To the clipped seraphs
                                   all hail.”


Day drops from view.
                                Shadows spread
like surplus clouds.
                             A single elevated lamp
opens the dark
                          and brings the sound of flight.
Burnt-paper priests
                              descend:
ten thousand bodies
                            black-furred and weightless.
With reverence below
                               adoring crowds attend.
Flower-heads bend to the light.
                                  Grass-snakes stir.
The dry stubble-grass breaths,
                                    dew collects,
withered bark renews
                                 and grows tight on the tree.
But always dust builds,
                                always the wing-powder
deposited by flight
                           obscures the torch.
The moths depart.
                          Silence resumes.
The shapes are eaten by sky.


Road



And sometimes it comes down to simply this:
killing the lights at 60mph
and threading the bullet-point tracery
of powered cats eyes that stud the tarmac
like vertebrae seen on an x-ray,
as the black rum of the after-sunset sky
darkens further and life is stretched ahead
like a to-do list, behind like a time-line.

Six Ways of Viewing the Death
-after Nienow
By Jeff Neidt

I
To the Greeks, death was a river
to cross. To the Norse, a feast
in the Great Hall, and the Dakota
saw an intermission
in the great theatre of life.
 
II
The vision of death—
of white robe and golden light
—stands before us like a stray
bolt of lightning.

III
What about this death lies
in you? Or is it more of a
vision? Yet again, a ghost
that’s been haunting us
both—more like a memory.

IV
Once I dreamt you
died. Standing on a bridge,
and in a moment
like a clap of thunder,
the bridge disappeared
and you floated.
Hanging like a star
waiting to be wished on.

 V
Death is not a held hand
or warm breeze. Death is
tangled root, and
copper taste.
 
VI
We watched your death like a trapeze act—
open mouthed, hands outstretched,
and frozen-lunged.
Unsure of what comes next.
But waiting for the fall.

Poetry by Vernon Frazer

On Deadline

A cold wall stutter

intoned, its pontificated glyph

marked the surfeit’s rendered portent:

adagio lumens, 

the nicety flailing the flags 

of past gallantry,

a wherewithal enamored in the knot.

No freelance desists rafting

past mention of durable utterance

staking amoral claim

to lifting measured legends

past drywall custom

or fledgling nuance cast ashore

nor gall to mutter

the stale fragrance the memoir

brings to utter the present rift 

Written in Stone

the barrier rose a frugal mist

in turns against the bloodline shore

its sequestered undertow

a churn toward memory 

fixed as granite’s flow ebbing 

a slow repose its yearning

listless memoirs unwritten

flap white banners across the sky

foreboding couriers on course

with collision its time carrier

broken open as a telling dial circles

twelve limits of its grim perimeter

An Imaginery Image of Slavery Underneath the Curtain of Allegory
By Irmak Tomriz

Indifferent, slow-blooded spirit, in the ingratiating thoughts that are being judged,
The minds that circumscribe their perceptionlessness in their destined bad choises,
Isn't it the mere ego that knocks itself over and bears it again?
The sole piece of a small model of God,
Series of reasoning on the concept of exception,
Has already abandoned the nuclear reality of our world.
A process that is lived as a libertarian fidgeting oriented towards establishing a consciousness;
An imaginary slavery that moves from tribal deposits to self-consciousness under the name of deduction.
Its history is determined by a right movement among the bending thoughts,
With which we can move our joints for the last time.
Alas, it is only what you think you can imagine from the depths;
Till the concave gains transparency.
Dreams that are covered with dust, piles of bone, bee hives in the skulls...
Designs of grave that are contemplated by an indefinitely-moving God,
Which end with a death shriek of a mask that split our hearts,
As if a gross of photographs taken on our perceptionlessness.
I don't feel like tasting it.
For the sake of learning the mysteries of the century; that are kept in minds secretly.
Now it is time to go out to the soft sunlight;
It comes from the depths of a mindlessly forsaken and alien river so that it will tinkle the universe;
For this indifferent object that rummages the unreal.
Like a portrait of a universe, that questions the universe on universe,
In each if its curve, the commands of the interior sounds echos:
"How does this universe that is covered with spider webs constantly tumble while it has only one spiritual power?"
Sun melts in the water for the yet blinded irrationalist.
But, a gasply pain is slowly gnawing our thoughts,
In our breathless insomnia that we live and keep on extending.
Like the agony of a lizard in the form of God.
While seeking the mysteries in the expressionless gazes, to be able to dive into the depths of someone else's lenses.
Close your eyes, now we should get lost in the darkness of images that flows into our eyes.
The universe that watches its own essence underneath the allegory curtain and becomes the victim of a wov;
Aren't these yet an imaginery image of slavery that we seek in the black and white photos their glowing line?
Aren't these yet a country of eyes that gulps everything down?
Crash the crust of your eyes, tear them apart.
Get buried in your own flesh; in which you were drown without succeeding to ingratiate.
The mirrors that know who we are, that can spread wax from molten bodies.
With all its might, reflection attempts to render itself synonymous with its existence.
But the landscape gets blurry.
Spirit, now quickly lets itself loose.

Poetry by Tom Pescatore


Cars Pass/Lazy Ears

Almost off and crashing
When I hear sound of rolling tires passing by,
Weighted pavement holds above
Streaking subway earthquake trains
Creaking dent metal hum vibration,
Signal dirty and gray labored breath
To outstretched arms and falling bronze sun,
Pull your window shade in the afternoon glow
Exchange it for environmentally safe bulbs twisted
in caring façade, lightening world snake coils under our nose-

And only
faded obscure signs
Point our way—

Hidden in sleep


Houses fixed by roadside stare

The alleys reach that parallel nowhere
Bleeding left to right one-way dimensions,
There families wait and eat and wait
Watching from protruding tri-window ledges
my olive corduroy pants and Mao cap
passing by, labored by maybe noticeable limp
and slouched posture (I’ll have to fix- sometime)
and no destination but absent-minded wonder
under yellowing sky weary blue cloud cluster dusk

Crystal

By Christopher Hivner

Rampant blue forever skies

and traveling greens

packed into

the old man's suitcase.

Night air swirls

around the gems

in his hand

while he asks

for one more trip.

Wings up,

dusk approaches,

a tapestry unwinds

blank to the untrained eye

but telling a tale

for anyone

not blinded by the sheen

of the pearls

as he lets them drop

one by one

from the strand.