Dark Horses is the magazine of weird fiction, and they’ve published my short story “Starry-Eyed Miniature Catalpas” in issue 35 of their oddball publication. You can snag a Kindle or paperback copy here.
This weird little tale, which they’ve placed as the final piece in their magazine (always an honor) is strange, falling into the Bizarro genre. “Starry-Eyed Miniature Catalpas” is the story a man who likes to jog, hunt, and tend to his prize catalpas plant. It’d sit well alongside my first publication, a short story titled “There’s War,” found in a once absurdly glorious magazine known as Bust Down the Doors and Eat All the Chickens. A Kindle copy of this magazine can be found Amazon as well.
In the larger context of my body of work, I’d categorize both of these pieces alongside my Speculative Fiction. “There’s War” is more recognizably speculative, being a story about the day the president comes to town in future version of the United States.
The President comes to town dressed in his war garb, with bicycle reflectors adorning his leather jacket and golden pendants hanging from his neck. Each wrist is shackled to a thick chain that trails behind him. The two chains are held by thirty slaves each. They try to hold back his fury at the enemy, but cannot.
The more recognizably speculative elements come in descriptions of the organization of society, which is described as full of bureaucracy. The forever war mentality is satirized by descriptions of speakers hidden within the walls of everyday households that continually pipe in the awful sounds of war. The idea is absurdly satirical, yes, but also speculative.
“Starry-Eyed Miniature Catalpas” is even more absurdly unbelievable. Though it lacks the futuristic, pseudo-science fiction world of “There’s War,” it leans without reservations into the fantastically weird.
Mr. Jacobelder went back to his living room and looked at his Starry-Eyed Miniature Catalpas. Its eye was open, which was usually a good sign that it was sunny outside or simply feeling well. However, he thought its eye might be a bit red. In the bathroom he searched for pink-eye medication. He couldn’t find any. So he went outside and pushed over the freestanding Doric pillars in his yard until he found some Canthusfirmus—a little glaucous-stemmed plant with purple flowers, which tends to grow under large rocks or fallen trees. Mr. Jacobelder went back into his house with the medicinal weed. The radio man said, “Welcome back, Mr. Jacobelder. Continued prosaic works by Loden . . .”
While fewer than ten of my published works are definitively Speculative Fiction at this point, I’m happy that my imagination isn’t constrained by genre. Some authors write only Science Fiction or only Fantasy . . . or perhaps they broaden into penning only Speculative Fiction stories. This is completely fine, especially if these are the routes your imaginative paths lead you. Other writers explore only realistic words, authoring Literary Fiction. Again, this is fine. I write and have published mostly Literary Fiction myself. It is where the routes of my imaginative paths usually lead me. In fact, on Facebook I am the administrator of one of the largest—if not the largest—group of Literary Fiction writers in the world! But I must ask my fellow Lit Fic lovers, does the flash of a knight’s sword never glint in your mind’s eye? Do the denizens of apocalyptic potentialities never pique your interest? Has the ancient customs of aliens residing on a distant planet never needed your exploring? When’s the last time you let your writing be weird?
Randal Eldon Greene is the author of Descriptions of Heaven: a novella revolving around a linguist, a lake monster, and the looming shadow of death, published by Harvard Square Editions. His short story collection, Blabber, Chat, Shouting Match: 50 Dialogue-Only Fictions is forthcoming from corona\samizdat. Please support small presses by buying and reading their publications. By using the affiliate links in this post, you’ll also be supporting Randal with some spare change for the coffee habit which fuels his writing.
Randal Eldon Greene 