{"id":111628,"date":"2022-08-21T13:11:31","date_gmt":"2022-08-21T12:11:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.3ammagazine.com\/?page_id=111628"},"modified":"2022-09-01T17:19:45","modified_gmt":"2022-09-01T16:19:45","slug":"fiction","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/fiction\/","title":{"rendered":"Fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tWonderful Things\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t
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The Valley of Kings, 1922. Obstinate and impatient, Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon descended with their excavation crew into darkness.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they go down in that spirit, I give them six weeks to live,\u201d joked reporter Arthur Weigall.<\/p>\n

Carter\u2014the self-made man, the scrappy adventurer\u2014broke into the outer chamber, which released a plaintive gust. He clambered inside, the first soul in three thousand years to breathe that air. He paused before the sealed door which bore a foreboding inscription: You people who enter this tomb make evil against me, may snakes be against you in water and on land.<\/p>\n

An awed hush fell over the scene. By candlelight, Carter hacked a hole into the pitch-black tomb. As he reached his torch into the darkness, his eyes adjusting to the light, what he saw shook him to his core\u2014<\/p>\n

A short story (in variations) by Jonny Aldridge<\/b>.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tThe ultraviolet Catastrophe\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t
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Being a regular guy \u2014 that is, being downtrodden by the capitalist system as opposed to merely heterosexual and (possibly) patriarchal too \u2014 Hugh spent the best part of Christmas Eve alone at the Space, inputting the last lot of scientific data (which was not data science, or even rocket science, but still just as boring). At eight PM he was finally ready to log-off and head back through the dark but still partly leafy streets. Despite the Berlin Senate’s demands that the Hypothetical Ramessesium be immediately removed, the city still bore numerous traces of it: broken logos buzzing round the dirtier corners and continuing to remind everyone that yes, Lex Ramesses really was the master of their universe, while also revealing \u2014 or partially hinting at \u2014 the other, possible corners of it that he would one day rule as well.<\/p>\n

Read an extract from The Ultraviolet Catastrophe<\/em> by Susan Finlay<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tJewel Box\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t
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No one knows why anyone else is here. The Swiss consul, for starters, is searching for his ex-daughter. The country, he says, is remote; others say that eventually, her mien spectral, she may well return. Some give instructions: For proper aftercare, boil your ear in salt water for fifteen minutes, twice a day. If excess itching occurs, drown a gibbous. If you are struck by the need to vomit, or find yourself coughing uncontrollably, it is far more polite to excuse yourself than attempt to quell in front of your party\u2014gaping with fear, alarm, eyes eyebrowless\u2014the tempest in your solar plexus. Two reminisce suggestively about the taking of the jewels; gloved, by night with torch and spear.<\/p>\n

A short story by Shea Hellenthorpe<\/b>.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tKilling Time\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t
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When I became a ghost, I kept going but the world went slack. The living drifted like continents. Sneezes bloomed slower than the corpse flower at the Chicago Botanic Gardens, which is where the blood clot got me. I quickly gave up on all that edification and headed south to Port St. Joe to see about killing my husband Swett.<\/p>\n

At first, I passed time floating through cars, tapping French fries out of passengers\u2019 gaping fish-mouths. Outside Nashville, I drifted into a hooptie in the eons-long process of crumpling into a semi. The driver\u2019s ghost, newly released, took one look at me and fled.<\/p>\n

A short story by Meghan Williams<\/b>.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tReasons Not to Bathe\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t
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Things got sticky this week, Stephen told her, when the man he called the Russian went into the bathroom for private ablutions and the glass eye he took out to wash slipped through his fingers and rolled into the toilet stall. The first thing anyone heard was the unlockable bathroom door swinging open with unusual force. Then the surge of limbs pumping and a sense of their pluming wake as the panicked one-eyed man charged fast to the nurses\u2019 station, holding the eye aloft between two fingers like a bon bon.<\/p>\n

Excuse me. This requires antiseptic rinse. Excuse me, said the Russian.<\/p>\n

Stephen was watching from where he always stood, near the nurses, flush against the wall.<\/p>\n

The nurse made a gesture at the man with her chin, up and out and then back down to her phone call, to register the red fleshy backdrop where an eye should have been, the surprisingly large white globe and glassy brown iris pointed her way.<\/p>\n

A short story by Mary Byrne<\/b>.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tThere Are Further Zones\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t
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The scar and its synthetic monofilament sutures served as the blueprint for an impossible metropolis, its keloid ridges rising into serrated spires that defied human geometry. Under his fingertips, the skin pulsed with a cold, metallic autonomy, suggesting a labyrinthine city designed by a malign intelligence \u2013 or a hydrocephalic child \u2013 to house the anxieties colonising his adhesiolytic abdomen. He sensed the surgery as a structural intrusion \u2013 the implantation of a sightless, erotic citadel within the interstitial tissue of his core. He imagined the sutures tightening \u2013 tension cables, anchoring this parasitic architecture deep into his viscera, preparing his frame to serve as the shuddering host for a future anatomy that he could no longer recognise as his own.<\/p>\n

By Steve Finbow<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tPetite Artillery\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t
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I am a dog.
\nI am rabid.
\nI bark, I howl, I bare my fangs.
\nSpit drips from my mouth.
\nI feel my anger boiling in black froth toward every living thing.
\nAs I run, I smell the fear and dread of people.
\nOne girl\u2019s scent draws me in.
\nI sink my teeth into her soft, welcoming thigh.<\/p>\n

A short story by Greta Kalu\u017eevi\u010di\u016bt\u0117<\/b>.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tThe Musket Ball\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t
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The musket ball.<\/p>\n

The museumgoer stares at it, a dull but once deadly sphere sitting stately and harmless in a glass case. A Rust Belt museum housed in a former Gilded Age tycoon\u2019s manor. The exhibit is about instruments of war. The evolution of war. The musket ball. Its texture compelling. The surface of the moon, its myths and mysteries.<\/p>\n

The museumgoer stares.<\/p>\n

A short story by Kent Kosack<\/b>.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tSpiritus Mundi\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t
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After we sent the billionaires to Mars we sent the managers up into the mountains to plant trees and out onto the prairies to sow wildflowers, and although later the new forests grew up in unexpectedly tidy rows and the milkweed and the columbine and the goldenrod and the bergamot were all organized by color no one really minded, certainly not the bees. We were poorer, it is true, but even those of us that had been very comfortable before had to admit it was a better arrangement, that it had to be done, that once things began to change for the worse as they did, we all just needed to get used to being poor together. I felt sadder for the people who had never been as rich as I had been and could now never hope to know what it was like to see a sunset on a beach a thousand miles from home, or go skiing in the Rockies, or even to have a little piece of land to call their own, than I did for those who were even richer than I was, and who lost cottages and jet skis and walk-in closets and millions and millions of air miles, but that was just me. Some people felt more sorry for the rich folk than they did the poor and I get that too.<\/p>\n

A short story by Robert G. Penner<\/b>.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tA Walk\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t
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First thing: you. That old void in your head. It\u2019s winter. The sun is an itch in your eye. There\u2019s construction, of course; the sound wakes you as the streaky slam of your loosely hinged door concurs with the recognition of some meathead from Staten Island bent grimacing over a jackhammer that shatters the sidewalk and with it any hope of civility for the day, or room for thought, normotension, tinnitus-free ears\u2014no, this probably prejudiced Italian who likely shares Nonna\u2019s basement with his wife is shuddering and quivering above the destruction of the little patch of land that has had more ground broken than anywhere in the world besides some nameless city block in Gaza\u2014proving your conspiratorial landlord right, all building projects in the city are scams, snow jobs for the mafia or the liberal elite or whites\u2014he\u2014Greek\u2014somehow considering himself exempt\u2014colluding to ensure everyone under the table is getting theirs except you and him\u2014<\/p>\n

A short story by Charles Hawes<\/b>.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tA Series of Emotional Reactions\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t
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REACTION # 1: THE SONG, SHITTY REFUGE<\/i>, BY ABSOLUTE FUCKING COWARDS<\/b>
Nervous exultation. A conviction bordering on mania that says this is reality and always has been, even if you couldn\u2019t see it<\/i>. A desire to do. More importantly, a feeling that things can be done. As I hit Avenue du Parc and crank up the volume, I feel a youthful sense of significance blooming in me like the spring that will not arrive for at least a few more weeks. I\u2019m the subject of a song, a character in a book or a movie, and everything I do is charged with meaning\u2014even these endless failures and humiliations.<\/p>\n

A short story by Glyn Rebl<\/b>.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tDiamond Life\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t
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Two years later, it was quite the surprise to see Dahlia Diamond\u2019s \u2018Single\u2019 status update on Facebook, complete with Divorce Party photos. Champagne at the Bowery Hotel bar with her besties and high fives with smirking, handsome men. Digging further online, I found a mention on a minor gossip site: \u2018Stylist-to- the-stars Dahlia Diamond divorces jewellery designer Hunter Hennequin, brother to fashion giant Nelson Hennequin, citing irreconcilable differences.\u2019 In her own words: \u2018We still love each other and shall remain the best of friends. We continue to support each other in our work. Hunter is a rare talent.\u2019 I couldn\u2019t fault her diplomacy, but \u2018rare talent\u2019 was a stretch when attributed to outrageously priced silver pendants of naked girls riding dolphins and wolves. Whether he outsourced it or not, Hunter\u2019s metalwork wasn\u2019t even up to par, and all his clients were celebrities Dahlia had styled. I could only imagine her regret in signing a prenup.<\/p>\n

Read an exclusive extract from Diamond Life<\/em> by Anna Maconochie<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t

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