New Fiction from D. Harlan Wilson

D. Harlan Wilson is the author of three new books. Recently he caught up with Dark Sky Magazine to discuss his work, influences, and the type of television that inspires him.

DSM: Your writing is often described as futuristic and nontraditional. Why is that, and do you agree?

D. Harlan Wilson: Yes, definitely. As long as I can remember, I’ve always been interested in nontraditional modes of storytelling, and I like writing and reading speculative fiction that’s set in futuristic or alternate universes. Together, these elements sanction the most viable forum for narrative creativity and imaginative exploration, I think. I consistently try to push boundaries and chart new (or at least unique) territory in my writing. Setting stories in strange, estranging worlds, and stylizing and playing with the language used to map and articulate those worlds, allows me to do this.

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EXT. AN URBAN WOODLAND. WINTER. LATE AFTERNOON.

Wind blows through trees, rustling their dead leaves and making their branches sway back and forth in a creaking, slow dervish.

VO [male]: The wind has its own tone, its own feeling. It’s like … coldness, thinness.

It’s like hunger.

The wind has a body. The wind is someone.

JUMPCUT.
EXT. A HIKING TRAIL IN THE URBAN WOODLAND. A MOMENT LATER.

A married couple walks along the trail. We see the wife, walking ahead.

VO: You’re someone. I’m someone.

Your body: petite, source of warmth. A body to whom love is directed.

My body? Wind. That is, has been wind. Still feels like wind, but sometimes feels warmth.

In my confusion, I think this is the final state of love.

JUMPCUT.
EXT. THE HIKING TRAIL. A MOMENT LATER.

A view of nearby apartment buildings, owned by the rich. Several of the apartments, while in someone’s possession, lie empty. This gives the buildings a look both spectral and aristocratic: the second homes of the well-to-do. The empty homes of the well-traveled.

The couple on the hiking trail, dressed in their simple clothes, look at the buildings.

HUSBAND [in accented Korean]: ¿­·É Áý. ["Ghost houses"]

WIFE: They go somewhere, maybe to Swiss.

HUSBAND: We should go on a trip sometime. Get away.

WIFE: I can’t. I have too much stress at hospital.

HUSBAND: I know. That’s why we should go. Your job is too difficult.

The WIFE looks at her HUSBAND. She sadly shakes her head.

JUMPCUT.
EXT. THE HIKING TRAIL. A MOMENT LATER.

The HUSBAND follows his wife. He follows her along the trail as the cold sun sets.

VO: You walk along the trail. We’re together today. But the next day, a Sunday, you are obligated to change your work schedule and work an evening shift.

I’m alone.

I walk along the trail, getting my daily exercise.

The scene is quiet. But thoughts pour through my head.

I’m worried about you. Your job is too hard. It’s affecting your health.

This sensation is like wind, too. A stress-wind, blowing the chemistry of the mind around in circles, so that worries swirl like brittle, dry leaves.

Then a new sensation comes to me. It’s a sensation that combines worry for another along with love. It is a feeling in the bones that radiates out through muscle tissue, through the organs, through the eyes. It’s a reverse heat, as if the body has begun burning from its core.

And it’s more than heat. It’s also an impact. Something evanescent in the world colliding with our lives: an interior shake, an earthquake of marrow. It’s as if the wind of reality has made some kind of impact.

But the body must withstand this impact. The body must marry the mind, and tell itself it is the wind that is weak, not the individual being it shakes.

JUMPCUT.
EXT. THE HIKING TRAIL. A MOMENT LATER.

VO: The sun sets behind the trees. A blackness descends upon the world.

And as the sun sets, the wind dies down, retreating to its apartments, its clouds.

___________________________________________

Finn Harvor is a writer and artist living in South Korea. His literary work has appeared in THE BROOKLYN RAIL, THE KOREA TIMES, RABBLE, THIS MAGAZINE, THE CANADIAN FORUM,  PRISM, THE QUARTERLY CONVERSATION and elsewhere.

It's Clear and Blue in the Emerald City

We are home. We visited D.C., a long, enjoyable and frenzied weekend of family and friends. We huddled in a hot house and counted the minutes until the main event: an August wedding. And it went off without a hitch! That’s the good news. The bad news is that traveling so many miles for just one weekend is big-time taxing. Our energy is sapped and now our duties runneth over. Hence today’s tardy posting. But we know our readers are compassionate, right? You forgive us, right? Great. Let us look forward then. Der Spiegel shows us what to do with all those spare body parts. The Wall Street Journal says good reading shouldn’t be hard. Margaret Atwood gets the English treatment, Jacket Copy draws the line between writing and rock n’ roll, and a Bookslut goes Down Under. Finally, Nigeria hosts a regal literary prize and the esteemed journalist Leonard Pitts’ new book is excerpted in NPR. Ah home, it’s where all the best stories are found. — Kevin Murphy

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Peter opened the book: a little city
was built inside, a way to see through
this gossip, the drinking of dipper to dipper.

But I don’t believe in fortune.

And then, in a moment of silence, staring
back at him from the binding,
was the deepest blue of ocean waiting to be wet.

We’re right behind you: a halo of winters.

We were leaving Geneva: a home green, a little
machina where someone sputtered out; sputtered out
words & it sounded clever.

No lip. No lip. Don’t you dare give me lip, tonight.

The music begins in rectory now: a mere
baptism of light, from one heavenly
triad to another someone.

Peter flipped the page: a little lamp as given name.

And somehow the narration disappears,
like a star in a black cloud, waiting
to orbit a finger in gold, a ring, a ring, crossing vows.

But I don’t believe in fortune.

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J Michael Wahlgren is the author of two chapbooks: Chariots of Flame (2007) & Pre-elixir (2008) both on Maverick Duck Press & the full-length poetry collection Silent Actor (BeWrite, 2008). He was influenced early on by the fiction of Hermann Hesse. He resides in Boston, MA where he edits & web designs Eight Octaves Review. J Michael studied philosophy for two years in upstate New York & returned to Boston to pursue other interests. He can be found playing guitar for his gray & white feline or reading an array of modern poetry.