We've heard about people selling their kidneys for money but in our latest story – The Tyranny of Enslaved Eyes – Theresa J. Barker wonders what it would be like if we could our sight? 

Theresa J. Barker says she always longed to live in other worlds, which she accomplishes through her writing - Theresa writes science fiction. You can follow her on her website at http://www.theresabarker.com plus
http://www.theresabarkerlabnotes.com and on Twitter:  @theresajbarker


The Tyranny of Enslaved Eyes
by Theresa J. Barker

These eyes have never been enslaved. I still look at what I want to look at and see what I want to see. And I’m keeping it that way.  

My brother Roger sold his eyes to the Vandals to raise some quick cash last year - he owed a lot to a couple of those instant-loan places - and now they see through his eyes. He can still see just like everyone else, but he has to watch what they tell him to.  That’s how they get their thrills through his eyes.

He didn't think it would be so bad, at least, that's what he told me. But I knew better. Once you sell your eyes you can never be free.

The Vandals give the best rate for eyes. Of course you can guess why. There are other sight buyers who want eyes to view beauty, museums and places like that. But they don't pay so well, and Roger needed as much money as he could get his hands on.

There are places that will buy eyes for a limited-time contract, and you get the rights back to your eyes after the contract expires. But they don't pay that well either, unless you get into the Filth dealers. Pedophiles, torture, that kind of crap always pays the best. Duh.

They tried robot eyes for a while. Everyone thought that would dilute the market for eyes. But robot eyes only transmit what they're watching, not the emotions behind it. So the hyper-amplified emotions everyone wants - wonder and awe, or disgust and titillation, as the case may be - can only be had through enslaved eyes.

The government tried to ban eye-selling. For once the Conservative Right and the Liberal Left got together on it. The Right pulled out the family values bit while the Left extolled the need to prevent exploitation of the poor and weak. But in the end the Right went back under the thumb of Big Business, and the Left had to be content with strict regulation of the market.

So now anyone can sell their eyes. The gangs are especially embedded in the business. Roger's eyes belong to the Vandals.  I think he's slowly going insane. Last week at Mom's for Sunday dinner he didn't say a word. All sunk into himself, he is. Some of my other brothers talked about getting a lawyer involved, but they know it's a long shot. You have to prove fraud or malicious intent, and Roger signed all the paperwork fair and square. So we just have to sit by and watch him slide away into his own private black void.

My mom says maybe this is better, that he’s better off now than before he sold his eyes, but I hate it when she says that.  
Of course it caught us all by surprise when he started showing signs of schizophrenia just a couple of years ago, and it was terrible when he told us the meds didn’t seem to help. I know Mom felt guilty when Roger was diagnosed, like it was her fault, like it was from her bloodline or something.  But it makes me think about the different kinds of hell the mind takes us into. There is the hell Roger had before with his mental illness, and the hell he has now, with enslaved eyes. And then there is the hell we have, sitting by and watching what's happening to Roger.

There is talk about enslaving hands next. I hear talk that the Vandals can't wait.

Today's contributor is Andrew Darlington, a poet, novelist, journalist and even a member of the "alternative cabaret/stand up poetry" circuit. You might also want to check out his website Eight Miles Higher, described as "the Blogspot for People Who Don’t Like Blogspots" Recent postings include… interview: Graham Nash Talks About The Hollies and Screamin' Jay Hawkins Puts His Spell On You’. All I can add about sat-nav is it was my encounters with the autogeddon hell that is Milton Keynes that first prompted me to invest in a sat-nav system for my car. http://andrewdarlington.blogspot.com


​Sat-Nav Dreaming: Lost On Planet X
by Andrew Darlington
​
48-hours, & my SatNav’s dreaming
plotting routes through the strange terrain
of this planet beyond the Kuiper Belt,
flip a sharp-left around the Headrow
through a hail of collapsing Stock Market suicides
across insect cities that delineate the edge of empire
when a billion ring-tones scream simultaneously,
I don’t understand where I am, or why I’m here,
this is a weirdness that doesn’t come along every day…
48-hours in my Honda Civic, with the SatNav
weaving me down narrow flea-market lanes &
the endless procession of drowned trawlermen
in post-nuclear cities radiation-shimmering,
along the wet strand where two full moons
are frozen and sand blows in ice-squalls as
staccato as the stylus crackles of a run-in groove
haunted by the phantom of Eddie Cochran,
I don’t understand how I got here,
I don’t understand this trans-Neptunian world
& I don’t understand the row of crucifixions…
I’m hunting Bob Dylan’s lost haiku
with the SatNav glitch urging me on,
its silver screen hard-wired into the
too-many problems in my head 
the valet directs me down the subway
as this deep-space night grows colder,
a girl, once in my class at infants
is now the best trick in town,
I don’t understand how she got here,
I don’t understand why I’m reminiscing
all that lost kissing, as she pours moonlight
into my eyes, I tell her I shortly have to leave
this is getting way too weird for me
I’ve already hung around this world
far longer than I should,
48-hours on Planet X, and I’m wondering,
how much, how much, how much longer

Two new shorter flash fiction stories for you now. The first – The Next Scream You Hear by new writer Ed Walker, is very much horror meets urban fantasy. While the second – Odd Hours by new to the Angel writer Tony Pisculli, takes us into cyberpunk territory.

Ed Walker is a civil engineer and writer who lives in the Seattle area. He adds that his work has appeared in concrete, never on paper or online. Hawaii-based Tony Pisculli is a graduate of the Stonecoast MFA program in Creative Writing, and has previously been published in Daily Science Fiction.


The Next Scream You Hear
by Ed Walker

You are not impressed with the ad copy. The latest thrill ride was a supposed to be a real mindbender. But all you get out of the flyer is that it takes place in a room, and is supposed to make stalwart men piss themselves.

You get there, buy your ticket, and go into the room, which has no windows, and one door other than the one you entered through.

An electronic sign hangs above the exit door. It reads: Are you afraid of the dark?

You laugh to yourself, thinking that no, those are not the terrors you fear. Not at all. And where is the VR gear you had more than half been expecting.

A flicker: You will be.

You shake your head, thinking of the ticket price and how you will be asking for a refund within five minutes. 

Half smiling, you walk to the door, and the sign changes again as you reach out to open it. The next scream you hear will be your own.

With a snort, you pull the door open, noting to yourself how over the top this thing has gotten, for what is supposed to be a subtle yet somehow terrifying experience.

There is only darkness behind the door, and you step inside, ready for the most realistic of virtual ghosts and vampires.

There is no floor. As you flail and fail to catch yourself, you hear a wailing scream.



Odd Hours
by Tony Pisculli

Text from Ani suggesting we meet at Interval at eleven o’clock. But I’m already here, and it’s past midnight now. Like her favorite club, Ani doesn’t conform to classical notions of time and space, but she’s worth waiting for.

I’m at the bar, nursing the same scotch I ordered before the slip, not sure if it would be available after. You have to be careful with your drink order at Interval, especially at odd hours. The barman in the leather apron who recommends the Lagavulin at a minute till the hour becomes a smoky-eyed Parisian girl who pours you absinthe over a sugar cube just two minutes later.

I hate absinthe.

Ani loves the liminal times, delighting in the heady whirl of cultures as the patrons of past hours yield to the newcomers: a carioca offering his seat to a drag queen, a London proto-punk buying a drink for a Harajuku loli-goth. Ani surfs the flux with aplomb, though she herself is immutable. 

I’m more at home with the stability of the even hours, when the theme has settled. At the moment, I’m enjoying the jazz trio in the corner – I’m close enough to admire the drummer’s delicate brush technique on the snare – and the quiet buzz of conversation that serves as backdrop. With few exceptions, myself included, the patronage could have wandered in off the Champs-Élysées in 1950.

​Update from Ani. She’s around the corner. Which means everything, and nothing. The more specific her location, the more uncertain her momentum. Still, the simple fact that she’s nearby thrills me.

We’re closing in on one o’clock in the morning now, and things begin to shift: the trio acquires an improbable erhu player; the thick brocade of my high-backed barstool gives way to a rattan weave; my drink, left unattended for a moment too long, sports a wedge of coconut and smells suspiciously of dark rum. I’m wrenched out of my comfort zone as the club accelerates into the slip.

My phone buzzes in my pocket with a new text alert, but I’ve already spotted Ani by the entrance. Perfect. Timeless. A fixed point in the chaos. She smiles when she sees me, the club swirling around her, and holds me steady in her eyes.

Remember, remember the 5th of November, Gunpowder, Treason and Plot was the verse we used to sing in England when I was young. Sorry, no gunpowder, treason or plot today – just some very good scifaiku from Pat Tompkins, David Kelly, Kelly Sauvage Angel, Gabriel Smithwilson, Susan Burch, Greg Schwartz, and David Shultz. But just don't ask where the USB plug goes!


trying to grasp
the something of nothing
quicksilver

the Milky Way
feeds on dwarf galaxies
big business model

by Pat Tompkins


improved recipe
a new number on
my green pills

by David J. Kelly


chemical shower
still, your need for me
betrays your scent
 
abandoned bunker
how sweet the syrup
of rotting peaches

by Kelly Sauvage Angel


Full moon fever
Stirs sickened mind
Bestial feeling breathes inside

by Gabriel Smithwilson


absolute zero
you couldn’t have been
any colder

by Susan Burch


USB Toilet

you don't
want to know
where the plug goes

by Greg Schwartz


the morning star
the evening star
yellow fog on venus

by David F. Shultz