dispatch extends a warm welcome to

Christopher Laird, newest member of our crew.

Originally from the land of Bright Eyes, Laird
now resides in the Old World, specifically
England. He is the programme director of
Radio Nowhere, the influential underground
radio station, and his first offering is musical
guest Japanese Voyeurs, whose track “That
Love Sound” is sure to turn you on to their
pithy style.
 typefaces: Magellan, Accolade, Minion Pro, & Friz Quadrata

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“Crossing the Psy­Field”

©2010 Max Dunbar

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—Christy Call
 CROSSING THE PSY­FIELD
Mark Ireson had discovered his great gift about fifteen
months ago, on weekend license. He had bounced around
Manchester all day and night, shooting tequila in Oxford
Road bars and coke in its toilets. Trying to leave the
Novotel the next day, his panic attack was so bad he
thought he’d die. Then he decided he wanted to.

He ordered up a bottle of wine and swallowed

sleeping pills he’d procured through a corrupt male nurse.
Washing down four tablets with the first glass of wine, he
realized it would be a shame to go into the black without
seeing a woman for the last time. A quick call to an escort
service from the Yellow Pages and a soft, smiling redhead
was at his door within half an hour.

He did not make love to her and he didn’t mention

his impending suicide; girls always freaked out at such
things. All his life, women had seemed slightly afraid of
him and he’d never known why.

They kissed and cuddled and talked. Even today he

called her up and took her out once a month or so—for
the full agency fee. Annabel had had some reservations
about this, but she relented once the relationship was
established as a platonic meeting of minds.

After Amber the Friendly Callgirl had gone, Ira lay

back, drank the rest of the wine, and popped the rest of
the pills. He read from The Great Gatsby and waited for the
darkness to take him.

He woke up in a cave. Sunlight flooded in from the

outside. Shit, he thought, I’ve been wrong about religion
my whole life. But this wasn’t a hell for unbelievers, or a
place where wayward souls waited for administration. He
slept and shivered in the cave a long time. The stone was
hard and gritty beneath his palms.

He was wakened by hoofbeats. A figure creeped

into the cave. It moved out of the natural arch and he saw
a beautiful woman in a leather breastplate and a long
skirt made from what looked like buffalo hide.

And that was how he met Jasmine, former Princess

of the Imperial Faithlands, now a fleeing outlaw and rebel
against her king. She had lived in gilded seclusion in the
heart of the Power’s empire before running from an
arranged marriage to a man three times her age. It had
been a spontaneous act. Her bedchamber was tightly
guarded against the young ones she liked from the town,
but the man had bribed a guard one night and tried to
force himself upon her. She’d cut his throat with a
throwing dagger from the wall.

They were both on the run, outsiders in their

respective worlds. It seemed so good that Ira thought at
first that this whole world was just a byproduct of his
schizophrenia.

But Jasmine told him this was wrong. “Ira, you have
a vortex inside your head. We know there is infinity of
universes, but you so far are the only one I have known
who can travel between worlds.” She smiled, and said,
“There are many more adventures ahead of us.”

It explained the visions and the sense he sometimes 6

 litdaisp
revatc
had that the streets of Manchester­side were not the only e w
i h
reality. He could go through the portal at any time: on
public transport, having a beer in the Cornerhouse,
staring into space at work. He found that it was best to be
discreet about his teleportation. So they had spent a year
going for walks in the clearing, hunting for food, and
reading to each other by firelight.

Until the Faith’s armies had invaded.

He and Jasmine had almost reached their

camp—except it seemed more and more like a city, that
arc of temple rearing above it like an angry beast. He
could make out people, construction, voices.

He suddenly felt very tired. What was the point?

They would just be slaughtered anyway. All they had were
Jasmine’s guns.

This wasn’t a feeling he often had in this world. This

was a Manchester­side feeling, a Housing Policy type
feeling. He turned to Jasmine. “I’m losing heart, my love.”

“I think we’re walking into a psy­field,” Jasmine

said. “The sorcerers put one around the traveling armies,
to dispirit the enemy. We will feel downcast, distraught.
When I left the Realm, they had nearly succeeded in
creating a field that could somehow read our souls and
project our greatest fears. The Faith says that your science
is an abomination, but they are happy to use it when it
suits their ends.”

The city before them began to fade, and in seconds

they were walking through a thick, silvery mist. Wisps and
tendrils of it curled around their legs. It was like walking
through fast­drying cement or quicksand. A volatile wind
blew around them. Then something rose from the mist.
Ira looked up, and up, at a great black presence and arms
without lines and a pair of monstrous, furious eyes,
somewhere beyond the fog.

Jasmine! the apparition roared. The ground shook.

Jasmine Gustanda al­Mikados, you have refused your submission.
You have turned your face away from the power. You were once
allocated the highest of all heavens, and now you have cast
yourself down to the lowest heathen’s hell. Fear of the power is the
root of all wisdom!

Lightning struck near their feet. Was this the

godhead that ruled a billion lives? No. This was the Power
as Jasmine had always imagined it..

He struggled to keep his head up. He saw without

surprise that the apparition now held a silver needle in
one gigantic fist. Jasmine fell to her knees, quaking before
it.

“She doesn’t believe in you anymore!”

A green bolt zigzagged out of his fist and rose up

into the searchlights of its eyes. They hit the deck an
instant before the explosion; faces down, hands locked,
like cold war kids in a drill.

Jasmine stood first. “You saved my life, Ira

Silvertongue. Some part of me believes. Some part that
was battered and conditioned into submission. If I had
been alone—” 8
 a x ar
munb
d “We’re not through the field yet,” he announced.
“Look.”

The fog had gone, but they were now making their
way towards a sandstone wall that almost touched the
horizon. Some kind of robotic critter with flashing red
eyes bounced around their ankles.

“You couldn’t make it up!” the critter laughed. Its

high voice possessed the empty glee of a zombie
schoolchild. “There was a paedo once, they gave him a
job as a teacher, and when he took a child, they didn’t
hang him! Why? Because of his human rights! Hee­hee­
hee!”

“What the hell,” Ira said. His head was in bits.

Jasmine seemed unfazed. “It’s a jester­bot,” she said.

“There were many at the Palace. I think we are almost
through. That wall must be the last of it.”

The robot cantered near their feet. Ira could feel

the rasp of metal on his bare legs, as if it was trying to
bite him. “You know what they’ve gone and done now?”
the robot screeched. “Civil partnerships! For
homosexuals! We’ll be letting them vote next! It’s
politically correct madness!”

There was something by the wall: a news bin, like

the one in the Town Hall reception. There was a paper
left.

“Don’t read it,” Jasmine warned.

 “You couldn’t make it up!” The robot’s voice was
higher now, almost unhinged. Steam rose from its grille.
“Immigrants jump the queue at council housing! Mr.
Ahmed sets up a property business and invites all four of
his wives over to the dole queue! Ho­ho­ho!”

A gunshot, and a sound like a computer shutting

down. Jasmine had tired of the jester­bot.

The newspaper had been open at the op­ed page.

Ira read:

What is the point of Mark Ireson?

By Our Own Correspondent

It’s the question on everyone’s lips: what is the point

of Mark Ireson?

‘Ira’ to his friends (if he had any!!!) this man is such

a silly little cocksucker that it must be asked why he is
allowed to live on this planet. A pathetic, useless failure,
Ireson has had all the advantages in life and blown them
all. He’s a traitor son, a uni dropout, and a failure with
women. His naïve, head­in­the­clouds mentality meant that
for the past five years he’s been staying in luxury
psychiatric spas on YOUR MONEY. Doesn’t it just make
you sick? Ireson can’t even do a public sector non­job
without breaking down in front of the photocopier. Ira
knows he could have been anything, and that he’ll die alone
and unloved. To cope with his pitiful, empty life, Ireson
pretends that he can travel to fantasy worlds and have
adventures with warrior princesses. I mean, grow up,
Ireson! Today, we call on Faith Clarion readers to petition 10
 litdaisp
revatc
i h
for Ira’s execution. Kill the infidel! This joke, this loser, this e w
ugly, pathetic cunt (cont p.94)

Jasmine read over his shoulder. “You know it’s a

trick,” she said.

Ira turned the blank pages. He tossed the

newspaper.

“We need to find a way to get over this wall,” he

said.

“There’ll be woodland near by. We might climb it.

Come on.”

“No. We’re still in the psy­field. We must go through

it directly.”

There were markings in the wall.

To get out of the psy­field, simply solve this FUN

wordsearch about gallant world­traveller Mark Ireson.
Below is a list of words relating to Ira’s adventures. The
words can be horizontal, vertical, diagonal or backwards.
When you have found all the words, the remaining letters
will spell out Ira’s message to you.

HOUSING SCHIZOPHRENIA LOVE

COUNCIL INTEGRITY AGORAPHOBIA
TRISTAIN COURAGE LITERATURE
ANNABEL ASPERGERS OLANZAPINE

“You’re right. This is it, Ira Silvertongue. I think this

is the key.”
 Below the writing, a small box with the word “cunt”
written repeatedly throughout. Another blue bolt shot
from Jasmine’s palm. The wordsearch was obliterated and
left a smoking hole in the wall.

“Salutations, Ira. We’re through.”

The wall began to dissolve. Arms linked, they

stepped through its graying outline.

“The psy­fields are very effective,” Jasmine said.

“Commanders of armies have gone screaming mad trying
to cross them. I don’t think they expected us to get this
far.”

“It’s not the last surprise we’ll give them, warrior

princess.”

They could see the city and the temple again. Ira
felt trepidation, and it was more about what was behind
them than what came ahead. Just before Jasmine had
shattered the wordsearch, its letters had changed. For a
split second, like a subliminal message encoded in a TV
advertisement, they read another small box, this one with
the word “virgin” written repeatedly.

He squeezed his lover’s arm and shivered a little as

they reached the outskirts of the Community of Faith.
MAX DUNBAR

Max Dunbar was

born in London in 1981.
He recently finished a full-
length novel and his short
fiction has appeared in
various print and web
journals including Open
Wide, Straight from the Fridge,
and Lamport Court. He also
writes criticism for 3:AM and
Butterflies and Wheels. He is
Manchester’s regional editor
of Succour Magazine,
a journal of new fiction
and poetry.

@WORDPRESS
see also: Trick with a Knife

My best stories come out of nowhere,

with no concern for form at all.
­Barry Hannah