Kip Manley's Blog

“The least little thing,” says Anna, fingertips against her forehead, pushing aside a wing of russet hair, “sets it off.” On the table between her elbows a round white cup full of steamed milk marbled with coffee and cocoa. “And I’m right back there, that moment, the moment she asked. Time stopped, you know? And everything about her that I’d noticed, without noticing, her smile, the way she holds herself, those– eyes,” her own hand dropping, gripping her upper arm, glasses flashing as she looks up, a wan smile for Gloria sitting across from her. “The smell of sunlight, in her hair. It all came crashing down, and I know, I knew,” she looks back down, shaking her head. “There was no other answer, there was nothing else to say. There will never be another.”

Wrapped in Gloria’s hands a pale green mug of red tea, steaming. “It was,” she says. Behind her rows of shelves neatly lined with books. Romance, says a sign at the end of a shelf. Paranormal Romance. Humor. “It wasn’t anything like that,” says Gloria. She sips. “I never met her before. But the lights, and the music, everybody, I just, it was an impulse. I said yes. And, and it was like, everything,” she looks away, she licks her lips. Another mouthful of tea. “I can’t get her out of my head.”

“The,” says Anna, “the taste of her.”

“We, I, ah, we never,” says Gloria quickly.

“Your pardon,” says Anna, sitting back. Adjusting the drape of her houndstooth skirt over her crossed legs. “It’s not easy, talking about it. I, um, it’s–”

“I paint,” says Gloria. “It’s what I do, with the money. Most of it. Paints. Canvases. I keep, doing the same one? Over and over. I, I can’t,” setting her mug down, looking away.

“Does it help?”

Now that nos. 45 and 46 are complete and in the world, a number of elements of this new season, Summer, the third season of the epic, might well be coming into focus. —Head over to Chapbooks, and scroll down to the brand new section where the third season chapbooks will be collected, and you’ll notice that no. 45 is the first installment of vol. 5, the Greene Chapel—and that no. 46 is the first installment of vol. 6, Eleleu Ie.

But there’s a rattle of keys at the door to the apartment, it’s opening, there’s Jo, black coat swinging and bright red hair, saying something to someone behind her, Luys, his brown short-waisted jacket, loose brown check trousers, “Jo,” says Ysabel, “you’re late,” but there’s someone else, after Luys, a young man in a soft yellow suit that swallows his narrow frame. “Sorry,” Jo’s saying, tucking her jingling keys away. “Had to find some clothes for Christian. Nice clothes.”

“Hey,” says Christian, shooting his cuffs, “it’s me makes this look good,” even as his narrowed eyes dart about the kitchen, the steps down to the open room, where a long table’s laid with rich yellow cloth, set with gold-rimmed white dinner plates under gold-rimmed soup plates, bread plates, gold-plated forks and salad forks, soup spoons and teaspoons, broad-bladed knives, water glasses and wine glasses and crisp white napkins, and in the center of it all a glass bowl filled with white and yellow roses. Ysabel stands at the head of the table, there where the windowed walls of the open room narrow to a windowed point, a hand on the back of a chair swathed in beige. White flared pants, a shimmering golden drape of camisole. “Christian, Ysabel,” says Jo, and “Ysabel Christian, but I bet you both remember each other.”

“Yeah,” says Christian, “yeah, the Bride, the Queen, I mean, hey. Highness.” He nods. “Majesty,” says Luys. “Yes,” says Ysabel, and then, to Jo, “We need to talk?”

Two weeks have passed; our story resumes. Ysabel is—well. In a bit of a pickle. “What do you want me to do?” 36 pages with color cover. $3.00 plus shipping and handling.

the People versus Ysabel Perry– a Question of identity– 150 Feet– Up with a Hoarse shout– not his Rule– Meat on the table– the Limits of Logistics– as She left it– pale thick Lips– the Flow of Ideas– the Point of Ess Eff– the Throne– Stakes– Read You Mutt– June 24th– her Address– “Closed”– a Sour heart– Props

Two weeks have passed; our story resumes. Jo is scrubbing a tub. “Terminally interconnected and consistent.” 36 pages with color cover. $3.00 plus shipping and handling.

the Stuff in the Bucket– Happy Hour– 27 Rooms– the Color– Ladies; Gentlemen; Otherwise– Billy Breaks– her Count– Take it off– the Word for Words– fun– a Tactical grip– “The heck is that”– (some of) the Contents of a Box– his Language– June 23rd– the One with the Lions– why the Ocean– “I can stay the night”– a Bit of money– perfectly Safe– Out from Under

“Yes,” says Gloria Monday, tapping a credit card once against the countertop, “my name is Suzette Wilson? I called this morning about an order for some canvases and paints and there was a problem with my card?” Her jet-black hair tied up in a sloppy ponytail, long black coat pulled over an untucked striped dress shirt. “Yes, right,” says the man behind the counter, “eight stretched canvases, plus delivery. The card wouldn’t go through.”

“I know,” she says, “can we,” tapping the card again, “try it here?” Holding the card out to him. He takes it, shimmering grey, looks up from it to her, frowning. “It’s my father’s card,” she says.

“It’s a nine-hundred dollar order,” he says, poking the screen of a tablet computer.

“Can we just, try it. Please. It’s a platinum card.”

He shrugs, swipes. One of the buttons pinned to his red apron says Happen Things Makes Art. The tablet bleeps, he looks up, holds out the card with an apologetic shrug.

“Maybe, try it again?” says Gloria Monday. He’s still holding out the card. She takes it back, a snap of her wrist, and opens her purse, a gutted teddy bear slung from a rhinestone-studded strap. “I guess,” she says, tucking the card away, “they finally figured out he’s dead.”

“Dead?” says the clerk.

“I gotta go talk to my lawyer,” says Gloria Monday. “I’ll be back. For the stuff.”

With his own hands, the King pours from a cut glass pitcher five generous dollops of orange juice into tulip goblets of eggshell porcelain, leafed with scuffed gold whorls. “Wednesdays,” he says, and he chuckles. “Hump day,” he says. His caftan white, his dressing gown of black and gold brocade, his pinkish orange hair bobbing upright in matted coils and tangles as he moves about the table. “I’d like to acknowledge,” he says, “the extraordinary circumstances,” setting a goblet before the Marquess in her black leather jacket, hair close-cropped, gunmetal grey, “that have brought us all together again,” and another before the Soames in a green tweed jacket, plaid trilby on the table before him, “so soon.” A third goblet before the Viscount in his soft blue suit, matted white locks tied into a thick spray at the back of his head. Out past the credenza laden with pitcher and plates, a dish of scrambled eggs, a red clay tortilla warmer painted with white flowers, the vertiginous drop, black trees and wet rooftops soaked in dull grey clouds, the drip of fallen rain. “Your alacrity’s a credit to this court,” says the King, taking up the last two goblets, stepping around, down to the head of the table. “As well you know. Something happened last night. This morning. Early,” and another chuckle, “earlier.” Setting a goblet before Jo, still in her black coat, black shirt buttoned to her throat. “Southeast will fill us in.”

The aptness of this satire in 2025—in which the law is even presuming to rule on biological “reality”—draws attention to the similarities between the 2020s and the 1920s, which seem much closer to the present now than, say, the 1940s or 1950s. Like our current government, the good burghers of Lud-in-the-Mist can’t counter, or even account for, the ongoing collapse of the dominant symbolic order around their ears because they are unable to recognise on ideological grounds the very forces that are opposing them.

“Yes?” she says. “I guess.” Looking over to him, a shrug. “Who wouldn’t.” And he smiles. He’s smiling already, thinly, lips unparted under his long thin nose. The black patch over one eye. He takes her hand, the other woman’s hand, in his. “You see?” he says to her. Light swoops, shadows rush over them, leaping up walls to hang a moment swirling as the massive speaker stacks begin to groan a thrumbling beat. She leans back, spangles in her black hair snagging the light that blares her pink bangs, shadows under hollowed eyes etch disgust, revulsion, and he laughs, the sound of it swallowed by the revving song, let’s go, chirps a vocoded voice, let’s go, he lifts that hand, the other woman’s hand, to his thin drawn lips, let’s go, the gesture isn’t at all a kiss, let’s go, let’s go, oh, I wanna scream at the top of my lungs–

She steps back from the canvas tautly stretched before her. Somewhere outside a siren whoops, squeals, cuts out, a shiver of rain. A window’s open, a door cracked, somewhere. Her black hair unbraided now, spangles gone, pink leached from her bangs. The brush in her hand. Her feet, her thick legs bare, specked with gooseflesh. Her T-shirt grey, and black letters across the front say Outing, Thunder in parentheses. She drops the brush to a makeshift tabouret. The room behind her cavernous, laddered with rafters trussed and hung over unlit bulks, boxes, equipment, whatever it is lost in the glare of the trouble light that dangles over her head, shining on the canvas stretched, slathered black and red the suggestion of an arm, a sleek line there a throat, a chin, a head tipped back, pillowed in madly scribbled hair. She’s picked up a tube of paint, she’s squeezing it, a dollop of green out onto her fingertip, bright, electric, poisonously pure. Leaning forward to press it carefully, there, and twist: an eye. She steps back. Sniffs.

“Fucking Flashdance,” she says.

“My people!” cries the King, as he mounts the stage there in the middle, by Jo. “All of you that call this city home.” Spreading his arms as applause begins to spatter below, redouble, grow. “Here we are!” he cries, into the mounting approbation. “Your Court, of Roses!” Stepping to one side, throwing out a hand toward the short man in tweed, the meshback cap on his head, “The Soames!” cries the King. “For the North!” and the Soames lifts his hands clasped over his head to the cheers and whoops. Stepping to the other, leaning, a gesture toward the woman down there in her silvery gown, “The Helm,” cries the King, “for the Northeast Marches!” and she inclines her head. “The Handle!” cries the King, as the man in the pale blue suit steps forward, and the applause swells even more, deepening, thundering. “For Southwest!” And then, taking Jo’s hand in his, “For Southeast!” His voice booming. “Our Huntsman!” Down there, at the end of the stage, the Queen in her white coat’s climbed the steps, she’s making her way to the center, past the Soames, in her long white coat, her shorn head crowned with a white slouch hat, her hand outstretched to reach for the King’s other, outstretched hand. “And,” he cries, “I give you,” taking her hand in his own, “my sister,” and the applause, the cheers are deafening now, “your Queen!”

And when he can make himself heard again, “All of you,” he says, “all of you who washed up on this shore so long ago, in the light of a dawn that had never before been seen.” Jo looks down at her hand in his, at his hand about hers, firm, familiar, and the red mark there, on the heel of it, an old cut long since healed. “Who gave voice to a word that had never before been said, and sent it ringing out into the day. Tonight!” And the light that’s filling that little round is growing, warmer, brighter, shining up from them all, banishing the sky above, “Here!” cries the King, “And now!” And Jo looks over, past him, to the Queen, to Ysabel, holding his other hand. “My people!” cries the King. “Lift up your hands, your voices, with mine!”