The Mirrors
THE MIRRORS
By Nicole Cushing
A Macabre Ink Production
Macabre Ink is an imprint of Crossroad Press
Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press & Cycatrix Press
Digital Edition Copyright © 2016 Nicole Cushing
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Meet the Author
Nicole Cushing was born in June, 1973–the youngest of four children. She was raised in rural Cecil County, Maryland, where she attended public schools. Her hometown was within driving distance to various historical sites related to Edgar Allan Poe. She counts her childhood visits to these sites as formative experiences that threw fuel on her already-morbid imagination.
She attended St. Mary’s College of Maryland (the state’s public honors college), graduating magna cum laude with a degree in psychology. It was there that she undertook her first studies of psychopathology (a subject that frequently appears in her writing).
Following college, she worked at a public mental health facility while simultaneously going to the University of Maryland–Baltimore to earn her Master of Social Work degree. This extended education (and later personal and family crises) delayed the start of her writing career. In 2003, she relocated to Louisville, Kentucky. Shortly thereafter, she moved to nearby southern Indiana. She is married and presently childless.
Although she had occasionally sold short stories in her twenties, it was not until the fall of 2008 that she pursued a writing career in earnest. Since that time, she has gone on to sell dozens of short stories, two stand-alone novellas, and a novel, Mr. Suicide. She received a nomination for the 2013 Shirley Jackson Award for her debut novella, Children of No One. She is currently working on her second novel and building her career as a nonfiction contributor to Nameless digest and the UK-based horror film magazine Scream.
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Foreword © 2015 by S. T. Joshi
Preface © 2015 by Nicole Cushing
Cover Art (The Mirrors) and Standalone B&W Detail Illustrations © 2015 by Zach McCain
Author Photo © 2015 by Nicole Cushing
“The Truth, as Told by a Bottle of Liquid Morphine”: originally appeared in Phantasmagorium online, June 1-7, 2012, ed. Edward Morris, (Gorgon Press) and was later reprinted as an exclusive e-book for members of the DarkFuse book club (DarkFuse, 2012).
“The Cat in the Cage”: originally appeared in Eulogies II: Tales from the Cellar, ed. Christopher Jones, Nanci Kalanta, and Tony Tremblay (HW Press, 2013).
“The Orchard of Hanging Trees”: originally appeared as a reading on episode 277 of the podcast Pseudopod, ed. Shawn Garrett (Escape Artists Inc., 2012), then appeared in the April 17th, 2014 issue of DarkFuse magazine, ed. Shane Staley (DarkFuse, 2014).
“The Fourteenth”: originally appeared in The First Book of Classical Horror Stories, ed. D.F. Lewis (Megazanthus Press, 2012).
“A Catechism for Aspiring Amnesiacs”: originally appeared in Lovecraft eZine 12, ed. Mike Davis, A. J. French, and Bruce L. Priddy (Lovecraft eZine, 2012); then appeared in Lovecraft eZine Megapack–2012–Issues 10 Through 20, ed. Mike Davis (Lovecraft eZine, 2013); then appeared in Lovecraft eZine–Making the Cut–2012: Tales Selected for Honorable Mention in The Best Horror of the Year Volume 5, ed. Mike Davis (Lovecraft eZine, 2014).
“White Flag”: original to this collection.
“The Company Town”: originally appeared in The Grimscribe’s Puppets, ed. Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. (Miskatonic River Press, 2013).
“The Choir of Beasts”: originally appeared in The Choir of Beasts (three-story limited edition chapbook), ed. Jordan Krall (Dunhams Manor Press, 2013).
“All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Piggy Class”: originally appeared in Werewolves and Shape Shifters: Encounters with the Beast Within, ed. John Skipp (Black Dog & Leventhal, 2010); then appeared in Tales to Terrify Volume 1, ed. Lawrence Santoro, Harry Markov, and Tony C. Smith (Tony C. Smith, 2012), then appeared as a reading on episode 60 of the podcast Tales to Terrify (District of Wonders, 2013).
“The Last Kid Scared by Lugosi”: original to this collection.
“I Am Moonflower”: originally appeared in Weird Tales 361, ed. Marvin Kaye (Nth Dimension Media, 2013).
“The Meaning”: originally appeared in Polluto 9¾ , ed. Victoria Hooper, Adam Lowe, and Chris Kelso (Dog Horn Publishing, 2012).
“The Suffering Clown”: originally appeared in Mighty in Sorrow: A Tribute to David Tibet & Current 93, ed. Jordan Krall (Dynatox Ministries, 2014).
“Eulogy to be Given by Whoever’s Still Sober”: originally appeared in TWO: The 2nd Annual Stupefying Stories Horror Special, ed. Bruce Bethke (Rampant Loon Press, 2013).
“Youth to be Proud Of”: originally appeared in Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, Issue Y’aing’ngah, ed. Bradley Sands, Garrett Cook, and Andersen Prunty (2010).
“Subcontractors”: originally appeared in Strange Aeons 15, ed. Laurence Amiotte, Rick Tillman, K. L. Young, and T. E. Grau (Eryx Press, 2014).
“The Peculiar Salesgirl”: originally appeared in Polluto 10, ed. Victoria Hooper, Adam Lowe, and Chris Kelso (Dog Horn Publishing, 2013); then appeared in Postscripts to Darkness, ed. Sean Moreland, Aalya Ahmad, and Ranylt Richildis (Ex Hubris Imprints, 2014)
“Non Evidens”: originally appeared in Women Writing the Weird II: Dreadful Daughters, ed. Deb Hoag (Dog Horn Publishing, 2014).
“The Squatters”: originally appeared in A Darke Phantastique: Encounters with the Uncanny and Other Magical Things…, ed. Jason V Brock (Cycatrix Press, 2014).
“The Mirrors”: originally appeared in Nameless Digest V2, No.1, ed. Jason V Brock & S. T. Joshi (Cycatrix Press, 2014).
Dedication To the memory of my grandparents.
THE MIRRORS
Table of Contents
Foreword by S. T. Joshi
Preface
BROKEN MIRRORS
The Truth, as Told by a Bottle of Liquid Morphine
The Cat in the Cage
The Orchard of Hanging Trees
The Fourteenth
A Catechism for Aspiring Amnesiacs
White Flag
The Company Town
The Choir of Beasts
All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Piggy Class
; The Last Kid Scared by Lugosi
I Am Moonflower
The Meaning
The Suffering Clown
FUNHOUSE MIRRORS
Eulogy to be Given by Whoever’s Still Sober
Youth to Be Proud Of
Subcontractors
BOUDOIR MIRRORS
The Peculiar Salesgirl
Non Evidens
The Squatters
CODA
The Mirrors
Story Notes
Foreword
By S. T. Joshi
Nicole Cushing’s stories grab you by the throat—and don’t let go until they have slapped you around a bit. I know of few writers of contemporary weird fiction whose stories pack the raw emotional power that hers do—and, as her preface to this book suggests, many of their elements are drawn from the experiences of her own life. But that would mean little unless she had the literary skill to transmute those experiences into powerful tales that speak poignantly of pain, loss, tragedy, heartbreak—and terror.
A surprising number of Cushing’s tales are of a provocative “what if” sort and might almost be classified as science fiction; but there is more than enough fear, gruesomeness, and supernatural horror to place them well within the confines of the weird tale. What if (as “White Flag” suggests) homeless people of the future have had their life expectancy vastly increased through advances in medicine—but still remain destitute? What if (“The Company Town” proposes) a company can arrange for the suicide of individuals and whole families trapped in an unending welter of depression? What if (as in “Subcontractors”) a plague is so widespread that it causes private individuals to become amateur morticians? What if (as one of the most innovative and carefully worked out stories in this book, “Non Evidens,” extrapolates) some babies are born invisible?
It can be seen from the above synopses that a good number of Cushing’s stories deal intimately and unflinchingly with the psychological traumas of their characters while at the same time broaching broader sociopolitical concerns. An extra dimension of complexity and poignancy is added by Cushing’s occasional experiments in narration. The two stories that open this collection are told from the standpoint of, respectively, a morphine bottle as it dispenses its transitory aid to cancer patients and a cat that acts as a bland witness to a depression-plagued suicide victim. A cloud of melancholy hangs heavy over this book—a point made not in criticism (even though this bleak atmosphere, reminiscent of nineteenth-century Russian literature, is generally at odds with the resolute cheerfulness that dominates the self-image of most Americans) but in praise of the simultaneous power and delicacy of Cushing’s psychological analyses of her characters. In some cases, her telling portrayals of depression can create terror on their own:
“The Fourteenth” is nothing more than an account of a woman who seeks solace in music following the death of her husband— but fails to find it.
One might suspect a Ligottian influence in all this: certainly, Ligotti’s The Conspiracy against the Human Race is about the last word on “anti-natalism” (the belief that human beings would have been better off having never been born). Ligotti’s work clearly underlies such tales as “A Catechism for Aspiring Amnesiacs,” a vibrant second-person narrative featuring a rumination on oblivion as a balm for the ills of life, and “The Choir of Beasts,” where a plague has caused the collapse of civilisation and a reversion to barbarism. But Cushing wouldn’t have responded to Ligotti’s pessimism and misanthropy if she had not felt it deeply herself.
The sociological or cultural dimensions of Cushing’s work comes to the fore in such a tale as “Eulogy to Be Given by Whoever’s Still Sober,” where a horror writer plans to culminate a wild party with his own death. This sardonic indictment of the excesses of our celebrity culture mingles terror and grim satire in equal doses. In “The Peculiar Salesgirl,” a shop sells new skin to women: a more pungent condemnation of the objectification of women (not to mention the race prejudice—based solely on such a superficial factor as one’s skin colour—that continues to bedevil our society) would be difficult to find.
Let it not be thought, however, that Cushing’s tales are dour exercises in heavy-handed moralising. We find a vibrant and distinctive imagination in both the conception and the execution of such tales as “Non Evidens” and “The Mirrors” (which somewhat similarly deals with the anomalous plight of certain people who fail to have their images reflected in mirrors). These and other narratives—such as “The Last Kid Scared by Lugosi,” where Béla Lugosi is resurrected on the one hundredth anniversary of the film Dracula, and “The Suffering Clown,” where the clown in question is endowed with terrifyingly cosmic powers—show that Cushing is well aware of the need for weird tales to be truly weird. This genre is different from standard social realism precisely because it allows the author’s imagination free rein to envision a world very different from what we see around us; but those imaginative flights must be directed by an aesthetic sensibility that uses fantasy, horror, and supernaturalism to tell profound truths about human beings as they function in our complex and bewildering society. Cushing’s tales do exactly that.
This is Nicole Cushing’s first full-length collection, and its variety, profundity, and underlying unity of thought and conception are enough to make any young author proud. I hope that the final impression most readers will derive when they finish this book is a thirst for as much more work by this gifted writer as they can find. I know mine was.
—S. T. Joshi
Seattle, Washington
Preface
“There is no nobler chore in the universe than holding up the mirror of reality and turning it slightly, so we have a new and different perception of the commonplace, the everyday, the ‘normal’, the obvious. People are reflected in the glass. The fantasy situation into which you thrust them is the mirror itself. And what we are shown should illuminate and alter our perception of the world around us. Failing that, you have failed totally.”
—Harlan Ellison
Chances are you don’t know me, but I’m worried that after reading this book you will. Because a short story collection (maybe even more than a novel) lays bare all the obsessions of an author. It gives the reader a chance to note—in the space of a single volume— recurring patterns: topics the author can’t seem to tear herself away from; topics that keep showing up time and time again despite her wishes that they wouldn’t; incriminating topics, which reveal her to be something other than normal.
There are twenty stories in this book, and as I assembled it I imagined the manuscripts tacked to a bulletin board in a courtroom. Exhibits A through T in a Kafkaesque daydream.
“Note,” the prosecuting attorney says, “how many times she writes about suicide. Poverty. Estrangement from family. Addiction. Note not only what she writes about, but also how strangely she writes about it. Clearly, this author is deranged. The state asks, your honor, that you immediately remand her to the nearest psychiatric hospital, where she shall be injected with all sorts of medicine to grant her passed-out, chemical bliss. For if one does not love reality, then one must be compelled to leave it.”
In response to these charges I offer a complicated plea: simultaneously guilty and not guilty.
The prosecutor cackles. “Ha! Simultaneous, conflicting pleas. See, I told you. Deranged! Deranged!”
“But wait … I can explain! I only offered a complicated plea because it’s a complicated matter. The stories in this book aren’t purely autobiographical. And yet—like most fiction, I suppose—there is an element of autobiography in each tale. Yes, I’ll admit that much. And if that admission leads the readers in the jury to find me guilty … deranged … so be it. But allow me to discuss all the nuances involved. When I sit down to write a story, a strange phenomenon occurs. I call it dual possession. The character possesses me—occupies my heart as I tell the tale. At the same time, though, I’m possessing the character. During the writing of the story, we dwell inside each other.”
“They’re not all weird.”
The prosecutor smirks. “‘Weird’ isn’t the word I used, young lady. I used the word ‘odd.’ Surely you’d have to admit that most are, at the very least, odd.”
My goose, it seems, is cooked. The prosecutor is hellbent on finding me deranged and is completely unreasonable. So let me take my appeal, instead, directly to you—the readers. My jury.
All my stories are mirrors, reflecting me and my surroundings—albeit, as Ellison said, turned slightly. Tilted. Warped.
The stories in the first section of this book are filthy, cracked mirrors reflecting my darkest scars. There are scars left where hunger clawed at me for a year or two. There are scars left by family estrangement and sick relationships. Scars left by depression, death, grief, and other troubles. All the injuries themselves are in the past now. I survived, and am grateful I survived. But the scars demand to be addressed. Fiction is one of the several ways in which I’ve addressed them. I call this section “Broken Mirrors.”
If “Broken Mirrors” sounds a little too intense, flip forward to one of the other sections. “Funhouse Mirrors” is a section of more comedic (or, at least, absurd) stories. Now, because I wrote them, they’re still fairly grim. But at least each wince is offset by a chuckle. That counts for something, right? Or maybe you’ll want to check out the “Boudoir Mirrors” section first. That section assembles my stories about identity, gender, and sexuality. The “Coda” is self-explanatory. If you only read one story in this book, read the single story comprising that section: “The Mirrors.”
Allow me to conclude this statement in my own defense by instructing you, the jury, to take a good look into these mirrors. Your judgment of my madness or sanity should hang on a single question: is it only me you see reflected, or do you not also find glimpses of yourselves in them as well? If I’m mad, maybe you are too.