Pseudopod 219: The Moon and the Mesa

[Bdoomed]

Pseudopod 219: The Moon and the Mesa

By Daniel Braum

Read by Ben Phillips

We push our way through the hot maze of cologned bodies and emerge into the relative quiet of the street. She fishes in her purse but instead of taking out a pack of cigarettes she pulls out the little black gun. She holds it up admiring it in the streetlight.

“Didn’t you want to take them home. Didn’t you want to-”

“Aw fuck. What the hell are you doing with that? Don’t take it out here!”

I snatch the gun and stuff it back into her purse.

“Hey. Easy there,” she says. “Don’t you dare tell me you’re not going to. You said.”

She’s much too calm. It’s that calmness that scares me.



Listen to this week's Pseudopod.

[Scattercat]

Oh, now that was delicious.  Absolute top marks.  Delightfully subtle and understated.

[kibitzer]

You give a lot of yourself away, Al. Thanks.

Interesting story. It took a while for me to piece it together -- probably didn't help that I was walking my dog and trying to keep him from barking furiously at every curious movement. The set pieces between the characters were great -- I could clearly see the guy climbing up on the car to take the photo, and the interaction between the German girl and the other guy. Nicely drawn.

[Unblinking]

Apparently too subtle and understated for me.  I kept trying to get a grasp for what it was really about and I think I utterly failed.  In the beginning it seemed like they were supernatural beings hunting for humans as food.  Then seemed like they were humans hunting Germans for... revenge of past generation's sins?  Then he's on a random excursion in the country and almost considers shooting a German tourist on the pretense of getting laid, but instead he meets up against a shapeshifting scorpion apparition?

I'm just not sure I got it at all.

[Marguerite]

A have a weakness for desert horror.  Something about the Louis L'Amour my mother read when I was a kid, maybe.  The setting makes it impossible for the author and reader to rely on some of the well-known smoke and mirrors of a lot of horror fiction like obfuscating scenery.  Deserts are bare and force the people who inhabit them, even for just a little while, to strip themselves down to essentials on many levels. 

The story was exactly that - barren and raw.  The victims of victims trying to deal with horrors that happened and ended before they were even born.  I thought the protagonist was overwhelmingly brave, not just for his inaction (the German girl) but for his actions (taking the gun away).

This one is going to stay with me a long time.

You give a lot of yourself away, Al. Thanks.

Well put, Sir, and I'll second that.  Thank you, Alasdair.

[blueeyeddevil]

Oh, man...

I'm not doing this to be obnoxious, but I looked at the boards and thought 'oh yeah I need to listen to that'. Then I glanced at the comments and realized I had listened to it. Somehow, the quality that made it haunting to others made it elusive for me.

I am usually a fan of the understated, but something about this felt just a little too understated. The goals of this group were so nebulous at first, and took up such a significant part of the bandwidth of the story that the eerie wendigo/skinwalker presence in the second part of the story, for me, was eclipsed. If the temporal lens of the story had stayed just a bit longer in the desert, or had excised the entire first bar scene, I think that the entire thing would have been dynamite. As it is, the amount of time spent defining his female friend (her name, unsurprisingly, escapes me) and her fierce character was kind of wasted, given how little of her there was in the main portion of the story.

[Sgarre1]

Compare/contrast with "Bophuthatswana".

[Lift]

Perhaps a little too subtle, I had an all-sizzle-no-steak feeling listening to it. Characters well realized, but it didn't draw me in.

[Listener]

As it is, the amount of time spent defining his female friend (her name, unsurprisingly, escapes me) and her fierce character was kind of wasted, given how little of her there was in the main portion of the story.

I agree.

I'm not at all a fan of holocaust stories, especially holocaust revenge stories, but I looked past that and really enjoyed this. The scorpion analogy was nice.

[zoanon]

did I miss something at the end of this?? is PP on hiatus?

[Sgarre1]

All will be explained (shake magic 8 Ball)

[Bdoomed]

Pseudopod comes back when Pseudopod wants to come back.  Pseudopod has gone into slumber, but should be awake and terrorizing again soon.  I think.  I fear.

[kibitzer]

did I miss something at the end of this?? is PP on hiatus?

Ah. The seemingly Unaskable Question has been asked. Was going to ask it myself but figured I missed the memo since everyone else has been silent.

[Hafwit]

I miss my fix of consistently good and often awesome horror fiction.

As Bowie says: "don't leave us with our sanity". 

[Fenrix]

Compare/contrast with "Bophuthatswana".

Very similar in theme and tone, but I'll echo the "all sizzle and no steak". The monster felt more like a metaphor than a bogeyman, but that's fine as well. It was entertaining to listen to, but I'm not going to recommend it.

I like the way the planned violence was defused by the end of the story. How all the kids, on all sides, are struggling with dealing with the pain and hate they learned from their parents. The story ended not with a bang, but a whimper.

[tinygaia]

Pseudopod has gone into slumber, but should be awake and terrorizing again soon.  I think.  I fear.

That is not dead which can eternal lie...


Anyway, this was my first Pseudopod, so I'm glad to see that others felt as ambivalent about the story as I do. I didn't really see the motivations. I was bullied as a child and often wonder what I would do if I ran into my former tormentors (what's the minimum charge for assault these days?) but I've never considered killing any of them. Of course, the holocaust is an order of magnitude worse than anything I've ever experienced, but the main characters weren't IN the holocaust, so it seems odd to me that they're out to kill Germans who also weren't in it, even to avenge the honor of elderly relatives. But then, none of my immediate relatives have ever experienced anything like the holocaust, so who can say I wouldn't feel the same way if they had. Meh?

[kibitzer]

Anyway, this was my first Pseudopod...

Welcome. To the real world...

[tinygaia]

Anyway, this was my first Pseudopod...

Welcome. To the real world...

Ah, I wasn't aware that the real world had creepy scorpion women in it. That's what I've been doing wrong all these years.

[Hafwit]

Everyday you fail to meet the creepy scorpion women, you should congratulate yourself for having done something right.