Fantastic Metropolis

Minton scarcely knew where he was going so it was a gentle surprise to step from the cane field onto the bank of the river. Moonlight sparkled on the murmuring water and the shadows of overhanging trees went shilly shallying on the breeze. Minton knelt to bathe his tear stained face. When he looked up a crone was crouching on the other bank watching him. She was dressed in muslin Holloway sugar sacks with one on her head for a hat.

So Minton here you are! The diminutive woman tucked a stray strand of white hair back under her cap as though suddenly conscious of the poor impression she was making. Steady there boy steady!

Minton fainted at the water’s edge.

He woke bewildered to the sounds of machinery coming from somewhere below. His fever had broken and his silk bedclothes were disagreeable with perspiration so he changed into a loose jacket and a pair of trousers he found waiting atop a table. Like the bedding the clothing was improvised out of sugar sacks. When he was done dressing he rubbed his sleepy eyes and wondered about the room which he knew was an attic of the sugar refinery. Minton and his papa had toured it in happier times and the cloying sweetness filled him with sorrow.

A tap at the door brought him scowling back from his sad associations and he was quite impertinent when the little old woman wished him a cheerful good morning. After tea and boiled pigeon eggs for breakfast she sat him down for a dreadful talk.

Holloway murdered your parents she said bluntly. They will kill you too if you don’t diappear into the machine. She waited patiently until his uncontrollable sobbing ceased. Now Minton the first rule to remember is only death is more disappointing than life. We live for the timebeing. Every artificial instant of every bitter hour of every useless day is an opportunity for indelible memories. Vanish with a vengeance. Anonymous malcontents like us fight alone—

Shivering in the timid sunbeams that stretched through the dusty skylight Minton had stopped listening and was busy thinking about Dandy Deane. He certainly felt obliged to grieve the loss of his father and mother and yet he knew that he was really crying out of self pity and fear so ashamed his thoughts quickly moved on to more noble things. Deane had chosen to desert rather than give Torty up to the lynch mob without remorse.

—corporation. Sometimes I’ll wheedle a hopper and drive it into the bayou.

In the glorious days that followed Minton renounced all unselfish habits and beliefs and declared his allegiance to the old woman’s secret campaign of sabotage. They haunted the refinery crippling machinery here taking a bag of sugar there any mischievous misdeed that wouldn’t harm the workers. Before long their offenses were noticed by the company for Minton despite many reproaches often went too far. Holloway representatives had calmly overlooked the old woman’s pathetic little pranks for years because they defused the workers’ anger. But after Minton painted a large resemblance of Dandy Deane freeing Torty on the refinery wall the rich owners of the corporation feared an all out rebellion so they unceremoniously killed the old lady and fed her to the crocodiles. All of the sinister men gathered in an office after the last shift to laugh and to drink to her demise. Minton barricaded the door and set fire to the refinery burning it to the ground. Then he walked slowly home where to his great surprise his father had returned and his mother who had only fainted was recovering. Brushing a dead bumblebee off of the sofa he sat down to finish reading his book.

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Allan Kausch is an editor, surreal collagist and author from the San Francisco Bay Area. He has had a handful of shows of his original collages, and is the author of five books: Voyage of Exile, Blackberry Castle, The Wax Baby, Fetch the Stick Dog and Remorse Code and Other Tantrums. A devoted Dickhead, he organized the massive preproduction of the six volumes of the Selected Letters of Philip K. Dick. Until recently he worked as the Continuity Editor for Lucasfilm Ltd., serving as the Star Wars expert under George Lucas, and he received the Harvey and Eisner awards for his editing of Star Wars comic-books. He is now pursuing a freelance existence.

“Minton” is from his latest book, Remorse Code and Other Tantrums, of which noted montagist Winston Smith has said: “These artist books are really cool… Max Ernst would be amazed at his legacy… great!”