Ok, here we go, the Final Countdown, and then it's Votin' Time!
@martin321 -
The Carnival's Coming To Junktown - Give 'em bread and circuses, that's what they want! It's not entirely clear who's been designated lunch: is it the island's inhabitants or the performers? I'm plumping for the performers, but either way way it's nice and ickily subversive. Carnival Will Eat Itself! And if it doesn't, a whacking great dinosaur will! I like the idea of the baying mob sighing at the hoops and clowns and floats, and then cheering when the bloodsport arrives - deep down, isn't that what being human is all about?
@Azzagorn -
A Very Magical Dysfunction - You know, sometimes it's not appreciated just what a feat of biological and spiritual engineering it is to get your spell up. But getting your potency back doesn't have to mean using that little blue pill, you know; it might be all in the mind. Although any magicians out there opting for the pill had better watch out; they're gonna put on one helluva show!
@Culhwch -
Masquerade - The lure of this sensual siren poses a neat question at the denouement; is our narrator really convinced he's following his lover? Or is he simply so entranced by her morphing masquerade that he can't help himself? I think it's primal; the thrill of the hunt and the courting game resulting in an opening... does he take it? I reckon he does.
@Darkchrome -
Scream, If You Want To Go Faster - Hey hey, the second story in this bundle to mention a T-Rex! Sorry, down to business. The sheer frivolity of the fair allows these two sisters to throw off their day-to-day identities - casting off their fears like clothes - and plunge headlong into the teacup maelstrom. The lingering figure of the gaff boy offers just the merest trace of this tale heading into a darker direction. Standing on the walkway, is he literally along for the ride or watching over the girls, a giff-gaff gargoyle?
@Moonbat -
They All Have Floats Round Here - I suppose one could view the carnival float as a kind of 'love-craft'... oh, do behave! I like this, quite a lot. It's all very well having Pierrot and Harlequin miming at each other until the cows come home but if you really want your party to go with a bang, then you can't beat an ancient sea-god with an octopus for a face who's going to chomp down on you all when the carnival's done. Wickedly subversive (again!) and fun for all the family in this one
@Perpetual Man -
2005 - Can it really be ten years ago now? I can't help but love giving the bruised and battered city of New Orleans itself the agency to change the lives of its million-fold protagonist Krewes through the one thing it knows how to do; party, and party hard! A seriously postmodern peeling of the layers of Carnival; if Carnival represents death and change and rebirth, then did Katrina represent the death of Carnival, prompting its own rebirth? However far down you drill, the cycles of life continue, perpetual...
@Parson -
The Genesis Of An Evil Idea - It's a bit (but only a bit) selfish of us to give Scarface such slim pickings through the Lent period. We give him such a deep pool of opportunity for temptation in the mad blitzkrieg of Mardi Gras and then whip it all away through the proceeding 40 days. They do say that when you're self employed you've gotta prepare a for a bit of feast and famine. But hold on, folks: maybe he wants us to feel sorry for him, so we reach for the vuvuzela one last time, grab that bottle of Bourbon and keep the party going all the way until Easter. All it'd take would be for that CNN special to air... Don't do it, people!
@BigJ -
The Legend Of Katrina - now here's an interesting little sea shanty! Whereas Perp's Katrina was the undoubted antagonist and instigator of change, here we see Kat from a fish-eye lens, and it was no bad thing for them. Imagine your delight at swimming along Bourbon Street, floating beads and boas making amoebic shapes in the water; what fun! There's a darkness to this story, too: reimagining the city of N'Orlins, bathed in its own sweat, is anything but fun for those of us who live above the waterline; and there's Daddy Fish's foreboding prediction: will she ever come back? "Yes, son."
@The Judge -
Grave Mistake At The Mardi Gras - Oh dear. I've been waiting for a tale with a moral, and here it is; when you're thinking of filling your carnival with transmogrified carnivores, check, double check and triple check that inventory! Covered in oodles and oodles of hot, tasty Schadenfreude, this is a darkly funny farce. Like The Office with were-polecats.
@jastius -
Enchantment's End - A riddle wrapped in a silk gown wrapped in an envelope, I think the key to this charming short lies in its title: at the end of all things, we find the fairy tale inverted; not two poor lovers playing at fairy kings and queens, but the Fairy King and Queen playing at paupers! Enigmatic and charming.
@TheDustyZebra -
A Bargain At Twice The Price - A back-alley transaction has multiple unintended consequences in this story of doomed and redemptive romance. "Give me just a taste so I want more," sang Edwyn Collins. So it proves to be. Once you get that itch called love, you just gots to scratch it. In the end one life becomes two deaths, but for all the supposed darkness, theirs is a happy ending, neverending, a party immemorial.
@Ursa major -
Carne Levare (To Remove Meat) - Poor Geoff. All he wants is to chow down on some partygoers and our Bewitching, Samantha-like narrator goes and leave him and in the nud - and then some - with one of her gnarly spells in this mischievous yarn. Geoff'll need more than one of Azzagorn's little blue pills to fix
that.
Phewee!! Some dang good stories in all that lot. Now to get voting