Chamblee54

Pretty Monsters is a work of speculative fiction. You visit a world created by the author’s imagination. If you make enough predictions, some are going to come true. This happens in The Surfer.
Adorno, aka Dorn, is a soccer goalie. He thinks he is pretty good. His father is a Philadelphia doctor, who brought Dorn to Costa Rica on a moments notice. “Dorn is here with his father because of Hans Bliss and the aliens. Because, you know, Hans Bliss said that the aliens are going to show up again real soon and this time he knows what he’s talking about. Not like all those other times when he said the aliens were coming back.”
Hans Bliss is some kind of hippie utopia-grifter dude. Before the end of the story, Mr. Bliss is dead. There is some kind of virus going around, killing a bunch of people. In Costa Rica, all the visitors are quarantined in a gym. They spend their days playing soccer, looking at “googlies,” and getting in arguments. Meanwhile, the virus is busy in the outside world.
“It was the hardest thing I ever had to do, telling my father when he finally came home. And we haven’t talked about it much since then. I don’t know why it’s easier for some people to talk about aliens than to talk about death. Aliens only happen to some people. Death happens to everyone.”
The quarantine continues. Dorn has a soccer match. A guard makes a fool out of Dorn. It turns out the guard was a professional player. Dorn decides to quit playing, or maybe not. Dorn doesn’t quite know what he wants to do.
The aliens really do arrive. Dorn is out of quarantine, so he can see them. “Dad,” I said. “Dad! Everyone! The aliens! They’re here. They’re just outside! Lots of them!” But I stood there feeling empty and lost and ashamed and alone until I heard my father’s voice. He was saying, “Dorn! Adorno, where are you? Adorno, get out here! They’re beautiful, they’re even more beautiful than that idiot said. Come on out, come and see!”
Is a visit from aliens going to coincide with COVID-19? Or maybe a gang of murderous con-women, like Zilla and Ozma in The Constable of Abal. “Zilla was not greedy. She was a scrupulous blackmailer. She did not bleed her clients dry; she milked them. You could even say she did it out of kindness. What good is a secret without someone to know it? When one cannot afford a scandal, a blackmailer is an excellent bargain. Ozma and Zilla assembled the evidence of love affairs, ill-considered attachments, stillbirths, stolen inheritances, and murders. They were as vigilant as any biographer, solicitous as any confidante. Zilla fed gobbets of tragedy, romance, comedy to the ghosts who dangled so hungrily at the end of their ribbons. One has to feed a ghost something delicious, and there is only so much blood a grown woman and a smallish girl have to spare.”
“the ghosts who dangled so hungrily at the end of their ribbons.” The titular Constable was one of these ghosts. When Zilla was not looking, the Constable and Ozma got to be pals. Ozma was developing into a young women, which was not convenient to Zilla. “It isn’t your fault, Ozma. My magic can only do so much. Everyone gets older, no matter how much magic their mothers have. A young woman is trouble, though, and we have no time for trouble. Perhaps you should be a boy. I’ll cut your hair.” Ozma backed away. She was proud of her hair. “Come here, Ozma,” Zilla said. She had a knife in her hand. “It will grow back, I promise.”
“I took a position in service,” Zilla said. “You are my son, and your name is Eren. Your father is dead, and we have come here from Nablos. We are respectable people. I’m to cook and keep house.” “I thought we were going home,” Ozma said. “This isn’t home.” “Leave your ghosts here,” Zilla said. “Decent people like we are going to be have nothing to do with ghosts. … This did not sound at all like Zilla. Ozma was beginning to grow tired of this new Zilla. It was one thing to pretend to be respectable; it was another entirely to be respectable.”
The new employer, Lady Fralix, is not with the program. Or maybe she is, and Zilla is out to lunch, with Ozma caught is trans-respectability purgatory. “The pink dressing gown,” Lady Fralix said. “If you let me keep your ghost in my pocket today, I’ll give you one of my dresses. Any dress you like.” “Zilla would take it away and give it to the poor,” Ozma said. Then: “How did you know I’m a girl?” “I’m old but I’m not blind,” Lady Fralix said. “I see all sorts of things. … You shouldn’t keep dressing as a boy, my dear. Someone as shifty as you needs some truth now and then.”
“It’s a good thing,” Lady Fralix said, “that most people can’t see or talk to ghosts. Watching them scurry around, it makes you dread the thought of death, and yet what else is there to do when you die? Will some careless child carry me around in her pocket? … Your mother is a goddess,” Lady Fralix said. “My mother is a liar and a thief and a murderer,” Ozma said. “Yes,” Lady Fralix said. “She was all of those things and worse. Gods don’t make very good people. They get bored too easily. And they’re cruel when they’re bored.”
There is more action, but in an effort to maintain a spoiler free blog, you will have to read the story. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Quotes are from the .pdf. Previous episodes of this series are available. (part one part two part three part five)