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Back Dead Astronauts
Chapters (48)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Notice
  3. Epigraph
  4. 1. The Dream of the Blue Fox
  5. 1. THE DREAM OF THE BLUE FOX
  6. 2. THE THREE
  7. i.
  8. ii.
  9. iii.
  10. iv.
  11. v.
  12. vi.
  13. vii.
  14. viii.
  15. ix.
  16. x.
  17. xi.
  18. xii.
  19. xiii.
  20. xiv.
  21. xv.
  22. xvi.
  23. xvii.
  24. xviii.
  25. xix.
  26. xx.
  27. 3. Botch Behemoth
  28. 3. BOTCH BEHEMOTH
  29. 4. CAN’T REMEMBER
  30. 5. Leviathan
  31. 5. LEVIATHAN
  32. 6. THE BODY
  33. – 7 –
  34. 7. Corpse
  35. 7. CORPSE
  36. 8. The Dark Bird
  37. 8. THE DARK BIRD
  38. 9. CAN’T FORGET
  39. i.
  40. ii.
  41. iii.
  42. 10. The Dead Astronaut
  43. 10. THE DEAD ASTRONAUT
  44. 0. A Scrap of Paper Found in Chen’s Suit
  45. 0. A SCRAP OF PAPER FOUND IN CHEN’S SUIT
  46. Also by Jeff Vandermeer
  47. A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  48. Newsletter Sign-up

My father always said, “Make this into a lesson or I’ll kill it. And you. Again.”

The Company, IT always said, BE EFFICIENT, BE INGENIOUS.

The Company, IT always said, IF IT DIES, IT WAS MEANT TO DIE.

The Company, IT always said, MAKE THIS INTO A LESSON OR I’LL KILL IT. AND YOU. AGAIN.

So I did. I made the duckling my first project: to arrest the aging process so the duckling would be forever young. Fluffy and fuzzy and never quack but instead make querulous ducking noises. Sometimes I gave the duckling three wings, sometimes one wing. Sometimes wings atop its head.

But always it had feathers and a head and a torso, though over time I found ways to splice the lizardacious onto her in ways that made her fuzzling beauty ever-more glowing and gorgeous, and locked her duckling self in place. Almost by mistake.

I had no mother but that duckling, or I was a mother to the duckling that became a duck. I was never a mother or a father but a friend to the duckling, and to all in the magical garden.

Listen:

Listen, yet how shall I mean it, because who is reading but me? Who will ever read this but me and in the ramble I can lose my thoughts lose my mind, forget even more until someday it will all be in here, or it will be lost forever. That much I learned from Sarah.

Once upon a time there was a torture garden, I mean a magical garden, that was destroyed by an evil sorcerer who happened to be a father who should never have had a child.

Everyone who lived within the magical garden, other than the duckling, was cooked and served at a vast banquet of the sweet and the savory and devoured whole or in slices or casseroles. It was terrible and beautiful and it was going to happen whether the son ate of his creations or not. What could they know of the bite and crunch by then?

God and the Company, IT decreed, DEVOUR and the devouring began and never ended.

After the banquet, the boy wizard, Charlie, fell into disrepair and despair. Even after the success of the blue fox (who could not be found) for the Company. Even as the Company spread so far and wide it became a vast mouth swallowing everything. Nothing in the boy wizard’s studies or experiments could lift his spirits. There were only the Company edicts, come from farther and farther away as their version of the City drifted from the center. The portal wall grew hazy and the vision of the original City on the banks of a vibrant river so distant. And the boy wizard could care less.

God not but Company yes, IT commanded, ALCHEMIZE THE FLESH TO BECOME THE WALLS. ADD TO THE WALL OF GLOBES EACH NEW ONE OF THE 7.