Monster Between the Coldest Us

Thalia Field and Abigail Lang

After the Great War, new neighbors ask, which war? The Great One, the one just starting? Why do you distrust me? Aren’t we friends? Are monsters always monsters under cover? What about Santa Claus? Why can’t a double agent become a triple one? Is that how a friend behaves? Between the wars, do I turn the other cheek? Between the wars, will you keep an eye out? Which war are we discussing again? Why is it ok to lie to children that Santa Claus is real? If a coin is grabbed by an enemy mid-toss, what will we do?

“Propaganda: inside the theater, the bloodless attack of images and plots—a view of an alternative world: people on one side of the wall appear human but have super-powers the other side doesn’t. This is seductive. This is new weaponry. Soft weaponry. A fantasy world. Une nuit blanche? Sleep my dear. Trust the translation: here a big cheese is une grosse légume, and a change of heart is changer son fusil d’épaule. We all cross and double-cross the bridge when we come to it (chaque chose en son temps) whether we call it a split personality or a double. Une chape de plomb.”

After A Prank of Georges, THALIA FIELD and ABIGAIL LANG met at a Chinese restaurant on the rive gauche and agreed to disagree, share internal organs in any language, and just carry on. Entitled Leave to Remain, their new project splices true stories and false friends, double agents and self-antonyms. Fast friends running in opposite directions, they hold up one another, passing and pausing on bridges jumbled en plein air. At a playground in the Jardins du Luxembourg they puzzled solar flares and ultimate Grail-cum-MacGuffins to put out stories. Previous chapters have appeared in Conjunctions, 1913: A Journal of Forms, Western Humanities Review and Denver Quarterly. As Janus Quirinus would say, it’s all downhill from here.