ceaseless swiping motions. He noticed how the wrinkles converged and relaxed with every movement; until finally they were interrupted by the entrance of another customer. For someone who had betrayed him as Annie had there would have to be a punishment. His heel began to jump up and down spasmodically as his twisted thoughts began to race. The punishment must include death; he was sure of that. After all, the death of his wife had been very effective for a time, he had only to feign shock when he was informed of her body in the alley and go through the mockery of a nauseous kiss at her funeral and for a time he had effectively buried the past and all its effects on the present. But apparently that hadn't been enough. This time he must make sure the plan was so perfect, the means so complete, that Annie's death would iron seal the past in a tomb that would never be broken to hurt him again. He would become as before, a chrysalis in stagnate metamorphosis, riding the protective subway and screened from the crushing, pointing human race. In a sudden moment of self-doubt, a rush of fear filled his brain and stomach with a prickling throb. He falteringly lowered the shield. Annie's crooked leather finger was pointed carelessly, inches from his nose. Her eyes were on the customer next to Howard who was sharing her curiosity. Their smothered trivial laughter ceased abruptly as the blood vessels around Howard's nose blotched into indigo patterns. He blinked motionlessly for only a moment, then bolted. His out-flung handprint now impaled both sides of the cold glass door. The day had come for the closing. Howard knew the cafe locked its doors at 3:00 p.m. He entered at 2:45. In the glare of the swarthy late afternoon sunshine Annie's eyes tried vainly to focus on the fuzzy shape that emerged through the doors. Then he stepped into a shadow and she recognized him immediately. She began an effusive stream of words, but the grating sentence choked in her throat as a practical, olive green army surplus rifle was carefully sighted in on the white triangle between her eyes. She began to shriek a protest, but broke off and stepped back in bitter horror as Howard's lids ascended, the brilliant jade green eyes focused decisively, the flecks of the left glittering with malice. Howard drove the towering woman back mercilessly, his finger on the trigger daring her to scream as he herded her to the service quarters. A live wire of perfect silence stretched between them. Howard motioned for her to open the heavy walk-in freezer door. Once inside, he gave her only a moment before firing. Her scream strangled in a pool of rich, red blood, which struck almost immediately; its cold crystals forming quickly on the frosted floor of the freezer. Howard began to laugh. He stepped out of the freezer and swung shut the leaden door. He waited; slowly his numb fingers and toes resumed their circulation. He waited still longer for the degeneration of personality he had expected with so much faith. It was not happening nothing was happening. He was still "idiot Howard." In disbelief he tried frantically to clamp his senses and become another specimen with brass plated feelings, as before. Sweat beaded on his forehead, but though he tried with frenzied effort, he could not stop the mocking flow gurgling inside him. The plan which had seemed so perfect had not closed up him, but her. In the engulfing insanity which seems perfect logic he once again swung the thick door wide. Then, from inside, listened to the final sound of the door as it thudded shut and the latch clicked into place. Serenely he arranged himself on the floor of the freezer cubical. His head resting comfortably on the dead woman's stomach, he settled down to await the warm sweet glow of nothing. by Robert G. Wright Things are bad, She doesn't even pretend to love me anymore. Central School Building THE ATTIC by Walsh Mercer A tin of assorted nails and screws, Empty picture frames, and a cardboard box, Heavy with railroad track No longer needed for the toy train Whose engine so silently melted So long ago, making Bobby cry. Army uniforms and olive drab memories Sequestered from sight. The stuffed pheasant that Cody shot, Ponderous, awkward gadgets for various uses That don't work, or whose cords are hopelessly Frayed. Magazines, and the redolent Mustiness of magazines, The way they used to smell. Pince-nez without the lenses. A monstrous radio with its guts removed, And Howard's bowling trophies. Two tasteless flamingos doing a balancing Act, on one foot, Canvas travesties in gaudy pinks And blue, no longer the fashion. A curious story is here told By these relics of possession and desire, To no one listening. A book, Some letters, Photographs of ghosts imprisoned, Things. 8 The Aardvark Review Volume 2, Number 1 THE EMBRYO OF AN ARTIST by Frank Cook Not yet burst forth, the breath lumbers about in flesh-filled lungs The cartilaged marrow (torso curled forward legs drawn upward arms wrapped around) forms layers of hard whiteness Sealed eyelids tingle and tug to pour out their seeing The gore surges and molds within While a tiny thrust goes tic tic tic, ordering the gush forward. An electric spark jumps from some negative to some positive deep within grayest matter and the breath explodes screaming, I AM! I AM! I AM! JOHN BARTH: LOST IN A LABYRINTH OF LANGUAGE by Penelope Armstrong The traditional narrative has been long in developing, growing as man's need for expression grows, patterning itself on its own previous structure, thus meriting its tradition. But as mere tradition there is danger of becoming cliche, and an avoidance of this danger becomes inevitable. As the value of tradition is questioned, so must the value of breaking with tradition be studied. Does effectiveness stem from breaking for breaking's sake or does the validity depend on extending the reason of breaking to show the invalidity of tradition for tradition's sake? Or, is breaking simply another form of narrative, entirely separate from and not dependent on tradition to give it cause? New fiction, specifically that of the later twentieth century American authors, is a manifestation of these questions. It is an audacious art form invading tradition, challenging established spacial and linear constructions, coherence and continuity. And since fiction is a vehicle by which the author communicates his vision of the nature of reality, the absurdity of new fictionists is a valid form of narrative. In an attempt to portray an unreasonable world, the new fiction writer presents the meaning of his works through the medium itself. To merely depict absurdity in a traditionally structured narrative would be like saying there is corruption in war. War is corruption. The world is absurd. Reality is relative and the means of portraying an only relatively real world are more effective if they are as absurd as the story they tell. With his series of fictions for print, tape and live voice, which begins and ends in the middle, John Barth presents himself as a new fiction writer. Lost in the Funhouse is fiction about fiction and though the themes it treats, mainly art and love, are established customary motifs, the telling of the story is indeed non-traditional and upon first reading is incongruous and some of it even incoherent. Closer scrutiny of the work reveals it as relevant and enduring as it puts the question to the reader's mind whether the medium can actually serve as the message. The opening piece of the cyclic narrative is a "Frame Tale" which is merely a Moebius strip representing a continuum, a story that goes on forever without beginning or ending and establishing no resolutions. The strip symbolizes beginning anew (again!) the process of discovery without adhering to time sequence and is not far removed from the maze of the funhouse wherein one has many doors to open, but each door proves to be a new limitation. "Night-Sea Journey," a beginning of sorts, represents the beginning of life in the middle of a cycle, the sperm having limited knowledge of his own state of being. There is a sense of destiny inherent in the journey but the destiny marks another beginning rather than an e'nd, "a swimmer-hero plus a She equaled or became merely another maker of future night-seas and the rest, at such incredible expense of life." The work is also about fiction or art as the sperm is a "tale bearer of a generation," which suggests there will be more generations and out of necessity, more story-tellers, each confined to his own limitations in the cycle. The story closing the book but lapping itself to the "beginning" is about an anonymous inventor of fiction, and ultimately about writing itself. "Anonymaid" is a minstrel's tale of love for a woman which is destroyed by a vice none other than a love for his art. He is eventually marooned on a lonely island and his urge to return to the woman he loved, after having run out of fiction, suggests that if he were to return the story would tell itself again. As innocence led the minstrel and Merope to believe they had invented love, so innocence caused him to believe he invented fiction. "I gloried in my isolation and seeded the waters with its get, what I came to call fiction. That is, I found that by pretending that things had happened which in fact had not, and that people existed who didn't, I could achieve a lovely truth which actuality obscures." Sidney Stevens Implement Co. Volume 2, Number 1 The Aardvark Review 9