Contagion is the second part of our Pestilence trilogy. The submission call began as our exploring of the contemporary online social and political world but rather appropriately given the title it has mutated into a kind of tortured love/hate/frustration/judgement paean/anti paean where morality however it is imagined goes out the window and needs always must.
We’ve mentioned chemical and bio-tech weapons in these pages before but part of the inspiration for Contagion was ‘Unit 731’ a covert Japanese biological and chemical unit comprising of scientists and doctors that experimented on human subjects during the second world war and killed really a lot of people. Like the better known Operation Paperclip and Operation Osoaviakhim which saw the USA and the Soviet Union take Nazi scientists to work on their nuclear projects Unit 731 were also given immunity to help the developmental research of the US biological weapons programme. Unit 71 experimented on it is estimated over 3,000 on enemy soldiers and civilians infecting them with pathogens such as anthrax, plague, cholera tests and carrying out live vivisection without anesthetic.
Given the post-war coldness both the US and Soviets would claim that ‘needs must’ in their race to global preeminence with justice and morality failing in the face of real-politic. It’s interesting to note that the 50s in the US (if you aren’t African-American) are considered a type of golden age for its apparent social harmony and prosperity (by politicians of a certain persuasion) and most people would have justified, ignored or not believed that Nazi and Japanese scientists were helping make America great again.
Very probably there are equally nasty people working on nasty projects in the US and Russia (amongst other places) these days. And equally as probably there isn’t much we can do about it til a whistle-blower takes a risk and brings it to public attention and even then it might not stop. The interesting thing is now unlike the 50s we have a maelstrom of information and disinformation at our fingertips – where the real truth even if it’s in the open is buried in so much ephemera that it’s hard to believe anything.
So that’s the original inspiration behind Contagion but things mutate and Susanna Galbraith put her own spin on it and the realisation that it is all about ‘touch’ and the lack of it is very evident:
We are intimate with the end of things. Infection comes from close contact. Out of control, it makes us crazy. Suspicion plants its roots deep and spores. Trust nobody. This is the threat. It is enormous but made of tiny things that are everywhere. We speak for it with our words that aren’t ours. Nothing is ours. The threat is panic. What sneaks in will eat us up whole. It is getting too close, it is sticky on our fingertips. Are you afraid of other people? How they touch you, love you, need you, change you? How they look like you and can rearrange you? We come together in touch. This is contagion. Don’t be touched if you want to survive. And you want to survive. With plague comes suspicion, comes isolation, comes hysteria, comes total destruction. In the violet hour we are identical, gathered in a mass of the blind and terrified. The worst is the not seeing, just feeling yourself alone and caught in the current of a flood that cleans with chaos and makes the world forget what it seemed to be. The worst is the not knowing, the losing the capacity to know that you know. Those who are different are surely threats, those similar surely competition. The worst is forgetting. You’re up against a rip-tide of bodies, everybody else and their horrifying mutability, and you’re too full of holes.
There are a million stories out there that can’t and won’t ever be heard in a sea of frustrated stasis. And all these stories are essentially about love and the lack of love, they are the cries of the lonely and the lost. There are also Lovecraftian creatures (with the same sexist and racist connotations that H.P. had in mind) that attach themselves to these stories, gorging on them. mutating and mating them whereupon they eventually erupt in verbal or even actual violence. We are washed away in their wake…and many people want to be. Love is an easy thing to attach yourself to. And there is nothing as comforting as attachment. The best and worst of things have started with a declaration of love and need. There is no other way to begin. Anger and fear are of course love’s constant companions. Before you know it you’re not the person you use to be and you’re still alone:
What have I become my sweetest friend? Everyone I know goes away in the end. (Trent Reznor)
For our readers outside of Ireland a ‘touch/sort touch’ means giving someone an angry piece of your mind. We of course mutate it slightly and use it deliberately in the wake of the current controversies about inappropriate touching and abuse.
SUBMISSION CALL
Abridged 0 – 52: Contagion.
Imagine the worst. Then Tweet about it. The new intimacy.
‘A touch/A sore touch’ Irish euphemism for telling off someone angrily.
D’you get scared to feel so much? To let somebody touch you? So hot, so cold, so far so out of control. Hard to come by, and harder to hold. (Andrew Eldritch)
We are intimate with the end of things. Infection comes from close contact. Out of control, it makes us crazy. Suspicion plants its roots deep and spores. Trust nobody. This is the threat. It is enormous but made of tiny things that are everywhere. We speak for it with our words that aren’t ours. Nothing is ours. The threat is panic. What sneaks in will eat us up whole. It is getting too close, it is sticky on our fingertips. Are you afraid of other people? How they touch you, love you, need you, change you? How they look like you and can rearrange you? We come together in touch. This is contagion. Don’t be touched if you want to survive. And you want to survive. With plague comes suspicion, comes isolation, comes hysteria, comes total destruction. In the violet hour we are identical, gathered in a mass of the blind and terrified. The worst is the not seeing, just feeling yourself alone and caught in the current of a flood that cleans with chaos and makes the world forget what it seemed to be. The worst is the not knowing, the losing the capacity to know that you know. Those who are different are surely threats, those similar surely competition. The worst is forgetting. You’re up against a rip-tide of bodies, everybody else and their horrifying mutability, and you’re too full of holes.
Abridged explores when intimacy goes wrong. When uncertainty becomes conspiracy. When imagination and intimacy mutate to destroy the self and the society. When Cupid and the Green Eyed Monster are one and the same. When love is Love. When a touch can kill.
You can submit up to four poems on MS Word or similar or pieces of artwork. Artwork should be up to A4 landscaped sized and 300 dpi or above. The deadline is 23rd Feb 2018. Please put your name on submissions. Please note this issue is landscape format. Submissions should be sent to abridged@ymail.com.
Image by Aaron Hardin: ‘Snake’ from ‘The 13th Spring’ series. http://www.aaronhardinphoto.com/
Abridged is supported by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.