LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT
Cult SF author Fiada Fey (1980-2008) provided a plot synopsis of his story “Love at First Sight” in a submissions-inquiry e-mail to the editor of Gore Galore, a crudely xeroxed and dementedly outré Minneapolis zine known for its bizarre short fiction and Dada-like reviews of classic horror films. The author’s capsule summary:
A young man stoned to the gills on magic mushrooms who’s hijacked the PA system and locked himself in the announcer’s booth at the top of the grandstand during a rural county fair’s demolition derby delivers 30 minutes of insane rambling – touching on the nature of life and death, the holographic universe, the spirit realms, as well as why raw meat should be fed to babies and why psychedelic drugs of extraterrestrial origin ought to be avoided – as the multi-car, fender-mangling smashfest unfolds on schedule and in dramatic fashion in the derby pit and security personnel attempt to gain entry to the announcer’s booth using increasingly outlandish means: a crude battering ram made from glued-together prosthetic legs; a “cavalry charge” of dune buggies with turret-mounted .50-caliber machine guns manned by horses wearing Air Force helmets; and finally, when those fail, a barrage of ultra-macabre death- and disease-themed “black metal” poetry whispered into a megaphone by a topless dancer with blood running down her face and chest, a woman to whom the protagonist proposes marriage over the PA system in the story’s heartfelt, inspirational climax.
“Love at First Sight” was published in the December 2007 issue of Gore Galore, accompanied by editor Alec Essefic’s pencil-sketch illustrations of the above-mentioned horses armed with machine guns atop dune buggies.
