Smoke and Mirrors

Deep in the mud lie carcasses picked clean

who grin at them and dream of being soup.

Poor things.

We’re almost done.

We’ll leave them there.

CUT to some lonely doorway, where A TRAMP

has three cold fingers up ANOTHER TRAMP,

they’re starving but they fingerfuck like hell,

and underneath the layers of old clothes

beneath the cardboard, newspaper and cloth,

their genders are impossible to tell.

PAN UP:

to watch a butterfly go past.

Apple

In the end, the Lord gave Mankind the world. All the world was Man’s, save for one garden. This is my garden, saith the Lord, and here you shall not enter.

There was a man and a woman, who came to the garden, and their names were Earth and Breath.

They had with them a small fruit which the Man carried, and when they arrived at the gate to the garden, the Man gave the fruit to the Woman, and the Woman gave the fruit to the Serpent with the flaming sword who guarded the Eastern Gate.

And the Serpent took the fruit and placed it on a tree, in the centre of the garden.

Then Earth and Breath knew their clothedness, and removed their garments, one by one, until they were naked; and when the Lord walked through the garden he saw the man and the woman, who no longer knew good from evil, but were satisfied.

Then the Lord opened the gates and gave Mankind the garden, and the Serpent he raised up, and it walked away proudly on four legs; and where it went then no man can say.

And after that there was nothing but silence in the Garden, save for the occasional sound of the man taking away a name from another animal.

About the Author

Neil Gaiman is the critically acclaimed and award-winning author of the novels Neverwhere, Stardust, the Sandman series of graphic novels, and Smoke and Mirrors, a collection of short fiction. He is coauthor of the novel Good Omens with Terry Pratchett. Among his many awards are the World Fantasy Award and the Bram Stoker Award. Originally from England, Gaiman now lives in the United States.

Visit his website at www.neilgaiman.com.

Credits

Jacket design by Amy Halperin

Cover photograph by J.K. Potter

Interior design by Kellan Peck

“Reading the Entrails: A Rondel” © 1997 by Neil Gaiman. First published in The Fortune Teller.

“An Introduction” © 1998 by Neil Giaman.

“Chivalry” © 1993 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Angels & Visitations.

“Nicholas Was . . .” © 1993 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Angels & Vistations.

“The Price” © 1997 by Neil Gaiman. First published as a chapbook by DreamHaven Press.

“Troll Bridge” ©1993 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Angels & Visitations.

“Don’t Ask Jack” ©1995 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Overstreet’s FAN magazine.

“The Goldfish Pool and Other Stories” © 1996 by Neil Gaiman. First published in David Copperfield’s Beyond Imagination.

“The White Road”© 1995 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears.

“Queen of Knives” © 1995 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Tombs.

“Changes” © 1998 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Crossing the Border.

“The Daughter of Owls” © 1996 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Overstreet’s FAN magazine.

“Shoggoth’s Old Peculiar” © 1998 by Neil Gaiman. First published in The Mammoth Book of Comic Fantasy.

“Virus” © 1993 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Angels & Visitations.

“Looking for the Girl” © 1993 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Angels & Visitations.

“Only the End of the World Again” © 1994 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Shadows Over Innsmouth.

“Bay Wolf” © 1998 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Dark Detectives.

“We Can Get Them for You Wholesale” © 1993 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Angels & Visitations.

“One Life, Furnished in Early Moorcock” © 1994 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Tales of the White Wolf.

“Cold Colors” © 1993 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Angels & Visitations.

“The Sweeper of Dreams” © 1996 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Overstreet’s FAN magazine.

“Foreign Parts” © 1993 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Angels & Visitations.

“Vampire Sestina” © 1993 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Angels & Visitations.

“Mouse” © 1993 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Angels & Visitations.

“The Sea Change” © 1995 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Overstreet’s FAN magazine.

“When We Went to See the End of the World by Dawnie Morningside, age 11 1/2” © 1998 by Neil Gaiman.

“Desert Wind” © 1998 by Neil Gaiman.

“Tastings” © 1998 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Sirens.

“Babycakes” © 1993 by Neil Gaiman. First published in Angels & Visitations.