Fantasy & Science Fiction, December 2009 by Spilogale Authors

Author:Spilogale Authors [Authors, Spilogale]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Magazine, 2012
Publisher: Spilogale, Inc.
Published: 2011-10-23T01:35:18+00:00

Short Story: THE BLIGHT FAMILY SINGERS by Kit Reed

Last year marked the fiftieth anniversary of Kit Reed's debut in our pages (that was “The Wait” in our April 1958 issue, if you want to check). Among her many memorable contributions to F&SF are “The Vine,” “The Singing Marine,” and “Attack of the Giant Baby.” Now she returns with a story about youth culture, parenting, the performing arts, and, oh yeah, a few things that are out of this world.

Tifney

Fat Myra Weingarten booked the Blight Family Singers without even asking where we were with elevator music, the stupid cow. This, like, weenie-bun chorus is headlining our Midwinter Bash. That's Dr. Weingarten to you and she has the power, for at Wingdale Junior College, she is the dean. She told us over the P.A., like that would prevent the protest rally that followed. We stormed her office during the harp intro to the Blight Family's biggest hit, they were going FAAAAAA la-la-la as Trig Masters, our leader, bunched his big shoulders and hit the door.

Myra, do you not hear them? What planet are you from? Did you never swim across a mosh pit or get so hammered and blissed out that you forgot what you did, you only remembered that it was awesome?

Have you even looked outside? Minnesota, in the winter from hell. Did your brains freeze? If we can't get loaded on Groundhog Day and roll naked in the snow, we'll die. We don't need much, just head-banging rock, a guy to hook up with and enough controlled substances to drink, smoke or snort or otherwise ingest so we can make it through winter, ergo the Bash. Listen. We held gazillion car washes and sold Whatever door to door to pay for booze, humongous speakers and a kick-ass band. Now look.

They're tuning up in the auditorium as we speak.

During the demonstration outside Dr. Weingarten's office, a few things came up.

A. The Blight Family Singers? Myra, who are you? The movie's on TV every mortal Christmas and it's awful, uplifting though it may be. So, what if the Blights ran away from this cult at Etheria, and what if evil Daddy Flagg's colonists chased them with guns and dogs? As they slide down the icy mountain, are they really going FAAA la-la-la?

As if!

B. The Blight children are not what you would call kids. You can see gross hairs in the guys’ noses. Tufts sprouting out of their ears! The girls’ boobs flop in the stupid dresses and go wall-eyed when they dance. And the outfits. Like their mom shopped at American Girl, Pioneer Days department, dress your girls like the doll they want, except that no way are these girls. The guys’ shirts are tight, and not in a good way. The girls have pink wedges where their puffed sleeves ripped under the arms because they grew or the dress shrank, and you can see they hate that there's fat popping out. So, do us all a favor and cancel, OK?

Right. This whole thing is the mother's idea.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.