A Passport to a Nation of Talking Slugs and Other Stories

By Andrew Kozma

A Passport to a Nation of Talking Slugs is a collection of weird, speculative fiction containing four stories of people exploring strange places and situations, from a newly-discovered civilization of six-foot-tall talking slugs to being haunted by a man in a dark chocolate suit. Whether waking up in a prison camp or navigating a city full of copies of themselves, the characters in these stories are bent on understanding their world, even if that understanding also means the end of the world they thought they knew.

Andrew Kozma's fiction has been published in Drabblecast, Albedo One, Interzone, and Daily Science Fiction. His book of poems, City of Regret (Zone 3 Press, 2007), won the Zone 3 First Book Award. His previous collections of short fiction are The Year of the Stolen Bicycle Tire and Other Stories and You Have Been Murdered and Other Stories.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Andrew Kozma
• Release date: Aug 12, 2016
• ISBN: 9798224395361

Andrew Kozma

Andrew Kozma's fiction has been published in Albedo One, Interzone, Fantasy Scroll and Daily Science Fiction. His poems have appeared in Blackbird, Subtropics, Copper Nickel, and Best American Poetry 2015, and his book of poems, City of Regret (Zone 3 Press, 2007), won the Zone 3 First Book Award.

Book preview

Stammlager 76

The men of Kriegsgefangenen-Mannschafts-Stammlager 76 had been imprisoned for months, perhaps years. They had never seen their captors and they had no calendars. They had no watches. Oh, they had plenty of other things, but timepieces, no. It drove Hansel the watch-maker’s son mad, this lack of time. The rest of prisoners, it drove them numb.

It wasn’t just the lack of time. The weather was complicit, the clouds always hovering above like a woolen blanket, so textured, so gray, that the sky itched just to look at it. Sometimes the leaves fell. Sometimes flowers bloomed. But never all at once, never with any pattern in mind. Sometimes it rained and sometimes it snowed. Sometimes the wind blew so hard the prisoners were forced against the razorwire fence like iron filings huddled by a magnet.

I was the last man to arrive at Stammlager 76 and, like the rest, appeared suddenly in an empty bunk. When the breakfast alarm sounded, the other men in the bunkhouse noticed me in their midst, burying my head under a pillow to escape the noise.

One man stayed to pry the pillow from my arms.

I’m Aaron, he said. What’s your name?

Where am I?

Stammlager 76, he said, pointing to his shirt. It read PROPERTY OF STAMMLAGER 76. I was wearing a shirt that said the same thing, and loose pants with the phrase running down each leg.

There was a knock at the door, I said. And some men dressed—

Aaron turned away, his eyes gone flat. Time to eat, he said, then walked out the door.

Of course I followed him outside. I had questions, so many questions, but my stomach was an open grave. I remembered the men—I was sure they were men—who’d come to my apartment. I could only think in terms of death.

Stammlager 76 was nestled in a valley between cliffs. Stubborn trees clung to their sides. At the base of the cliffs, trees that had failed to hold on were piled on the ground like corpses. I hurried after Aaron into a bright blue building.

Inside, all the prisoners lined up before a wall of small glass cabinets which glowed with light. I trailed Aaron to the wall, but he shook his head at me as though trying to discourage a fly. Your name, he said.

Each glass cabinet was etched with a name. I followed Aaron to the cabinet that said AARON ELDER and watched him remove a steaming plate of vegetables and meat from inside it. My mouth watered.

Your name, he said again, and gestured to the wall of cabinets with his chin. I looked for my name and found it, but not before noticing a number of the cabinets were dark. The names on them had been scratched through. I took my food from my cabinet—the meat unidentifiable, the vegetables a green slurry—and sat next