Anhedonia

 

Paul Radcliffe

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‘.....where everything closes for lunch,and visitors are a hindrance….’

 

        Anhedonia is a popular cruise destination, with its rugged beaches, stark coastline, and the ghostly cries of children drowned in shipwrecks vying with the unique folk music of the country, with its hypnotic percussive rhythms beaten on the bleached skulls of slaughtered animals. The country was named after King Anhedon, (still revered as ‘the miserable monarch’). He perpetuated the belief that the world revolved around him, a belief that still holds sway in much of the Western world today. Visitors may visit Castle Anhedon, or what remains of it. The monarch -so it is said-had one of his jesters walled up in a dungeon for failing to disappear up his own back passage, a trick which many still attempt today as a folk cure for Borderline Personality Disorder.

       In the 48-hour stay, visitors should take advantage of the opportunity to try the famed local cuisine. The staple dish is thatshite (a combination of instant noodles from the East, and canned fish from the sun kissed waters of the South Atlantic)...feeling adventurous?...go ahead, try a little of the special Anhedonian sauce, traditionally sourced from the vegetable gardens of executed political prisoners..

       After lunch, take a walk around the renowned waterfront. At low tide, you can see the projecting masts of Anhedonia’s most famous shipwreck, the S.S. Slivowitz, lost in a storm in 1901,all but three of the crew were drowned. They had constructed a makeshift float from the cargo of turnips bound for Tobago. Even today, turnips wash up on the barren beaches, and to find one is a sign of a coming death of your first born…

      So…careful with the turnip souvenirs… much safer to buy the Anhedonian jewellery, uniquely crafted from Soviet-era barbed wire stripped from abandoned bunkers….

       But we only have 48 hours, and so the visitor must reluctantly leave this little-known jewel, with its traditional farewell to visitors..

 

       Ish nada verudin fa latta…..Spend your money and fuck off out

 

      And remember the old Anhedonian proverb..’’...a friend without money is a sheep to be drowned…’

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        Paul Radcliffe is an Emergency RN. In the past, he worked in an area where children were sometimes afflicted with sickness of Gothic proportions. Some are ghosts now. As a child he visited an aunt in a haunted farmhouse. This explains a lot. Paul has worked in a variety of noisy places unlikely to be on anyone’s list of holiday destinations. He is also a highly suggestible subject for any cat requiring feeding and practicing hypnosis.

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       Hillary Lyon founded and for 20 years acted as senior editor for the independent poetry publisher, Subsynchronous Press. Her horror, speculative fiction, and crime short stories, drabbles, and poems have appeared in more than 150 publications. She's an SFPA Rhysling Award nominated poet. Hillary is also the art director for Black Petals.