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A complete 5,000-word section of Liquid Motel, Stephen Gyllenhaal's blackly comic slipstream novel, can be found ONLY in Cantaraville Three.

    Sticky issues had arisen about all of this in Henry’s sessions with Dr. Halyard. His dreams of course had mostly circled his own massive problems: his ex-wife, his seaweed affair, his fleeting connection with his now powerful son about to go to the 110th Congress, first democratic majority in both houses since Johnson had been President—but his dreams also continued to insist on Henry circling this fetus and the woman that surrounded her. More dreams. Troubling dreams. Was Paul really committed? Was Sadie? Not to the baby—at least on the surface that seemed obvious—but to each other. Why didn’t they marry? Henry tried to (more or less) explain to his dreams that many young people don’t get married these days, but the dreams seem to have a primitive, nasty expectation of their own, they seemed uninterested in the current fashion, more interested in shit like the soul. It wore Henry down even as it gave him ballast. Life was more than just a quick fuck, just look at Suzanne, for instance. What had happened when he stuck his cock in her and came over and over and over during those three weeks of wildness? Something deeper had been thrown up around them too, hadn’t it, something far more powerful and dangerous? And if you were going to do the damn thing in earnest, Henry’s dreams seemed to demand, then you really had to get down on your knees and connect with that creature beside you who was so complex that he (or she) put the sun, moon and stars to shame. You get fucking married is what you do—or so Henry’s dreams as interpreted by Dr. Halyard seemed to say. You really get fucking married or you pay through the nose. And yes, Henry had paid through the nose, not just once, but twice because his marriages had been unanchored and floundering in the high seas in too small a boat. You had to get married on a large ship, the dreams said, with a hundred sails and a serious captain, which of course neither Paul nor Sadie had even a clue about. Henry barely had a clue himself, other than his damnable dreams (and his debacle with Suzanne). But a clue was better than nothing. Sherlock Holmes had certainly made use of them and Dr. Halyard made use of them too, it seemed, so that somehow in the midst of all this lightning and these frightening waves Henry had come upon the idea that it was important to build this wall for his sister because she and her baby could use a little protection from whatever it was they needed protection from; perhaps it was those dark figures on the other side of the room that laughed at some joke now between themselves as Sadie stared at Henry and said:
    “We’ll be just fine without a wall, Henry. It’s a lovely thought, though.”

Copyright © 2008 Stephen Gyllenhaal

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