caroline hung

@carolinehung.bsky.social

146 Followers 125 Following

the angriest dog in the world by david lynch carolinehungauthor.com

"Spec Colorways In Verse" and "Centering & Celebrating Queer BIPOC Speculative Poetics" with logo of a raised fist holding onto a wavy rainbow pattern, featured on three sticker designs.
A new blurb screencapped from Caroline's author website. The text reads as follows: "Greetings, beautiful sinner. You are most cordially invited to the wedding of [redacted] and [redacted] on the 17th of July. Cash gifts only. No child guests allowed unless cooked and served al dente. See you there."
"Ticket po mamser." is a weird horror short that I based off an old nightmare of mine. Now it is immortalized in both digital and print editions. The title sounds weird, but it is meant to be a small nod to the story's airport setting. While writing, I was thinking specifically of the Manila Airport. Now and especially in the pre-2010s era, security guards stand at the airport entrance to check travelers for passports and e-tickets. Before smartphones, they asked to see printed copies of itineraries or plane tickets. "Ticket po mamser" is one of many ways to say it in polite Tagalog. I used the word 'mamser' as it is a uniquely Filipino portmanteau combining Ma'am and Sir. Security guards and hospitality workers may say it for convenience. Mamser or mamsir could be plural and gender-inclusive too. But why is airport security even asking to see tickets and passports? Right at the doorstep, at that?
". I say it’s a horse story, but more accurately, it’s my twisted take on a mythical creature, the qilin. I owe a lot to khōréō’s editor-in-chief, Zhui Ning Chang, for taking a chance on me all those years ago. For her expertise, for their kind and thorough approach to editing. For helping me figure out the writer I want to be. RAIN FIRE CLOUD was one of my first acceptances into a speculative fiction magazine."
Pots! You’re going to need three. One over your head, worn like a helmet, of course. One over your back—a big pot, preferably, so you can do like a turtle and pull your limbs in to safety. That much should about cover your bases. Why the third pot, you ask? Well, there’s no easy way to say this, kid. Better if you never need a third pot, better if you never know what to use it for. But look, you have to catch the rainwater when it falls from the skies. Just think about the rain. Only the rain.
I remember my puppy named Blackie. It was the largest of its siblings, with white fur and few brown spots on its face, shoulders, rump. One day, all the puppies in the litter started fighting each other. First, they ganged up on the youngest, littlest puppy. When they were all bloodied red, they turned on the eldest. I never petted Blackie’s soft head, not even once. The puppies laid on concrete, because it was too hot out in the tropics. I remember the smell of a rotting corpse. A mangled puppy, buried under rubble. The flies swarmed spotted, white fur.
Hi, little bee. Come in, come in. Don’t be afraid. What’s your name? There is room for you too, right here, in this tiny house of metal, filled with shrapnel instead of honeycomb walls. We are cousins, you and I. We like to sit and hide from danger. Out there, the world is too loud. We can hear them, still. This house is not forever, little bee, you’re brave enough to know. Perhaps one day, in another life, we’ll share sticky honey with a bear cub. Perhaps we will live in a proper house, warm and soft. Someday, we will.
Wake up, you children of the wilds. A thousand knives are falling from the sky, raining iron over earth. See, the mountains bleed, sliced apart. Cry if you must, but do not sleep to the shrieking lullaby, their songs of steel and booming voices. Lift your heads. Clench your teeth. You are beasts with ravenous mouths. In the dark, your eyes flash white and hot. You must not run. You must not hide. Catch a shooting star atop your back and wish for death upon the storm, whose hands wield bolts of lightning, sharp and pointed. Be strong, fearless, free.
This is Day 25. I got up from bed and went out through the front door. Still in my pajamas which, in the tropics, that means a thin shirt, short shorts. A group of people were sitting across the street, blaring the ugliest music in the world from huge stereo speakers. Every morning, like clockwork, splitting my head open. I almost couldn’t sew my skull together this morning. I grabbed my axe and smashed the stereo into pieces. The noise died into blissful silence… They watched me through eyeless sockets. Hollow, gaunt faces. Before they could get me, I ran back into my house and bolted the door.
24 It's grocery day! Happy shopping, happy living. I met a woman in the bakery section, and she was staring a bit too long at the discount items. I might have been staring too, which the store manager didn't like. The woman offered me one of the free bread samples. I tasted one and it was poison! She admitted to dipping it in detergent. I thought it was a glaze. I didn't think she would try to kill me. The store manager came by again and threw us both out of the building. The woman turned to leave, but not before giving me a coupon for the next promo special, buy-two-take-three of bottled detergent. She still wanted to kill me! I tore up the coupon and just went home.
21 They threw me into a pit of lambs. The shepherds in wolfskin robes. I didn't even know what I did so wrong. But it must have been bad, because they pointed to the blood on my hands and deemed me, a murderer. I never asked for the job. I never dreamed, that I'd grow up to skin wolf pelts for three meals a day and a roof over my head. Now, I lie naked amongst the little lambs of this dark, damp pit. These lambs are a bit odd. Teeth too big, eyes too bright, all-knowing. Their hooves are stained with mud. The shepherds threw us here to starve, or cannibalize each other. But little lambs have a taste for something else. Something crueler. And lambs could jump really high, too, when we really feel like it. Real high. We won't be killed that easy, and we will have our meal as well.
20 "Am I strange?" The mermaid asked from their tank. Gurgled, more like, with their face half-submerged and spitting foam. Small bubbles bled over the water's surface. "No," I said, hands pressed against the glass. "No, of course not, why would you say that?" "But I am." The mermaid wailed, and dragged their sharp claws across pink, scaley arms. "Would it be, so wrong? That you would reject, even me?" "I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sorry, I don't know anything." And the mermaid closed their eyes, and hugged their tail fin close. And their body dissolved in the water, breaking down into fine sand, precious little stars unseen to the naked eye. I sank to the ground, crying, and begging for them not to leave, don't leave me here, all alone, please, I can't live without you, don't go. I cried to the empty tank. When the saltwater dried, years and years later, I stood to walk away, carrying a single star in my pocket.
16 I tripped and fell into a hole. It was a long way down. Long way. I landed on a soft, muddy pile, and I couldn't see anything, not even my own hands. The light could no longer reach me. Then a man started shoveling soil down into the hole. Slowly, slowly, blotting out my pinprick view of the sky. There was once an old story like this. Some kind of animal would shake the dirt off its back, until the earth grew under its feet. I was not an animal of ingenious wit, though I could not be killed from a simple burying. The man tired of the shovel. Tucked deep underground, I touched the ancient roots of a forest. And when they brought me up, a full, silvery moon was shining bright upon me.
14 I took a nap then woke up to a boot pressed on my face. I was angry, and kicked upwards in retaliation. My assailant leapt back, he tried to kill me with a buckshot, and I knew for certain his was a terrible grudge, and I hated him too for trying to kill me in my sleep. I was literally, a harmless little kitty. "Why do I deserve this?" I asked, bleeding all over. He simply shot at me again, and I ran fast into the woods.
photo featuring Saros Speculative Fiction #2, cover art
11 I'm in the basement parking level of a huge shopping mall chain. The air is stale, smells like oil and coolant, sort of stinging and fuzzy in the nose. Makes me dizzy and too-warm. Ten armed men surround me in all directions, prowling between the idling cars and the wide concrete pillars. I have three seconds to run before the open fire, so I run. They cannot kill me, for if they do, the bombs strapped to my chest will detonate and take this whole parking building down, and there are children inside these parked cars. Well, they are all asleep. Not even the sound of raining bullets wake them. I keep running, looking for the emergency stairwell. An elevator greets me instead. Three of the closest men drop their AKs and chase me, but they are too slow, the elevator doors slam shut in their faces. I go up, up, up. I hope the children stay asleep.
The woman swung a nail bat at me, but missed when I ducked out of the way. The first time, she was only holding a wooden spatula, and it didn't even hurt when she'd struck my hand then. "You are useless, stupid, weak, and ugly," she said. The nail bat came down again. I rolled away, landing on my swollen palm. Okay, maybe it did hurt. "I never asked to be born," I said. "So did everyone else. You are not special." She aimed for my head again. I couldn't let her kill me. I crawled into a hole and cried until she left.
I rang the doorbell at exactly ten in the morning, as instructed by the kind lady who took my application. I wasn’t sure what to expect. Everything else in the city had been destroyed, turned to ash. But I needed a job or I’d starve. The lady answered on the third ring, and her voice crackled through the intercom. “Please enter.” The front door swung open on her command. A gust of warm air pulled me inwards. I stepped through the doorway, ready for my job interview. “Good afternoon! Sorry, I mean, good morning.” Flubbed my greeting. Then the sky broke outside. A fireball crashed through the ceiling, taking the whole house down. I buried my face in my hands, mortified. The flames burned fiercely, but the sheer embarrassment swallowed me up and I was safe as can be, tucked in a little pocket.
It grabbed my hair and held me high off the ground. The massive knight with white, shining armor. It blew a heavy sigh, its breath scalding my face through the thin slits of its helmet. I had to fight back somehow, but my kicking legs were too short, arms too weak. "Release me, foul creature." The knight raised its sword to my neck. The sharp point tickled my chin. I cracked a smile. The knight didn't like that. The knight howled and drove the sword through my torso. I took it to heart. But I wasn't afraid. I was more angry than anything. This white knight killed a dragon, once. Now the knight wished to kill me. The hair on my head grew long and wisping, razor-thin, sharp as wires. Longer still, into a flourishing garden that quickly covered the knight and everything around us. And only I remained with sword in hand, alive and well.
The woman swung a nail bat at me, but missed when I ducked out of the way. The first time, she was only holding a wooden spatula, and it didn't even hurt when she'd struck my hand then. "You are useless, stupid, weak, and ugly," she said. The nail bat came down again. I rolled away, landing on my swollen palm. Okay, maybe it did hurt. "I never asked to be born," I said. "So did everyone else. You are not special." She aimed for my head again. I couldn't let her kill me. I crawled into a hole and cried until she left.
The chair is cold, hard, metal. It burns my skin. I can't see anything through this blindfold either. How did they catch me? My hands aren't meant to be tied down for so long. I'm scared. I want to go home. "You shouldn't have come here," one man says, as a knife slashes at my cheek. That will scar. "What do you mean?" I ask. "You're not one of us. This place doesn't look kindly on visitors." "I see." They will kill me, but first, they wish to torture me. They want a mangled corpse to step on, so they may deny the smallness of their existence in the face of an infinite universe. But no matter what they do, men always will be small and unsightly. My chair bends. They cannot keep my hands tied much longer. Try as they might, they can't kill me.
"Tada!" Chalk dust flies from my hands. "I drew a hopscotch! Just like the ones on TV, those American shows. Look, I'm wearing jumpers too. And the twin braids, little sneakers. Just like the shows, just like the shows." None of the kids in front of me make a move. They don't smile, they don't blink, they don't breathe, and they most certainly do not play with me. My heart sinks. "Is it not good enough? Did I draw it wrong? What should I do? I'm sorry I used up all the chalk. I can give it back. I'm sorry." The chalk dust sticks to my fingers. Before I can pull out each digit with my teeth, the kids all shriek and tackle me to the ground, piling high. This isn't how you play hopscotch. The chalk lines shift and pull me under. I slip into the dark asphalt before the kids can maul me to death then play hot potato with my gall bladder. Naughty children. Playground bullies. They can't kill me either.
"That's a nice gun you have. Did you get it from the discount rack?" The cop doesn't answer my question. His mouth twists into a nasty snarl, and he fires five, six, seven rounds at me. Or tries to! It was only one question. I meant no offense. "You keep missing," I say, standing perfectly still on the sidewalk. I wave my arms around. "Some shit aim you got. Do you even use your eyeballs? What a waste of a good pair. Now that I think of it, I'm kinda hungry." More firing, more piss-poor aim. The bullets go to everywhere but its target. They can't kill me. And now I get a snack.
"They won't kill me," I say, standing at the edge of the precipice, not really a cliff, but the top of skyscraper. All concrete. The light burns from above. "They won't kill me," I say, because they're afraid of the sun. Like burning hot wax, the light drips onto my head, and arms, and fingers... "Yes, they will." "Who said that?" I ask, then a hand presses on my back and shoves me right off the edge. A warm hand, five fingers. Long and bony. So, it wasn't a joke after all. They want me dead, and also, I'm not supposed to be standing over tall ledges. But this is my house. I built my nest up high in the clouds, out of sight and out of reach. The wind serves me, when the shell on my back bursts and glassine wings beat a million times per second. Flying higher, I look back down to the mound upon which I once stood. And there, I see them. Murderer, smiling. Out to get me. They cannot kill me. They will try again. Hot wax drips from the sky. The chase begins.
"Caroline Hung’s “My Favorite Taiwanese Folktale” is another poetry release from August, exploring folklore and iterations of a story or the idea of a story. Readers are introduced to a series of characters, all women who are linked with tigers – shapeshifters or witches or just women trying to survive. And for the narrator, who doesn’t seem to be in a safe place, the stories are inspirations or warnings depending on the character. But they are all reminders that the world is full of predators and violence, and there are as many ways to die as there are to survive. It’s a piece that recognizes that the world is often a very grim place, but that there is power in stories, in people helping people, in the natural world, and that despite everything tragedy is not inevitable, or univer­sal. It’s a wonderful poem."
author website screenshot featuring new horror story release coming soon in Strange Horizons
photo of Xanax Hamster print magazine with bookmark and sticker