Graffiti On The Walls of Pierce Brosnan's Garage

**Graffiti On The Walls of Pierce Brosnan's Garage** is a 15-story sci-fi anthology released on August 30, 2020. It is notable for featuring several concepts which are expanded upon in later work- for instance, The Meat Butcher and The Door. The title is a reference to the 1986 film "Nomads," starring Pierce Brosnan as a French anthropologist who slowly devolves into insanity.

## Inspiration

Sequeira states that he was inspired by older science fiction anthologies, notably the work of Damon Knight. Many of the stories contain a comedic twist, which is a common element in Knight's stories. "Gravity Hill" contains certain elements of Knight's stories "Extempore" and "Anachron," both of which concern mysterious futuristic societies. "In Austere Remembrance Of Redline" includes elements akin to those in Harlan Ellison's novella "All The Lies That Are My Life." Other stories tie into the Sequeira mythos. "The Traveler," for instance, is a recreation of an identical story first told in comic form in Sequeira's 2018 comic anthology "Bizarre Tales Of Science Fiction," while "The Meat Butcher Speaks" is copied verbatim from a post made by Sequeira on Reddit with added material concerning Inspector Chevet and Detroit, Massachusetts.

## Stories

The anthology consists of 15 stories, interspersed with short frame paragraphs. The stories are as follows:

* **Showtime**: Charlie King, a wry British pseudointellectual responsible for a popular science-fiction show on a streaming service, is plagued by mysterious entities from a parallel universe where creativity and originality are treated as sacred values.
* **For Better Or For Worse**: Dr. Wesley Moss and her team attempt tp conduct the first ever trans-timeline voyage in 2031, and discover a strange anomaly regarding the relative positivity and negativity of alternate timelines.
* **Expatriate, And Derelict**: A man experiences a strange dream where he views New York City as a pandemic-ravaged wasteland with a monument where the world's leaders stand in complete silence.
* **Dispatches From Whitechapel**: A xenophobic medieval village somewhere in the English countryside with strange eldritch traditions is invaded by aliens, creating a disconnect between the religious fundamentalism of the residents and the otherworldly methods of the extraterrestrials. A short epilogue reveals that Whitechapel has been completely destroyed and rebuilt by the aliens, and implies that interbreeding between the surviving humans and aliens has taken place, resulting in a malformed subhuman breed.
* **Here, And There, And Back And Forth Again**: Jim Waverly visits his grandfather in New Mexico, who tells stories of the frontier. In the distant future, Jim's descendant Enoch W'Verly attempts to eradicate a homegrown Ku Klux Klan ring on Mars.
* **The Meat Butcher Speaks**: This story is told in the first-person from the perspective of The Meat Butcher, who waxes philosophically about his place in the cosmos as the dealer of justice. The story then shifts to the perspective of Marcus Dollop, who is abducted from Detroit, Massachusetts and tortured after harassing Nicolas Sequeira online. The story ends with the introduction of Inspector Chevet, an inquisitive investigator from an alternate Gothic timeline which is connected to the Butcher's dungeon.
* **The Door**: This story is supplemental material to Sequeira's ARG of the same name, which at the time was ongoing. It relates the story of Bailey Knoll, a post-apocalyptic wanderer who utilizes an ancient portal known as The Door to enact revenge on his associate Michael Collins, who betrayed him during nuclear armageddon.
* **Aporia**: An inexperienced tourist is stranded on a deserted space station and subjected to prolonged isolation, all while the earth below contains no traces whatsoever of human life.
* **Mr. Smith Goes For A Walk**: Mr. Smith, an average resident of suburbia, is caught in an inexplicable spatial anomaly which restricts his movement to the area of one city sidewalk.
* **Under The Knife**: During a medical procedure, a man witnesses a strange tropical island and a mysterious woman.
* **The Traveler**: Pat Mitchell, a short order cook in Foley, Illinois in 1969, grows increasingly convinced that his town is the only real place in the universe, and everything beyond it is a fabricated illusion. He attempts to test this theory by riding past the Foley town limits on a custom bicycle. While this story is identical in many ways to a story Sequeira wrote for his comic "Bizarre Tales Of Science Fiction," it adds several characters and plot points not present in the original.
* **Gravity Hill**: While visiting his local science museum, Dave finds an exhibit which purports to distort the patron's sense of gravity. However, the attraction is also a gateway to another realm, as well as a gravitational anomaly.
* **Havoc On Wheels**: An energy-consuming aerobics class led by a vain female instructor is locked into one room, and the participants begin to melt into their exercise equipment while unable to stop their stationary bikes.
* **In Austere Remembrance Of Redline**: The longest story of the collection, which is narrated by a man from Pueblo writing an obituary for his friend, Redline Halcyon, a pioneer of experimental film. As the narrator's recollection of the past goes on, however, the details of Redline's life and his strange relationship with his films becomes less defined.
* **The Dreamer**: A very short epilogue about an unnamed protagonist who goes through a sequence of strange visions during sleep.

## Marketing

In conjunction with the book's publication, a music video was created where Sequeira twirls a superball stuck in slime, surrounded by a ritualistic pattern of aluminum foil. This video was parodied and referenced several times. The corresponding theme is one of Sequeira's acapella songs and was featured on his debut album, "Did You Eat Your Vegetables Today?"

On July 30, Sequeira created 3 small pamphlets with the unabridged text of "Dispatches From Whitechapel," "In Austere Remembrance Of Redline," and "The Traveler." 10 copies of each story were created and placed in free book boxes around Denver. These are considered rare collectibles and were created after Sequeira submitted several stories to prestigious sci-fi magazines, where they were rejected. Each comes with surreal black-and-white cover art reminiscent of Modernism.

## Trivia

* "Under The Knife" was inspired by a dental appointment Sequeira went through.
* "In Austere Remembrance Of Redline" started life as a ficititious post on the Classic Horror Film Board detailing the nonexistentent films of the recently deceased filmmaker Redline Halcyon. Several excerpts from this original post are scattered throughout the story proper, which reveals that the poster is in fact 100% sincere.
* Dr. Wesley Moss appears in both "For Better And For Worse" and "In Austere Remembrance Of Redline," meaning that she is capable of crossing over into other timelines.
* "Expatriate And Derelict" describes a world destroyed by a pandemic and was written a full 4 months prior to the COVID-19 outbreak.