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It’s June 16, 2029, and California is ravaged by fires, droughts, floods, political paralysis, and civil unrest. Two anti-capital punishment activists, Rex Nightly and Urban McChen, have kidnapped the Governor of California in order to gently torture him into issuing a stay of execution for the (alleged) killer and cannibal, Billy the Goat. But the Governor accidentally dies, and his body has to be hidden in the closet of Rex’s luxury penthouse.

Meanwhile, Rex’s wife, California Lieutenant Governor Sofina Nightly, hatches an ambitious plan to reestablish order and save the state. Smart, powerful, and blissfully unaware that the former governor lies dead in her closet, Sofina agrees to meet the Attorney General, Bassia Augustine, in her penthouse that same day.     

But not before Billy the Goat, jailhouse meditator and reformed vegetarian, escapes just minutes before his imminent demise… This gentle soul is looking for love, inebriation, and clemency, but knows he has only a few short hours before the police recapture him.

Set against a backdrop of climatic catastrophe and technological evolution, replete with zombie-obsessed retail clerks, itinerant surfers, and sex animates, Hear Us Fade is an entertaining, moving and thought-provoking black comedy that presents a haunting view of the near future.

Is a happy ending possible for them and for us?

About David Hogan

Cover image © Sergey Nehaev, with his gracious permission