SARCO by Tom L-Kherif (Mini Kus! #142)

SARCO opens with a disturbing suicide(?) jumper interrupting an otherwise innocuous daily routine. The protagonist silently navigates an empty (deliberate?) subterranean subway system, to an industrial warehouse (hidden in plain sight?) in an occupied part of a futuristic(?) city. There, an elderly man is silently signed up for entry in a high-tech coffin-like device (SARCO-phagus?) for a seemingly nefarious purpose. The protagonist then returns toward home from their mysterious task. SARCO is a difficult work to draw more conclusions or answers from with any certainty without additional content or context; it prompts more questions than it resolves and, by the end, it can feel like an introduction or first chapter in what has the potential to be a larger tale. There’s no dialogue and scant few clues in the art to pore over and induce meaning or plot from. Whether by natural uncorrelated causes or a network of conspiratorial agents, figures are being removed from society by “accidents,” systemic processes, or even partially, at times, it seems. Yet, I can safely say that I was deeply intrigued by the mystery of what’s occurring, I want to learn more, to understand why, and continue to be engaged by this utterly captivating world-build that deserves a follow-up.