'Nathan Burgoine's Blog, page 73

Friday Flash Fics — “Kissing Frogs”

Today’s Friday Flash Fics sort of hung around in my head for the week without doing much, and then a discussion earlier today reminded me how important it was to remember queer friendships in fiction, and I ended up wondering what Grayson would be up to these days, and “Kissing Frogs” happened. The sharp-eyed may notice another crossover moment here, with “Pentimento” from Of Echoes Born. (Grayson appears in Exit Plans for Teenage Freaks.)

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Kissing Frogs

“Okay, this is adorable.”

Carter glanced over to see what Grayson was talking about, but couldn’t see what was on the little rack. FunkArt, a cute little gallery in the Village, had been Grayson’s idea, but Carter had to admit he was enjoying himself. This was the first time they’d explored the Village since Frosh Week, and if nothing else, getting out of their “cozy” res room gave the idea merit.

Now that he’d seen the Village, though, Carter was starting to think he might change his routine. He had a bus pass, and it wasn’t too long a trip. Instead of hanging out in the library or the quad to try to get through all his reading during what off time he had—there was so much reading—he could come to the Village. There was a café, NiceTeas, and a coffee place, Bittersweets.

There was also a candy shop that he was dying to get to, but Grayson had dragged him into the little art gallery and Carter had forgotten candy while he looked at some of the paintings. There was one, and abstract with waves of yellow and blue that made him think of the fields back home. He wasn’t homesick, exactly, but he did miss some things.

“Oh! No! This, this is the one,” Grayson said, and Carter gave up and crossed the small store. Grayson was standing in front of a display of silver jewelry, pointing at a ring with a little silver frog.

“It’s wearing a crown,” Carter said.

“It’s a frog prince,” Grayson said. “And it’s perfect.”

Carter eyed the little price tag, and, okay, the ring was cute, but they both had part-time jobs and not much support from home. It wasn’t super expensive, but…

He saw Grayson’s eyes check the tag, and imagined the same thoughts running through Grayson’s head. Grayson didn’t have much in the way of filters, and he sure wasn’t like anyone Carter had known in high school. They’d met during Frosh Week, done the tentative “is he or isn’t he?” dance for all of ten minutes before Grayson had flat out said, “So, I’m a big ‘mo. I’m getting tentative ‘mo vibes, but I could be wrong. My gaydar is for shit.” He’d tilted his head. “Come clean, Flannel. ’Mo? Or No?”

“’Mo,” Carter had said, stunned. He’d also wondered what was wrong with his flannel shirt, but then he’d realized it was the first time he’d said it to an almost stranger, and kind of had a mini-meltdown. Grayson had given him a big hug, and then promptly told him he needed a better haircut.

Once he’d made Carter laugh, Grayson had clapped. “This is going to be a great year.”

There hadn’t been any tension at all between them, and Carter got the impression Grayson understood that when it came to being “a ‘Mo” Carter was in uncharted waters for the most part.

So when Grayson got home from the cafeteria where he schlepped food between his classes, and Carter was done at the cellular place in the nearby mall—being able to transfer from the store in his home town had been amazingly lucky—Grayson would turn on some music or put on a movie and they’d just be.

He wasn’t sure he’d ever just been before. And he owed that to Grayson. His first gay friend.

“Let me get it,” Carter said, deciding in the moment. “Early Christmas present.”

“It’s not even October,” Grayson said, but he smiled.

“Birthday then.”

“I’m an Aries.”

“I don’t know when that is,” Carter said.

“March,” Grayson said.

But Carter pulled the little ring out of the display and was already on his way to the counter. The guy behind the counter was on the phone, and he winced when he saw Carter approach. He mouthed the word “sorry” but Carter waved a hand.

“Don’t worry,” he said. He’d wait. Besides, the guy was hot, if a bit too old. Okay, a lot too old. Like, maybe he was thirty. But he had great shoulders and a tight shirt and really nice eyes. Green. You didn’t see that very often.

“Is it something I can help you with?” the guy said, still talking to whoever it was he was on the phone with.

Carter felt his face heat up as he considered some answers to that question, but swallowed them. Grayson might be good at saying everything he thought as he thought it, but Carter had a lot of catching up to do there.

“Good luck,” the man said now. “I’ll let you get to it.” A second later he’d hung up, and flashed an apologetic smile at Carter. He had a little gap between his front teeth. Carter wondered why the man hadn’t gotten braces.

“Sorry about that.”

“It’s fine,” Carter said, putting the ring on the counter. “I’d like to get this, please.”

Grayson had joined him now. “Are you sure?” he said.

“You have been my guru. Consider it a thank-you gift.”

“Your guru?” Grayson laughed. “More like a gayru. But I’ll take the thank you.”

The older man was smiling at them as Carter paid, and he reached for a little ring-box.

“I’ll just wear it,” Grayson said, picking up the ring. He slipped it on a finger. He grinned. “Now I’ll never run out of frogs to kiss.”

“The artist who makes those says they’re lucky,” the man said.

Carter looked at him. “Really?”

The man shrugged. “Just passing it on.”

“I could use the luck,” Grayson said. “I’m basically a disaster in the frog-kissing sense.”

“You are not,” Carter said, nudging his shoulder. “You’re cute.”

“And you’re good for my ego,” Grayson said, nudging back.

“You’re supposed to say I’m cute, too.”

“It’s worse than that,” Grayson said. “You’re cuter. You’ve got farm-boy cuteness. Flannel cuteness.”

“He’s making fun of me. I’m from Saskatchewan,” Carter said to the man, who laughed and thanked them for visiting the gallery.

They walked out onto the street, and turned their faces up to the sun. Carter noticed the banners on the street-lamps, each one telling a little piece of Village history. It blew his mind. It wasn’t large, but there were a few blocks where everything was queer.

Like him.

“Now candy?” Carter said.

“Sure.” Grayson was holding out his hand and staring at the little frog on his finger. “How do you think I turn on the luck?”

“Here,” Carter said, and took Grayson’s hand. He leaned in and gave the frog a quick kiss. “Luck activated.”

Grayson laughed, and Carter shrugged. “Hey, I hear you gotta kiss frogs. It’s a thing.”

“You totally just kissed a boy’s hand. In public. On the street,” Grayson said. He ran his other hand through his dark hair, which showed off the purple streak. “You, Carter, are getting way, way better at this being out thing.”

Carter felt something warm in his chest. “Well. I have a good gayru.”

“You have a great gayru.”

“Fine. A gret gayru. Now candy?”

“Fine, candy.”

They started for the little candy shop.

“Speaking of fine,” Grayson said. “Blond man at the gallery.”

“Shoulders,” Carter agreed.

“Eyes,” Grayson countered.

“But a bit too old,” Carter said.

“Yeah,” Grayson blew out a breath. “Still fine to look at.”

“Fine art, even.”

Grayson winced. “You remind me of my friend Cole so much sometimes.”

“I do?” Carter said. “One of your rainbow club friends?” Grayson had gone to a high school where they actually had a gay-straight alliance. Carter could only imagine what that must have been like.

“Yeah,” Grayson said. Then, a beat later: “He’s bad at jokes, too.”

“Just for that, I’m not getting you any candy.”

“Don’t worry about it, Flannel. The candy is on me.”

“You’re sweet.” Carter wagged his eyebrows. “Get it? Because—”

“So bad at jokes. Like, apocalyptic.”

 

 

Not All Catholics (or Christians, or…)

Recently, I shared a post on my Facebook about a Denver Archbishop preaching hate in the form of conversion therapy (which is widely debunked and incredibly harmful, just to make that clear). I dismissed him with a series of invectives, and then edited the post after someone asked why I’d share the post in the first place, since it just draws more attention to him.

(On that point, the answer is pretty basic: because I’m super-tired of answering variations on the following question: “Are things really still like that?” See also: “Now that gay marriage is okay, things are better, right?” “What do you mean you can’t donate blood or organs?” “Conversion therapy isn’t illegal in Canada?” and many, many more. The reality is, every time I share news about the reality queer people face, at least one of my non-queer friends—especially those who are parents—reach out to me to thank me for letting them know. The mainstream media generally ignores us unless someone is bleeding or dead. It doesn’t have to be blood or death to hurt us, and in fact, all the stuff leading up to the blood and death is super important and in need of being disassembled, but that’s talk for another day. Short answer? I share news about queer reality because so many of my nonqueer friends are parents and they need to fucking know, even if it does turn out that none of their kids end up queer, because they outnumber us and they can vote, call organizations to task, speak out, make change, etc.)

Literally the first comment was someone saying, “This isn’t representative of the Catholics I know!”

So, I took a breath, replied a somewhat cheeky “Hashtag-not-all-Catholics” and tried to move on with my day. Way to miss the point.

And then it happened again. A much more eloquent response from someone pointing out there are queer catholic people and—there it was—”not all Catholics.”

Respectfully, I know. Also? I didn’t say “All Catholics” at any point. I shared a news article about something someone sanctioned by the church was doing, and made it clear this is an awful thing.

And boom. “Not All…!”

So here’s the thing. As always when I post these, I’ll try to draw a parallel, since so often when I talk queerness people focus on the queerness to the point where they miss the general and just toss queer examples my way instead.

[image error]So let’s talk “Not All Men!”

When women talk openly about how nearly every woman they know has been on the receiving end of sexual harassment and/or violence from men and men step forward to say “Not all men!” the position is similar: no one has stated all men are anything.

Rather, what’s being said is the perpetrators of this violence and harassment are overwhelmingly men. They’re saying there is a culture that is supported, protected, and embedded that systematically allows this to continue to happen, and that that culture needs to get dismantled for the sake of the safety of women and girls.

Men (almost always, but it can be folk of any gender) hopping in to say “Not all men!” doesn’t add to the discussion or develop it in any way. All it does is derail and dismiss the lived experiences of women and girls, and place them in the position of having to say “Oh, of course not you, let’s talk about you now, to make sure you’re okay, instead of the abuse and pain of women and the culture that keeps this violence going.”

So. Going back to conversion therapy being put forth by an archbishop?

When I point out the horrors of church-sanctioned conversion therapy, or church-sanctioned ostracism, or church-hushed abuse or violence, I’m not saying everyone of that faith is a horrible person. I’m saying that there is systemic harm done to queer people by that faith-based organization, and that I know very, very few queer people who haven’t been on the receiving end of harassment or violence from faith-based points of view/people/organizations. We’ve had signs waved at us, or slurs hurled at us, or bled on sidewalks while people told us we are evil/sick/sinful/you-name-it.

But no. Not all Catholics. I know. Believe me, every time I bring up an evil done to queer people by organized religion, I’ll be reminded, despite me never having claimed so in the first place.

Historical Romance and Queerness as Up For Debate

I recently joined the RWA despite knowing full well it wouldn’t necessarily be a place I’d be welcome. I’m a queer writer of queer stories—including romance—and seeing some forward motion in the organization made me think perhaps it was time.

Or at the very least, it was time enough to try and get involved, rather than just watch warily.

It’s hard to put into words what it’s like to watch people debate your humanity. To see spirited discussion from “both sides” of an argument where one “side” espouses that the way you love doesn’t qualify as a happy-ever-after, or reading suggestions that judges should be able to opt-out of stories about people like you because they just can’t “connect” with them? Or—this was only the other day—doing a search for “queer writers” in a forum and finding the only use of the term coming from someone who catfished everyone into thinking they were a queer writer.

Honestly? It’s exhausting.

The replies sparked by the wonderful “Reclaiming Historical Romance” from Elizabeth Kingston, and the online discussions that followed, is another case of this.

The original piece’s clear presentation was so refreshing and so correct: our histories—here I specifically mean to stay in my own lane and discuss queer histories, though of course it’s not just queer histories—have been untold. Not just hundreds of years ago, either. I have witnessed this in my lifetime, as obituaries of queer friends were re-written by their families to make sure others wouldn’t know. From those smallest of these written histories to the larger discussions, we have been (and continue to be) actively erased.

This is made all the more damaging by virtue of our culture; for the most part, queer people are not born into queer families, so there is no inheritance of oral narrative. I didn’t have bisexual parents and trans grandparents and non-binary cousins, aro aunts and ace uncles telling me how they survived, or what to expect or who came before—I had a family with zero other queer people in it, all of whom where incredibly angry to learn they had a queer person in their midst.

It’s another thing I say often here: there is fallout of non-inheritance. Queer people don’t even know what we don’t know, and this is reinforced by the way “history” is taught through the straight-white-cisgender-Christian lens Elizabeth Kingston discussed.

We are not taught, not discussed (unless we’re vilified), and that crosses over everywhere the keepers of the histories that are told have sway.

And yes, of course that includes historical romance.

For most of us queer people, fictions are where we see a “first me.” I’ve told this story a few times, but it bears repeating: my “first me” was a character in a short story we read in an English class, and the character died a gruesome and violent death. The teacher explained why: the character was gay. Class continued, and no one even blinked. Except me, of course, who was sitting there stunned by the apparent revelation of what I was to expect from life.

I’m not sure it’s possible to explain the impact of that moment: first, what it’s like to make it to young adulthood without seeing a single representation of someone like you in fiction; second, to have that first representation be a violent death.

And prior to that? Nothing. A vacuum of non-queerness. Later, of course, I’d learn that wasn’t true: we discussed Alan Turing in history class, and Sally Ride in science class, but never their queerness. Those are just two examples, but you get my point. We were there, and no one sees fit to tell us. Many of the queer people I know (especially those of my age and older) discuss this moment: the moment you realized how much queer history was stolen from your education, and how much it would have meant to you to have had access to it back then.

Calling for writers to be more aware of the damage done by writing historical romances where entire peoples are erased is not some form of censorship. It’s not a—pardon my pun—straight-jacket on the creativity of authors. It’s a call to consider the message sent to readers by this absence—especially in a genre specifically devoted to the notion of deserved happy endings.

History wasn’t queerless. We existed. We have always existed. If someone only reads the mainstream history provided, however, they might not know. But as Elizabeth Kingston notes, the harm is done whether or not the writer knows better.

But when someone who does know—as anyone who read Kingston’s article now knows—chooses to write a history (or a future, or a present) that erases a people, the harm becomes exactly that: a choice.

Sunday Shorts—Charlotte’s Mother by Jeffrey Ricker

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That’s Jeffrey there on the right.

I’ve known Jeffrey Ricker for mumble-mumble years now, and I’ve always loved his way with a turn of phrase. (I almost wrote “envied” there, and I do, but I’m trying to cut down on sounding bitter as much as possible, so I won’t mention how often I’m super freaking jealous of his turns of phrases).

Ahem. Where was I? Ah! “Charlotte’s Mother.” That link will take you directly to the story. This wonderful short fiction piece penned by Jeffrey Ricker was the runner-up in the Saturday Evening Post Great American Fiction Contest and also appears in an anthology, which is available for order here.

In short fiction (well, in all his fiction, but again, bitter) Ricker excels at character. A touch of description here, a line of dialog there, and boom, I see a character fully formed in my mind. He does that here with Charlotte (and Charlotte’s mother) with deft little traces: Chanel No 5; in keeping cigarettes in the glove-box five years after quitting; a hat never questioned; the unreliability of wind chime memories.

The narrative: daughter-and-mother, mother recently having up and left her care home somehow, daughter dealing with the reality of her mother not knowing her, touches and burns just a little bit. I know so many people dealing with the reality of this, and “Charlotte’s Mother” represents it so apparently effortlessly.

Friday Flash Fics — “January, 2019”

Today’s Friday Flash Fics had me thinking of the ice storm/cold-snap/winder blast we just had (it knocked me on my butt for a few days worth of migraine) and how much I missed our escapes to Hawai’i in February. Then I looked at the four men and wondered who they were, what they were doing, and, well, as usual my mind went a bit sideways into speculative fiction.

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January, 2019.

I’m a bit off target, but it’s well within what I expected.

I’d forgotten the cold though.

I chuckle—actually chuckle—at that. Canadian blood wears off, I guess. Or at least, it does when you drop everything, pack up your genius, and demand to do your work somewhere it doesn’t snow. Kailua, in my case.

The company didn’t mind. Hell, the company threw in a bonus and offered me a housing representative to scout out ahead and find “the perfect place” for me.

The perfect place, I wanted to shout, doesn’t exist.

Because it’s not about place. It was never about place. I even used to say that.

“I don’t care where we live, as long as we’re together.”

You used to think that was kind of sappy, but you’d kiss my forehead anyway. Or my nose. Or my eyelids.

Looking back, you kind of avoided my lips a lot, and while that seemed cute at the time, it leaves me wishing I’d taken your chin and redirected your attention a little bit. Then again, you were so much taller than me…

Are. Not were.

I’m a bit off target, but it’s well within what I expected, and right now you’re not a were. You’re an are.

I tug on gloves. I ordered the gloves and jacket online, knowing I’d never find anything capable of withstanding Ottawa, Canada in January 2019 on a shelf in Kailua. The big island sometimes sold “winter” coats, but they were Hawai’i winter coats, which might have passed for an unusually chilly autumn evening in Canada, maybe.

I am wearing a bright yellow down-filled jacket with reflective suspenders and snow-pants are tucked into my boots, and I’m still cold.

I check the display. There’s more than enough time.

I only manage three steps before there’s a series of flashes—a staccato burst of light, a rip and fold of reality I’d name after you if I dared reveal any of it in something as mundane as a paper—and then there are four versions of myself walking toward me. The light behind them, the you-fold, blinks out of existence and it’s so dark after and my eyes haven’t adjusted that all I can hear is the sound of four perfectly synchronized steps walking my way.

I let them approach, swallowing hard. I don’t remember being them, which means a lot of things at once but most importantly that I come back here again.

Which means I don’t succeed.

Well then. That’s an issue.

“Aloha,” I say, because I’ve always tried to blend in with my surroundings, but then it occurs to me where we’re standing, and when we’re standing, so I add, “Cold night, eh?”

The four stare back at me. It’s not a wide sample of difference, really. On the outside, the range strikes me as less than two years, which makes sense. Things have to line up just so. Each attempt—it galls me to consider that multiple attempts did/will/must happen—has a reset of roughly six months. This was the only point in time I could aim for. The variables in play gave me this, and nothing else. Not before you get in the car. Not before the other driver gets in his car. This point.

I don’t know why. Or, I do, but only in the “I understand the space-time limitations of a you-fold created during my life-time by me with the tools I have on hand” way. But the metaphorical, what-is-the-universe-thinking side of things?

No idea. I left that to you. The universe, I mean. You were the artist.

Leave. Not left. I scold myself. Are. Not were.

Either way? I can try from this exact point, and I can try every six months.

I can’t help but correct myself, even now. Precision. Not every six months. Every one hundred and seventy-seven days, twelve hours, thirty-six minutes, and eleven-and-a-half seconds.

“I bet you’re wondering why I gathered you here today,” says the oldest version of myself. We all grin at him, despite the reality of what we all know and have just learned or continue to learn. Strike four. Though there are only three strikes, right?

Then again, sports are another thing I leave to you.

“You can’t talk me out of it,” four of us say in unison, though each almost-six-month iteration sounds a fraction more strained than the last.

The fifth laughs. “Wouldn’t dream of it. Really. But we’ve got about twenty minutes as you know, so let me catch you all up on the problem.”

How many geniuses does it take to stop a car accident in a Canadian ice storm?

Five, it turns out.

Just five.

The solution, by the way, was such a simple idea, really. A paradigm shift. Four attempts made to stop an accident failed, so this time we caused one. Just earlier, and with a better set up. You dodged the flares and our waving arms and ended up in a ditch. The car that should have hit you head on passed by without even seeing you.

The fifth vanishes before you climb out of your car, wrapped in the bright flare of a you-fold and vanishing. I see his smile—it’s just like my smile, I’m sure, given that it is my smile—and then there is light and then he is gone.

You gape at the four of us, and the fourth vanishes when you open your mouth to ask a question. A flash of light, and he’s gone. I’m doing the math in my head, now that I have two data points, and I figure I’ve got about three minutes, which is a lot of time, really, but also no time at all.

You climb out of the ditch by the time the three of us make it to where you’re standing and—flash—two of us smile at you while you try to come up with some words.

“What’s happening?” is what you finally settle on.

The other me shrugs. “Just fixing a problem.” The you-fold takes him, and the sound of his laughter echoes around us.

You eye me. I eye you. I have to look up. You’re so damn tall.

“Kiss my lips more,” I say.

You nod, and I am gone.

Sunday Shorts—Girl with Boat, by Lucy Jane Bledsoe

[image error]So far as I know, they’re all dead.

Wow. So I read this first story from Lava Falls in bed (as I often read collections and anthologies, one story at a time before sleep) and then stared at the dark ceiling for a good half-hour afterward, the story turning itself over and over in my head.

Narratively, the set-up is deceptively simple: a woman who, as a child, was taken into the Alaskan wilderness by her father alongside her mother and two brothers, is returning to that place. Her father, a survivalist heavier on the dreams side, not as clear on his understanding of the practicalities of what survivalism would entail, took them without choice.

The story unfolds in pieces: this woman (who at some point escaped) is now returning, and those pieces drop throughout the story with frankly perfect timing. This stunning tale had me completely enraptured. How did she escape? Did she escape? What happened to the family she left behind? What will happen when she is face-to-face with them, if they’re not dead?

Just all-around fantastic, frankly.

Friday Flash Fics — Run

Today’s Friday Flash Fics stymied me for a bit, but then I noticed the train behind the man (because noticing the man was way, way easier), and the train thing made me consider a location, and from there, “Run” happened.

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Run

Don’t think, just run. Don’t think, just run. Erwin chanted the words to himself, each step landing on one of the railway ties of the old train bridge—more importantly, missing the gaps between them—and tried not to change his pace even slightly.

Behind him, he could hear the calls of the three guys who’d caught him on his way home. He didn’t look, but given how loud they were, how close they were, it sounded like they were starting across the bridge, too.

Damn. He’d hoped this would have done it. It was why he’d jagged off the road to the railway in the first place, why he’d run away from what passed for downtown in this stupid city. The old railway bridge was daunting. Tall, old, and over a very long drop with a river below, you crossed it carefully, giving it respect.

Or at least, you did if you didn’t have three homophobic assholes chasing you.

Don’t think, just run. His feet landed on the wood perfectly, and he crossed the half-way point. On the other side, he’d have less options, but he could get one hell of a head start on them again, increase the distance, maybe.

Maybe it would be enough to finally convince them to just let him run away.

Erwin was half-way between the middle of the bridge and the end when he heard the train.

The sound didn’t connect, not at first. The railway he was running on—and the bridge in particular—weren’t used anymore, so no part of his brain was paying attention on that level, so it wasn’t until the second blast of the train’s horn, much closer than before, that Erwin’s head caught up to his ears and thought, alarmingly: Dude? There’s a train.

It almost made him miss his step. The brief stutter of his feet would have sent him sprawling (at best) but he recovered just in time and his third or fourth step landed right in the middle of the railway tie again.

Another blast of noise from a train. Behind him.

He wanted to turn and look, but he didn’t dare. He was close enough to the end of the bridge now, and more importantly, far enough away from the middle that there’d be rock below him, not river, so he kept his gaze straight ahead.

Don’t think, just run.

He could hear the men behind him cursing and swearing now. He didn’t get the exact words—it didn’t sound like they were speaking English—but the fury and fear were clear enough.

When he cleared the bridge, he couldn’t help himself. He looked.

Erwin had intended to just glance back, see where the train was, and then bolt, but as soon as he’d seen it, he was rooted to the spot. It was…wrong.

It looked sort of like an old steam engine, though it was bright orange, and it was pulling a mis-match of all sorts of cars—a white boxcar followed the engine, but an old out-of-date subway car followed that, and then behind it was an empty coal cart, and behind that was a cart made of wood, and beyond that a sleek silver passenger car that looked like something out of the 70’s. He couldn’t see more from this angle, only that the train was starting to cross the bridge, and the three men chasing him couldn’t possibly make it in time. They were almost at the middle.

Erwin couldn’t look away. The engine had a cow-catcher, but at the speed it was going…

“God,” he said, while the train ate the remaining distance.

At the last second, each of the three men who’d been chasing him jumped from the bridge. They were at the half-way point by then, over the river. Erwin couldn’t see what happened, but he swore and closed his eyes. It was a really long drop, water or no.

The train let out a cloud of steam, shrieking through one of the stacks, and a metal screech of breaks followed, loud enough to make Erwin press his hands to his ears.

He stepped back as the train crossed the other half of the bridge, slowing and slowing, and finally coming to a stop in front of him, the long string of random cars lining across the bridge and beyond.

It struck Erwin then the train hadn’t tried to stop on the bridge at all.

The door to the engine opened, and a man jumped down, seemingly unfazed by the distance he just covered.

“You okay?”

The man’s voice—nice accent, British?—rumbled in a way Erwin could almost feel in his chest, and he stared in wonder up at the man, who was tall and broad and should probably be terrifying, but wasn’t.

He wore a white vest and jeans and suspenders, which left his arms and shoulders bare—both of which were covered by inked patterns Erwin couldn’t quite make out. He had an impeccably groomed beard, too, thick eyebrows, and—oh, yes—a baseball bat casually gripped in one hand, resting against his shoulder.

I should be terrified, Erwin thought. He wasn’t.

The man eyed Erwin, who still hadn’t said a word, and the intensity in the man’s gaze finally cracked the odd calm Erwin was feeling.

“Sorry,” Erwin said. “I just… I didn’t expect…” He gestured to the man, the train, the bridge. “This.”

The man finally smiled and wow, now Erwin wasn’t just not afraid, he was very, very unafraid and that was probably not going to fly. He’d just dodged three homophobes, he certainly didn’t need to add a potential fourth. He cleared his throat.

“I didn’t think anyone used these tracks,” he said. “They were chasing me.” Was he babbling? It felt like he was babbling.

“We should get you out of here,” the man said.

Wait. What? “Pardon?” Erwin said.

“They’re not going to give up that easily. I’m not sure who sent them, but given how you ran back there, we won’t need to protect you for long. I think you’re coming in to your own.” He smiled again, and again, it sure wasn’t terrifying.

Except, of course, the man was making no sense whatsoever.

“You lost me,” Erwin said.

The smile dimmed. “You don’t know what I’m talking about,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

“That.” Erwin nodded.

There was a screech from behind them. It carried even over the various whooshing and rumbling noises of the idle engine, and it was markedly not a good sound. All the hair on Erwin’s arms stood up on edge, and he took a physical step back.

Run, his brain suggested. Run and keep running.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” the man said, sounding more annoyed than anything else. “What are the chances they were Ornithes Areioi?” He scowled.

“Orni…?” Erwin shook his head.

“Think bird demon.” He swung the baseball bat out in front of him, and it started glowing. It was turning red with heat, and the ink up and down the man’s arms and shoulders and chest was now moving on his skin.

Erwin took a step back.

“Sorry to Hagrid you,” the man said, smiling again. “But you’re a reborn. I’m a reborn. Those are bird demons—they don’t like us, me especially, but their boss has history with me, it’s a whole thing—and it’s probably best if we get back on my train and get out of here.”

“Reborn,” Erwin said. “I don’t…” Understand? Believe? Have the foggiest idea what’s happening?

“I’m Stu. And I’m Hephaestus. Or I was, sort of. It’s… complicated. I build stuff. Anyway, my train will get us out of here. It can be on any track at any time.”

There was another round of screeches from below, but not as far below as before.

The man climbed back up onto the engine, then turned and held out his free hand.

Erwin took it.

“Ever been to England?” the big man asked, pulling him up.

Erwin shook his head.

“Lots of train tracks there. That’ll give us time to talk. Any ideas which god runs down your bloodline?”

Erwin just stared.

“Ah well,” Stu said. “We’ll figure it out.” He brought Erwin into the engine room, and Erwin eyed the chamber where he figured you were supposed to put coal. Except there was no coal in there, there was a bird. A bird made entirely of fire. It eyed him and ruffled its wings a bit. Sparks flew.

“That’s…” Erwin said, pointing.

There was another series of screeches. Much, much closer.

“You’re going to want to grab on,” Stu said. He’d put his baseball bat away somewhere.

Erwin looked around. The engine room was mostly bare. “To what?”

Stu wrapped one arm around Erwin and tugged him in close. Reflexively, Erwin grabbed on to him. He felt as solid as he looked.

“Okay?” Stu said.

“Yeah,” Erwin squeaked. “I mean, yes. This is good. I mean…”

Grinning, Stu yanked on a lever, and the train leapt into motion, cutting off Erwin’s babble by pressing him bodily into Stu, which was also good.

“Next stop England,” Stu said.

Outside, the world itself began to blur.

Don’t think, Erwin thought, hanging on the big man. Just run.

 

Sunday Shorts—Ashes to Ashes by Day Al-Mohamed

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I will likely always struggle with horror—it’s not a genre I go to often, and almost never without many people first letting me know what I’m in for. Horror gets snagged in my head, and I end up having dark dreams or outright nightmares, so when I do read horror, it’s in tiny bits, during the early hours of the day, in the hope that the imagery will be filtered out by the daily detritus thereafter.

So, when I picked up a copy of We Shall Be Monsters, it was from a “support worthy ideas and marginalized voices” point of view, knowing I might not read it anytime soon. But then I cracked the cover, and read a bit of the first page, and hit Day Al-Mohamed’s line, “I seem to have died.”

It’s right at the end of the first of a series of journal entries that make up the story, which is set in 1888, and begins quite literally with the main character realizing when they got out of bed in the morning, they were already dead. Their heart has stopped, but for whatever reason, their body has not.

What unfolds is a macabre journey of what happens to an animate—but dead and decaying—body, and what lengths the medically trained narrator goes to to maintain some form of continued existence while seeking a remedy. It’s dark, and creepy, and shudder-worthy a few times over.

And I have such writerly envy over that simple line: “I seem to have died.”

Friday Flash Fics — Aftershocks

Today’s Friday Flash Fics reminded me of Mark Ward from the second short story I ever had accepted for publication, “Last Call,” in Mortis Operandi. Mark is a wizard-for-hire (if you know who to talk to) who deals with strange goings on and tries to stop bad people from doing bad things, and in “Last Call” he’s hired by a demon to solve a murder. Things blow up in his face a lot, so when I saw this picture, it made me wonder what it’s like for Mark after he’s dealt with his latest whatever, and thus was born “Aftershocks.”

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Aftershocks

Mark tucked his legs beneath himself on the plush chair, not caring overmuch if he wrinkled the pants now that the sun was rising. He leaned back, took a few deep breaths, and closed his eyes, exhausted.

Maybe I could go to bed, he thought. Sleep.

A moment later his eyes opened and he knew it was hopeless. His body still buzzed from the use of magic, humming from power he’d conjured and evoked with nothing but his will and a heaping dose of self-righteous anger. It was always like this after some serious casting. The downside to being a seventh son of a seventh son was the aftershocks.

He rubbed his beard, and sighed. He’d be awake the whole damn day. It’d take that long for the feeling to pass. He hadn’t slept at all last night since the the battle with the warlock in question had lasted from sundown to just before sunrise. But the important thing was the hospital still stood, the patients were going to start getting better now that someone wasn’t magically siphoning off all the healing that happened in the building, and the people responsible for the warlock’s work would be learning the hard way what happened when you relied on black magic and then someone like him came along and undid the magic in question.

His phone rang, and he blinked when he patted his pocket and it wasn’t there. He didn’t normally dress up like this, but a hospital fundraiser event had been a hoity-toity affair, and the trustee who’d hired him had gotten him in. He had no idea what had happened to his tie. Had it burned up when the siphoning ward went off in his face? Probably. Whatever. It was just a tie.

He’d needed to see who’d had the ability to get people into the building after hours to set up the seriously impressive—and horrifically aimed—siphoning spells, and so the trustee’s invite. And the suit.

Wait. He’d been wearing a jacket. Had he lost the jacket, too?

Mark rubbed his eyes. This was why he preferred to work in t-shirt and jeans.

Either way, attending the super-fancy party had been the right move. He’d expected that. What he hadn’t expected was for the person responsible to be persons, nor for it to be half the damn board, but it had been pretty obvious from the first glance. Old white men, standing in a row, the flush of magic apparent to his divinations—living strong and bright via stolen life.

They’d probably paid the warlocks a stupid amount of money to siphon health into them.

Gods, he hated warlocks. If he ever met another warlock again it would be too damn soon, and how hard was it to just keep your damn vows, anyway? An’ ye harm none. Seriously. How hard was that?

He finally got his hands on his phone—inside vest pocket, because he was wearing a vest—and answered it without looking so it wouldn’t go to voice mail.

“Hey you.” Connor.

Just like that, Mark’s whole mood turned. “Hey,” he said.

“So, I’m watching the news, and apparently last night there was a weird explosion at the hospital?”

“Reports of an explosion are exaggerated,” Mark said. Somewhat, he added mentally.

“You’re okay?”

“I’m okay. More importantly, so are the patients.”

“Good.” A pause. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

“I’m not going to sleep for a while, and I’m not one-hundred percent exactly how I can make sure the men responsible are brought to some kind of justice, but I’m pretty sure the law of three is handling that right now, since I broke the spell giving them extra life.”

“Yeah, about that. One of the board members apparently had a heart attack, and another had a stroke.”

“Well,” Mark said, trying really hard not to delight in the suffering of others. “Two down, three to go, I guess.”

“I’ve got the kids today,” Connor said. Kids meant the youth he coached at the centre, which meant Connor in his basketball shorts, which meant the world was an unfair place because Mark wasn’t looking at Connor’s legs right this very second. “I’ll come over this afternoon, though. Take-out and a hot bath, maybe?”

“That sounds perfect.”

“Okay. There’s also some loose-leaf tea in your cupboard. It’s supposed to help with the aftershocks. Have some.” Connor’s voice had gentled with every word. “Try to relax and I’ll see you later.”

“I promise I’m going to do nothing but sit here in this chair and read and drink tea.”

“Good.” Another pause. “Love you, Seventh.”

“Love you, too, Medium.” Oh, he was never going to get tired of saying that. Or their stupid nicknames.

They hung up, and Mark eyed the tea service all the way across the apartment from where he was sitting. He was so comfortable. The thought of getting up and making tea was just too much.

“You did promise to stay put,” he said aloud. Then, with a flick of his wrist and an act of will, magic sprang to his command. The burner whooshed on, the teakettle sliding over the ring, full of water from the night before. The teapot lid rose, the cupboard opened, and the tin of loose-leaf tipped and sent leaves through the opening, into the little mesh container and down into the pot itself. Three cups and saucers rose into the air and circled the chair—that was maybe overkill, but he hadn’t been clear enough with his intention, he supposed—and once the kettle started to whistle, it was only a few more moments before everything was ready, stepping, and floating on over to the chair where he sat.

As the teapot poured him a cup, a book floated out across the room and into his hand. He opened it to the bookmark, and the first passage he found had Sherlock dismissing any supernatural forces as completely impossible.

Mark smiled, and let himself drift into the mystery as the scent of tea drifted to him from the floating teacup to his left.

Sunday Shorts—勢孤取和 (Influence Isolated, Make Peace) by John Chu

[image error]Part of Queers Destroy Science Fiction, which I’m listening to on audiobook, “勢孤取和 (Influence Isolated, Make Peace)” by John Chu was a brilliant way to ring in the new year. It does science fiction the way I love it the most: with inclusive allegory. The queer main characters isn’t the main point, but their “otherness” is.

Jake is a cyborg—as a result, he’s huge, incredibly strong, possesses the internal analysis speed of a computer, can network with other cyborgs, and as of a recent treaty? Is counting down the time until his creators pull the plug on those like him, to maintain the peace.

He’s also looking for a way out. And needs to be able to blend in as “normal” if he can.

Tyler becomes his “target,” another soldier at the same base where the cyborgs are being held in wait of their imminent destruction. The intent is simple: befriend, learn, hatch an escape, stay hidden. But things a good cyborg always considers that plan A will fail, and have contingencies in place.

The story made me think of “First they came for…” and did so in such a wonderful, effortless way. I loved the casual world-building, the cultural touchpoint of Go, and the evolving relationship between the two. Even better, I loved the ending, which felt as hopeful as possible in the scenario—always a delicate balance.