Some of the Best from Tor.com, 2020 edition

by Charlie Jane Anders

Here’s the reality, girl, girlfriend, goddess, goddamn goner: You’re gonna have to get out of hell all by yourself.

This is the fifth myth, the one they name after you, and you alone, the one that gets written down in blood and scratched into cave walls, the one that women see when they look up at the sky and consider trying to live through this and make it to their futures. You stand at the mouth of your own cave, looking out over your own kingdom. You step off the cliff when you feel like it, and you spread your wings and soar. How many times can you be shattered in the toasting, a champagne flute lifted and listing? How many times will you survive, a woman made of her own history, and more than it? How many times can you put your heart back together? As many times as you need to. You can make it through this. That’s what you’ll whisper when they pray to you, asking for ways to leave their own disasters, asking for methods, begging for the lineage of the living.

“You’re bright. You’re quick. What do you want to set your mind to?” What do I want to shut the door on forever, set aside to pursue one thing?

Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’entrate.