Mary: An Awakening of Terror

by Nat Cassidy

What kind of lessons do these buddingly religious townschildren receive, anyway? Are they learning math and biology and reading Anne of Green Gables?

Naught for nothing. For no thing is what I am.

They’re not these people anymore. They’re something new. Something changed. What’s important is they were seen and acknowledged.

I have a brief, incomprehensible memory of a movie many years ago about a poor boy whose hands were blades and who began to find success with topiary—seems too strange to be real, but that’s the first connection my brain makes to what’s happening now. Only Renate isn’t trimming a hedgerow to look like an animal, she’s shredding a massive, human man into literal nothingness.

Who am I? I am just a story written in present tense. We all are.

We are never finished.

I was most inspired to write this book by Carrie, another iconic horror story about menstruation … also written by a cis dude.

A second puberty? This time while navigating bills and adult responsibilities and relationships? That shit’s intense, and it deserves some goddamn honor and respect.