Jekyll2023-11-14T20:30:23+00:00https://firesidefiction.com/feed.xmlFireside MagazineFireside Fiction Company has two goals: to find and publish great stories regardless of genre, and to pay our writers and artists well.
If Wishes Were Obfuscation Codes and Other Stories2023-05-16T06:01:00+00:002023-05-16T06:01:00+00:00https://firesidefiction.com/book/if-wishes-were-obfuscation-codes<p><em>If Wishes Were Obfuscation Codes and Other Stories</em> is available now.</p>
<h3 id="description">Description</h3>
<p>“Electric Resurrection. Born again perfection. The six-zero correction.”</p>
<p>For the last decade, Malon Edwards has been spinning out a world where humans have conquered death but still haven’t bothered to take care of the living. Where resurrection is the ultimate commodity—if you’re rich enough, powerful enough, and white enough to buy in.</p>
<p><em>If Wishes Were Obfuscation Codes and Other Stories</em> collects 10 cyberpunk dispatches, including a brand-new, epic rap novella. On offer is a guided tour of an independent Chicago, a beacon of Black excellence that is done with the ever-hostile State of Illinois showing its ass.</p>
<p>Your guides are a little rough around the edges: hackers and assassins, thieves and grieving parents, elders and teenagers. Don’t fret. These people will take good care of you, so long as you mind yourself.</p>
<p>Welcome to the Sovereign State of Chicago.</p>
<h3 id="start-reading">Start reading!</h3>
<p>One of the most exciting things about <em>If Wishes Were Obfuscation Codes and Other Stories</em> is “Code Switching,” an epic rap novella that Fireside is publishing for the first time. It’s the story of Jean-Michel, a high school football player who would be destined for stardom, if he wasn’t about to die. The thing is, in a world where Electric Resurrection has conquered death, he doesn’t have to pass on… if he’s willing to accept a few conditions. <a href="https://preview.mailerlite.io/emails/webview/389785/97856278024423127">You can read the first chapter for free.</a></p>
<p>Sarah Gailey’s <em>Stone Soup</em> newsletter published Malon’s brand-new story <a href="https://stone-soup.ghost.io/blackout-and-white-space/">“Blackout, White Space”</a> in July. It’s an intimate look into the alt-Chicago world of <em>If Wishes Were Obfuscation Codes and Other Stories</em>. It’s not included in the collection, but it’s a great taste of Malon’s writing and storytelling.</p>
<h3 id="praise-for-the-collection">Praise for the collection</h3>
<p>“It’s an ambitious, inventive and energetic project. … Edwards has much to reveal about voices, ventriloquism and the sly potential of terms like “code switching” — but always in sideways glimpses.”</p>
<p>—<em><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/13/books/review/new-sci-fi-fantasy-books.html?unlocked_article_code=h8A1agzMId--bXlqmJAopKxGqAA0NzgmgZvlNoj_y6o1bs-SWn1odIvqck-6e7-6E1FWMeNkXeVzBaSGQzFkLsBpNTZ2ePo7WYz4Fg_P2i83FOcq1NhYrFUd96f1HHY3DuSXZZD9RGdlUUDnFHx_CpeMoAtKrQLNflRuA4vpX1XwCRR8r53_xfegFGdz2MMwur_D5YWIolPbTQzg0dELQ14qitFQ6A6B5s85rGVnAbFtmKbHNWHyPUB2-pb0Fc5t82-fcysGRnkx-u6rdfWhGJDUyR9RjZ-nlQv-TKwuC8s7SRf4OsdtJGRuaUpOhRHmoSOsO3RjNsxvS1518efUM8Dvff23KUM&smid=url-share">Amal El-Mohtar in The New York Times Sunday Book Review</a></em></p>
<p>“Whatever you’re expecting, it’s not that. This collection is intense and vivid, both in terms of tone and content. … Edwards plays with narrative structure in some really interesting ways, as well. These stories have the traditional dialogue and description format, but also veer into the strange, the unusual, the techy.”</p>
<p>—<em><a href="https://bookjockeyalex.com/2023/09/12/review-if-wishes-were-obfuscation-codes-and-other-stories-by-malon-edwards/#more-9408">Alexandria Brown in Punk-Ass Book Jockey</a></em></p>
<p>“This is a grand, dark, twisted, and visceral deep dive into Malon Edwards’s cyberpunk future. It’s out in September and it’s a great read from start to finish.”</p>
<p>—<em><a href="https://maria-is-reading.blogspot.com/2023/06/my-sci-fi-fantasy-horror-short-fiction.html">Maria Haskins, who chose the collection as Preorder pick of the month</a></em></p>
<p>“If Wishes Were Obfuscation Codes is an inventive, surreal, and disorienting collection. It implores and challenges — rich with real people having real experiences in a yet-to-be alt-Chicago.</p>
<p>“It’s the type of collection that isn’t in a hurry to reveal itself. You think you know how it will come together, but you’re wrong. And Edwards gives us plenty to tease out and chew on in the interim.</p>
<p>“These stories are laden with ideas, but readers are grounded by the nuance and texture of carefully, earnestly drawn characters. We meet a gynoid on her prom night. Infatuated, sentient bodysuits. Bloodthirsty parents. And so much more.</p>
<p>“This captivating collection asks difficult questions, driving at the heart of what it means to live. Edwards brings his reader on a journey like no other. Strap in and suit up — it’s a wild ride.”</p>
<p>—<em><a href="https://shannonterrell.com">Shannon Terrell</a>, author of The Guest House</em></p>
<p>“If Wishes Were Obfuscation Codes brings us deep into a world that Edwards has been building for years, a steampunk future where gynoid replacements of loved ones are sparingly doled out by corporate interests.</p>
<p>“The stories form a kaleidoscopic look at grief, love, community, and privilege. Edwards’ fine-grained worldbuilding opens space for both love stories and horror stories, dystopias and punk-edged urban rebellions. Every angle poses new questions and suggests different conclusions, each one rich with Edwards’ particular brand of Haitian-Chicagoian Afrofuturist society. The end result doesn’t feel like a short story collection; it feels like a picture being described by a dozen strangers, each with their own view, and the results are beautiful.”</p>
<p>—<em><a href="https://twitter.com/CharlotteAshley">Charlotte Ashley</a></em></p>
<h3 id="about-the-author">About the Author</h3>
<p>Born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, Malon (MAY-lon) now lives in the Greater Toronto Area, where he was lured by his beautiful Canadian wife. Many of his short stories are set in an alt-Chicago future and feature people of color. In January 2020, he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. His brain lesions do their best to stop him from writing, but he continues to fight them—and keep going.</p>
<h3 id="the-team-that-pulled-it-all-together">The team that pulled it all together</h3>
<p><strong>Copy editor</strong>: Sydnee Thompson</p>
<p><strong>Proofreader</strong>: Johanie Martinez Cools</p>
<p><strong>Book designer</strong>: CreativeJay</p>
<p><strong>Cover illustrator</strong>: Alexxander Dovelin</p>
<p><strong>Cover designer</strong>: Frank Cvetkovic</p>Malon EdwardsIf Wishes Were Obfuscation Codes and Other Stories is available now.Grits, Goblins, and Good Times2022-09-20T06:00:01+00:002022-09-20T06:00:01+00:00https://firesidefiction.com/grits-goblins-and-good-times<p><em>Attention, dear reader: This is a love story, complete with grown folks’ business. This is not for the kids. But there is also a moral to this story, a cautionary tale for the young and the young-at-heart alike. Listen carefully, and be thee forewarned.</em></p>
<hr />
<p>On a typical day, the hungry will enter the old kitchen with a need that cannot be sated by mere physical sustenance, their souls growling like empty bellies churning with acids that have set upon the flesh. The old Cook can hear these growls even before she sees the person, the bubbles and groans speaking to her in a language requiring a higher cognition to comprehend. With her cookbook as her cipher, she’ll tie back salt and pepper coils, squint through spectacles slipping down her round nose, and flip pages until she finds the remedy. This is more ritual than necessity, for everything in that cookbook has been committed to memory and modified to perfection ages ago. She’ll be cooking before the sustenance-seeker steps through the threshold and into her kitchen. After eighty years in this warm magical place, a stomach growl speaks louder than a human tongue.</p>
<p>Today is no different, in that regard.</p>
<p>Today, like every day, the old Cook can be found sitting in the old kitchen, in a new house, in the middle of a neighborhood in transition — a concrete landscape dotted with corner stores and check cashers gradually uprooted by gourmet coffee shops and hot-yoga studios. The air, once filled with the warm scents of cornbread and adobo, of collards and curry, now smells of oat milk and unseasoned chicken. The sounds of bachata and hip-hop are suppressed by noise complaints and the occasional blasts of Journey.</p>
<p>Now, this old kitchen cannot be seen from the street — or, for that matter, by the natural eye. But scents of comfort and curing map the way. It is hidden deep in the back, with its soot-covered hearth and wood-burning stove. An ancient ice box rattles against the wall, keeping eggs and dairy cool. Cast iron pots and dried herbs dangle from brick walls. Scents of rosemary, cinnamon, basil, and garlic mingle in the most delightful way. In a small dark corner closet hangs salted meats and sausage — some dried and jerked, others raw and awaiting hot oil and the skillet. Colorful jars of preserves and pickles sit on pantry shelves. Containers of sugars and spices clutter the table and counters. The sun pierces lazily through the warped glass of the kitchen’s old windows, filling the room with a muted, warm yellow glow. Every item, including Cook herself, is a throwback to ages long gone.</p>
<p>Through the kitchen is a back door that leads to a lush garden concealed by drooping trees and a high metal fence. A stream, running from nowhere, feeds vegetation with clear, cool waters. The tops of turnips, onions, carrots, and beets burst forth from rich soil and blankets of soft green moss. Grapevines twist lazily around silver trellises. Trees dip heavily with peaches, pears, and apples. Pecans and walnuts litter the ground. It is all seasons in this yard, fall and spring harvests co-mingling. Butterflies and blue jays flutter through the haze of dawn, and fireflies dance to the chirps of cicadas at dusk. A hammock swings between two trees, and that is where you can find Cook when she isn’t in her kitchen.</p>
<p>She heads there now, to cuddle her cat and rest her eyes.</p>
<p>Mister Chauncey keeps the house up front, coming and going in the guise of a harmless old man, hunched over and shuffling to conceal his impressive six-foot-five height and ageless physique. Goblin features — pointed ears, yellow eyes, crooked nose, and green-tinted brown skin — are obscured beneath dark shades, a derby hat, and his one indulgence of expensive tailored suits with spit-shined Italian leather wingtips. Ever the aristocrat, he moves with an air of nobility, confident in his superiority over just about all things.</p>
<p>Cook hears the heavy front door open and close, and she knows he has returned from some goblin excursion or another, no doubt discarding his disguise before relaxing in the front parlor. He’ll come on back when he’s ready. Mister Chauncey doesn’t much care for the smoke and chaos of the kitchen, which serves Cook just fine. He often carries the sourness of the outside world, and its bitterness taints her meals. This is the reason she rarely leaves the kitchen herself and delegates the out-worldly stuff to him, his constitution being steelier than her own.</p>
<p>But when things are right with Mister Chauncey — Cook smiles to herself as she recalls — he’ll take a seat at her wooden kitchen table, and she’ll serve him a plate. She’ll dish white corn grits boiled in seasoned salt, thickened with freshly churned butter, and stirred until the grits stick to her wooden spoon and drip slowly back into the pot. She’ll cut thin slices of cheddar from a cheese brick and stir them into the grits until the white is clouded orange. A cast iron skillet, greased with animal fat and heated to sizzle, will receive the farm fresh eggs, whisked with a little cream cheese until fluffy yellow clouds. She usually keeps the seasoning simple with a pinch of tarragon, a sprinkle of sea salt, and a dash of red pepper flakes. A couple of hot links, seared from the broiler, are set strategically between the grits and eggs, a savory barrier. A thick slice of freshly baked bread, toasted and buttered, is placed lightly on top of the sausage to soak up any excess oil. Plating complete, she’ll place it down in front of Mister Chauncey with a cup of strong black coffee flavored with notes of hazelnut, cardamom, and clove.</p>
<p>Like foreplay, Mister Chauncey will take his time mixing the grits with the scrambled eggs, then add a dash of homemade hot pepper sauce for a little extra kick. Cook will watch as he lifts fork to full lips and a delicate tongue capable of tasting the most subtle flavors — her arousal growing with each bite her lover takes. He’ll taste, chew, and swallow, then grimace like it’s not good. But Cook knows that’s a lie, because he’ll wink and continue to eat.</p>
<p>Goblins just like to pick.</p>
<p>It doesn’t take too many forkfuls before Mister Chauncey will rise with a full belly but a persistent hunger. He’ll pull down those expensive trousers and bend Cook over that wooden table. She’ll quickly slip out of her drawers and he into her, Mister Chauncey moaning obscenities and declarations of love alike, his stamina and skill unmatched by any mortal man, his syrup precious nectar for her cakes and pies. Cook feeds off of his magic and Mister Chauncey from her passion, giving them both a vitality that has endured for almost a century and will last a century more.</p>
<p>This kitchen knows love. And it is that hunger that Cook can fill best. Not surprisingly, lovers are frequent patrons of her kitchen.</p>
<p>Today is no different, in that regard. Two lovers approach now.</p>
<hr />
<p>The doorbell rings, and a harmony of organ pipes plays throughout the house, their echo reaching into the magical little garden. Cook is shaken from daydreams of new recipes and scents to lure Mister Chauncey back into the kitchen. She sits up in her garden hammock and listens as he grumbles and shuffles begrudgingly to answer the door. The massive metal and wooden gateway to a new world creaks with the resistance of magic against reality. Mister Chauncey forces it ajar. Cook senses two magic-struck patrons, both their stomachs growling a deep hollow sound. She almost feels the rancid gas traveling like lightning through their groins to settle uncomfortably in their bellies. She hears their hunger as clearly as her own voice.</p>
<p>“Oohhh,” she cries in empathy and heads mission-bound into the kitchen. “These babies need a meal!”</p>
<p>Muffled words are exchanged with Mister Chauncey. Goblins prefer payment in gold, and although a half-breed, Mister Chauncey is no different. Cook hears the gentle clink of jewelry dropped into a glass jar.</p>
<p>“That’s all you got?” Mister Chauncy clicks his tongue in disapproval. It is enough, but Mister Chauncey grumbles that it is not.</p>
<p>Goblins just like to pick.</p>
<p>After a few tense moments, he relents. “Alright, then. Come on back.”</p>
<p>Cook hears murmurs of thanks, and so much more. These two lovers are holding on to memories of passion-flavors grown stale and tasteless. If left untreated, their emotions will mold and become toxic. She puts on hot water for the grits.</p>
<p>These young lovers need a binding.</p>
<p>Mister Chauncey enters the kitchen first, the couple fidgeting nervously behind him. Unbothered, he leans in the threshold, taking a moment to admire his lover with those piercing golden eyes.</p>
<p>Although the years have been kind to her youthful deep brown skin, Cook knows that her body has changed. Her hips are fuller and press against her cotton skirts, her round breasts stretch the silk of her blouses, and her stomach creases with gentle ripples of flesh. Now her body sways when she moves, a study of angles and curves as she glides from stove to ice box to cupboards. Mister Chauncey watches her with a mischievous smirk. Cook throws him a wink. The goblin licks his lips with a low hungry growl that sends shivers up her spine. Cook wonders how she got so lucky to find this love. What she doesn’t know is that Mister Chauncey wonders the same.</p>
<p>“Hey, Cookie,” he purrs, biting his bottom lip.</p>
<p>“Hey, Cey.” She suppresses a girlish giggle. He looks good enough to eat in those shiny shoes and pleated pants. She makes a note to set aside a pot of grits for him later. She’ll make him keep the shoes on tonight.</p>
<p>“‘Cey,’ is it?” asks a masculine voice from behind the goblin.</p>
<p>“Mister Chauncey to you, boy,” the goblin sneers.</p>
<p>Apologies muttered, Mister Chauncey reluctantly steps aside to allow the couple to enter the kitchen. Cook turns to greet the hungry lovers — a Black man, almost as tall as Mister Chauncey but wider from fast foods that cannot fill his void, and a tiny white woman with unnatural auburn hair that looks like fire against her pale skin. She is frail and — from the scent of it — anemic, her soul hunger eating away at her body. These two found one another, but neither has given the other what they need. Their hunger has simply dug too deep.</p>
<p>Cook intends to fix that.</p>
<p>“Hello,” she greets them with a warm, sympathetic smile. “You can call me Cook.”</p>
<p>“That’s a little on the nose,” the young woman chuckles nervously.</p>
<p>“My surname was Cooke with an <em>E</em>. That was ages ago. Guess I fell into the role. What do I call you?”</p>
<p>“Marcus.” The young Black man steps forward, holding his hand out to Chauncey and then to Cook. Both stare at his open palm until he drops it awkwardly to his side. “Uh, this is Lizzie.”</p>
<p>“Welcome, Marcus and Lizzie,” Cook says and means it. She likes her kitchen full. “How did you find us?”</p>
<p>“We smelled the food,” Lizzie struggles to explain, “from the street. It felt like we needed to come here to… to… eat, I guess.”</p>
<p>“Indeed, you do.” Cook gestures for them to sit. “You’re practically starving. Please make yourself at home. Mister Chauncey will pour you some peppermint tea while I prepare you a special meal.”</p>
<p>“I don’t like peppermint,” Lizzie whines. “It reminds me of being sick.”</p>
<p>Cook frowns. <em>Baby, you are sick,</em> she thinks, but instead says with strained patience, “Chamomile, then.”</p>
<p>Lizzie nods with a grateful smile. She and Marcus take a seat at the large kitchen table, their wide eyes anxious and questioning.</p>
<p>“I don’t really understand how or why we’re here,” Marcus says to no one in particular.</p>
<p>“Shush,” Lizzie scolds. “I’m hungry.”</p>
<p>Cook and Mister Chauncey exchange a concerned glance.</p>
<p>“That ginger smell like succubus to you?” Cook whispers to her lover.</p>
<p>Mister Chauncey’s eyes narrow, and he sniffs the air. “If it’s there, it’s far down the line. She’s just a tad demanding, and him not demanding enough. Give them some cake and throw their asses out. Now that I’m in this kitchen, I’m feeling a bit peckish myself. Woman, you look like a meal.” He pulls her close.</p>
<p>Cook playfully pushes him away. “Cake won’t fix this. They deserve the same chance we had.” She pushes the empty tea kettle against his chest. “Now make yourself useful if you’re going to stay in my kitchen.”</p>
<p>Mister Chauncey shrugs and grabs the kettle to fill it with water. Cook stuffs dried chamomile leaf and orange peel into small metal infusers. Eventually they find themselves side-by-side at the stove. Chauncey nudges his lover to get her attention.</p>
<p>“Did you make this?” he asks, sticking a long brown fingernail into a pot of homemade jam. He slowly licks it off.</p>
<p>Cook rolls her eyes. <em>Goblins are about as subtle as a blow to the head.</em> “You know I’ve touched every edible thing in this kitchen.” She picked those wild grapes herself from the vine in the garden, boiling and seasoning them with sugar and pectin made from apple scraps. Of course, he knows this, but goblins like to pick.</p>
<p>“Every edible thing?” He pulls her toward him. “Touched by you?” He runs his sticky finger across her plump lips. Cook savors the salty taste of her lover’s skin laced with the sweet stickiness of jam.</p>
<p>Mister Chauncey slips behind her and wraps his arms tightly around her thick waist, his warm body pressing into hers. He blows hot breath into his lover’s ear and whispers, “I need you.”</p>
<p>Cook glances over her shoulder at the young couple, who watch them with longing. Mister Chauncey follows her gaze and smiles devilishly. “Let’s show them what they’re missing.” He flips her around and kisses Cook deeply, his full lips and forked tongue twisting and massaging.</p>
<p>Cook does not want to pull away. Her lover smells of citrus and tastes of ripe fruit juice warmed in midday sun. She drinks greedily as she feels Mister Chauncey rising against her. The whistle of the tea kettle breaks their spell, and they reluctantly pull apart.</p>
<p>“How did you meet?” Lizzie asks, envy dripping from each word.</p>
<p>“She made me a meal,” Chauncey replies. “It was the worst I’d ever tasted. I was offended, really, but she did not care. Then I realized that I wanted her to care.”</p>
<p>“So, he wooed me until I could no longer see a life without him,” Cook adds.</p>
<p>“Nor I without her.”</p>
<p>“And my cooking became better.”</p>
<p>“One might say almost magical.”</p>
<p>“And how did you two meet?” Cook returns the question as Chauncey sets two delicate cups of tea before the couple.</p>
<p>“Coach wanted me to take yoga,” Marcus explains. “I am — I <em>was</em> — a semi-pro football player in Europe. Lizzie was the yoga instructor.”</p>
<p>“An athlete, huh?” Mister Chauncey raises an eyebrow at Marcus’s soft girth.</p>
<p>“Former athlete,” Marcus corrects. “I had a career-ending injury. Guess the yoga wasn’t enough.”</p>
<p>“Apparently not,” jeers the goblin.</p>
<p>Cook pinches him.</p>
<p>“I support him now,” Lizzie chimes in a little too eagerly. “Family money. I really don’t mind….” Her voice trails off.</p>
<p>“Okay, then.” Cook nods and adds a little more seasoning salt and butter to the grits.</p>
<p>“Hmm. It’s got to be hard not having your own money,” Chauncey says with an impassive tone. “I’d imagine a bit emasculating, being a kept man and all. Of course, I myself am only half-man, but the other half is far superior. You are not so fortunate, though. I’m curious — what does that feel like?”</p>
<p>Cook frowns as Marcus stutters a non-response. Mister Chauncey is baiting him. He can’t even help himself. This is the sourness she doesn’t need in her kitchen.</p>
<p>“Baby, pay him no mind,” Cook comforts Marcus. “There are all kinds of partnerships.” She sets down a plate of flaky biscuits and pushes jars of jellies, syrup, sugar, and cinnamon towards the couple before leaning in close to explain, “Sugar, like infatuation, is fleeting. It cannot sustain the passion necessary for true love. It will burn off from its own heat, and you will be left empty before you can forget you were once full. But enjoy this li’l sweet now while I whip up something more enduring.”</p>
<p>Marcus and Lizzie immediately dig into the biscuits, and Cook casts another disapproving glare at Mister Chauncey. The half-goblin throws up his hands in mock surrender and takes a seat on the hearth. He stretches his long limbs before crossing his legs and leaning back on his elbows in one elegant motion. He puckers his lips and blows Cook a kiss.</p>
<p>Cook rolls her eyes. <em>Give a goblin some looks and a little height, and they are intolerable</em>. “Why are you still in my kitchen?” she asks him.</p>
<p>“Cuz I have something for you when you’re done.”</p>
<p>Cook pretends to pay him no mind, but the sooner she can take care of this couple, the sooner Mister Chauncey can take care of her. She pushes a couple of hot links into the broiler and risks a glance over her shoulder at Chauncey. They lock eyes as he bites his bottom lip again.</p>
<p>Cook fans herself with a dish towel. “Good lawd, this creature.”</p>
<hr />
<p>Marcus and Lizzie look up eagerly from empty plates with crumb-littered lips. Cook turns to see Marcus reach for Lizzie’s hand and squeeze tightly. Cook smiles to herself. She’s become quite the conjurer over the years. The sweetness of the biscuits won’t last for long, but it will give them the spark that they’ve been missing.</p>
<p>“Tell him why you love him,” she encourages.</p>
<p>Lizzie leans her forehead against Marcus’s and unloads her heart in a hushed whisper meant only for lovers’ ears. When she is done, Marcus begins.</p>
<p>Mister Chauncey scoffs.</p>
<p>He is a distracting presence. <em>I wish he’d leave until I’m through.</em> Cook glares at him but continues with her conjure. She sets the grits to simmer and turns to the skillet to crack and scramble the eggs. The spicy aroma from the oven tells her the hot links are almost ready. From the corner of her eye, she watches Marcus and Lizzie kiss. It is a shallow, polite kiss, but it is a start. She hums to herself as she sets the coffee to percolating and begins to plate.</p>
<p>“Shoot,” she says to herself, “I forgot the cheddar.” She quickly cuts thin slices of cheese on top of the hot grits.</p>
<p>“Something not right about those two.” Cook jumps at the sound of Mister Chauncey standing directly behind her. Damn Goblin shadow steps!</p>
<p>“Succubus?” she asks again.</p>
<p>“No. Why do you keep saying that?”</p>
<p>“Maybe it’s the red hair.” Cook shrugs. “Anyway, money has a way of wedging between lovers. If they can check their egos and ignore the outside world, they’ll have a chance. I’m going to remind them of why they found one other in the first place.”</p>
<p>Mister Chauncey shakes his head. “They don’t deserve you.”</p>
<p>“<em>You</em> don’t deserve me,” Cook jokes.</p>
<p>“That much is true,” Mister Chauncey agrees, “but I’ll live forever trying.”</p>
<p>Cook bumps him playfully with her hip as she switches past, carrying two plates laden with food. She sets the plates quietly before Lizzie and Marcus, who remain engrossed in one another.</p>
<p><em>Best not to disturb them and let the conjure do its work,</em> Cook decides and backs away to rejoin Mister Chauncey by the stove. He’s already dipping his finger into the pot of hot grits and slowly licking them off.
“You with the finger and the licking.” Cook slaps his hand away. “This conjure is not for me and you.”</p>
<p>Without a word, Mister Chauncey pulls her to him and buries his head into her soft coils. Cook knows he is smelling coconut oil and lemon, intoxicating scents to his sensitive nose. The appetites they inspire will need to be sated soon. Cook wraps her arms around his waist as he rubs her neck, shoulders, and back, his hands sliding down to the roundness of her hips — massaging, grasping. She releases a soft moan, silenced almost immediately by Mister Chauncey’s lips. The world quickly drops away until it is but the two of them in this kitchen.</p>
<p>“Is this cheese?” Cook does not hear Lizzie groan. “You know I don’t do dairy.”</p>
<p>“It’s not melted yet. Just scrap it off, babe,” Marcus advises.</p>
<p>“Plain grits are like eating cardboard.” Lizzie reaches for a jar of sugar and a shaker of cinnamon.</p>
<p>“I wouldn’t do that,” Marcus cautions.</p>
<p>“Why? She wants us to enjoy the food. It’d be rude not to eat it.”</p>
<p>Marcus nods slowly. “Yeah, I guess. To be honest, I prefer sweet grits too.”</p>
<p>“See?” Lizzie smiles as she scrapes the cheese off the top of the grits and stirs cinnamon and sugar into the corn mixture. She takes a large, satisfying bite before offering a forkful to Marcus. He hesitates, but only for a moment, before opening wide and tasting the sweet concoction for himself. They both moan with delight.</p>
<p>“This is good.” Marcus digs his fork into Lizzie’s plate for another taste.</p>
<p>Mister Chauncey looks up casually from biting Cook’s neck and freezes as he watches Lizzie sprinkle sugar over the grits on Marcus’s plate. “Oh shit.”</p>
<p>“What?” Cook follows his gaze to the couple and gasps in horror.</p>
<p>“Oh shit,” Mister Chauncey repeats. He backs away from Cook. “For the record, I never liked these two.”</p>
<p>Cook steadies herself against the counter as the room turns red and begins to spin. “HOW DARE YOU!” She stomps towards the couple, her voice deeper now, rising from some ancient well of rage that reverberates off the kitchen walls. “You disrespectful, ungrateful little beasts!”</p>
<p>A startled Lizzie pushes back from the table, a fork of sugar grits still dangling from her lips. Marcus immediately stands, his athlete’s reflexes ready for fight or flight.</p>
<p>“You really shouldn’t have done that.” Mister Chauncey’s voice is filled with amusement. “There’s disrespect, and then there’s <em>sugar in grits</em>. Holy shit, kids, you done fucked up now.” His smile widens, the sharpened edges of goblin teeth fully visible.</p>
<p>“I CURSE YOU!” Spittle flies from Cook’s mouth. “I curse you with a suffocating loneliness that will swallow your remaining moments of life in a haze of dark despair! You will feel nothing but emptiness and pain as your flesh is torn from your bones, and your ability to love is consumed like watered-down syrup, burned away as quickly as the sugar that you use to taint my grits! Your souls will wander aimlessly in search of a fullness that will be forever denied. I name you Agony and Despair, and that is all you shall know.”</p>
<p>“I’m lactose intolerant,” Lizzie cries.</p>
<p>“My god! It’s only sugar, lady!” Marcus shouts as he protectively pushes Lizzie against the wall.</p>
<p>Cook reaches for the pot of hot grits on the stove. Mister Chauncey swats her hand away and places a kitchen hatchet in it instead, goblins being handy in a brawl. Cook nods in thanks and growls, “You want to act like animals? Well, welcome to the slaughterhouse!”</p>
<p>“This neighborhood is going to shit,” Mister Chauncey says to his lover.</p>
<p>“It really is,” Cook agrees.</p>
<p>Together, they pounce.</p>
<hr />
<p><em>Dear reader: Today things went a little differently. The moral of this story? There are many reasons not to put sugar on grits, but being butchered by a witch and her goblin lover is a big one.</em></p>
<hr />
<p><strong>Epilogue</strong></p>
<p>“Well, that was unfortunate,” Cook sighs, breaking the silence.</p>
<p>The grits have hardened in the pot, and the animal fat has congealed in the skillet. The setting sun fills the kitchen with a blinding orange light as the cat licks bits of Lizzie and Marcus off the floor. Mister Chauncey finishes salting the meat while Cook wipes down the kitchen floor and counters. They both drip with sweat and blood.</p>
<p>“Was it?” Mister Chauncey asks, hooking the last chunk of meat in the corner closet. “This suit has certainly seen better days.” He wipes bloodied hands against the rich wool. “At least we got fresh meat.”</p>
<p>“I lost my temper.” Cook’s voice is filled with remorse.</p>
<p>“You did,” Chauncey agrees. “You sure you don’t have a little goblin in you?”</p>
<p>“I really did want to help them.”</p>
<p>“I know, Cookie.” Mister Chauncey wraps his lover in a comforting embrace. “But not everyone is worthy of a love as powerful as ours.”</p>
<p>Cook rests her head on his chest as he rocks her gently. But the adrenaline and blood are a heady blend. Mister Chauncey’s hands and lips begin to explore her blood-soiled flesh. Their caresses grow more frantic. Growls and snarls escape from them both as they tear clothing from each other.</p>
<p>Cook gazes down into her lover’s brilliant golden eyes as he kneels before her naked body, kissing below her navel and gently parting her thighs. She grabs the back of his head as that talented forked tongue finds her sweet middle and digs in with a ravenous yet controlled zeal. She is always feeding this creature, and it is always a delight.</p>
<p>The familiar harmony of organ pipes rings through the house. A hungry patron stands at the threshold, but for now, Cook and Mister Chauncey give in to their own hunger. Once again, they lose themselves in one another, but this time writhing on a bloody kitchen floor, giving and receiving pleasure through all manner of pose and position, filling one another up as only old familiar lovers can do. Praises to ancient gods, declarations of love, and the blaspheme of obscenities fill the air. The entire kitchen shakes. There is rumor of earthquakes in Brooklyn that day.</p>
<p>It is hours before their hunger is quenched and they finally part, rising from that kitchen floor sticky and glowing from one another. Cook heads to the garden and Mister Chauncey to the front of the house. It may be days before they meet again, each living full lives apart. But theirs is a love as savory and fortifying as a plate of sausage, eggs, and cheese grits.</p>w-c-dunlapAttention, dear reader: This is a love story, complete with grown folks’ business. This is not for the kids. But there is also a moral to this story, a cautionary tale for the young and the young-at-heart alike. Listen carefully, and be thee forewarned.Recipe2022-09-13T06:00:01+00:002022-09-13T06:00:01+00:00https://firesidefiction.com/recipe<p><em>Makes one reluctant vampire hunter.</em></p>
<p><strong>Ingredients:</strong></p>
<p> 1 desperate jobseeker</p>
<p> 4 YouTube videos on cooking with tomato sauce</p>
<p> 2 fire alarms, batteries not included</p>
<p> 1 friend willing to smuggle blood</p>
<p> 4 cloves garlic</p>
<p> 1 gallon expired holy water</p>
<p><strong>Directions:</strong></p>
<p>Take philosophy classes until you question the meaning of life but are no closer to a job. Find an unpaid internship at a newspaper funded by a doomsday cult and write articles on missing werewolves in the neighborhood. When the cult leader vanishes and the paper folds, add in a dash of desperation as your checking account falls to double digits. Mix in your sister’s vampire ex-girlfriend who knows an aunt who knows a cousin in need of a personal chef. Marinate in the YouTube videos for the interview, where you prepare a meal for an old vampire lady with Victorian fashion sensibilities who compliments the wolf on your old band shirt. Botch the steak, but tell her the smoke is for adding extra umami to the O+ blood. Be thankful she doesn’t have a sense of smell and that you disabled the fire alarms in advance.</p>
<p>Somehow get the job, which comes with no 401(k) or health insurance but pays better than the newspaper. When your new boss tells you never to open the pantry, nod along because you don’t want to lose your job. When she complains O-type blood is bland, search for new recipes and beg your friend for some AB instead. When the AB gets old too, throw your hands up and ask your friends what else vampires like. Watch them shrug, because what else do vampires like besides bloody steak?</p>
<p>Check the spice rack; randomly add in thyme and sauces with long technical names like “hemoglobin.” When there are no condiments left, realize your only choice is to open the pantry and figure out what your boss likes. Discover the pantry door is locked, find a video tutorial, and pick the lock with a bobby pin borrowed from your roommate. Open the imposing meat fridge inside, and lo and behold, find the <em>WEREWOLF</em> label. Scream because you didn’t sign up to work for a serial killer and only wanted to make ends meet, not to be dinner.</p>
<p>The next day, return with elephant garlic and Craigslist holy water. Cook today’s steak with as much of both as possible, and again be thankful that your boss can’t smell the garlic as you plate her steak with edible flowers. When her shrill screams fade, stay calm and find the phone number for the National Vampire Hunters’ Association. Worry about moving back in with your werewolf mother, who will say that she warned you kids not to get mixed up with vampires.</p>
<p>When the hunters come to collect evidence and offer you a full-time job as a contractor, though there’s no health insurance or 401(k) if you’re not full-time, tell them you’d rather not, since you’re planning on going back to school for that philosophy PhD anyway.</p>tina-s-zhuMakes one reluctant vampire hunter.Bite2022-09-06T06:00:01+00:002022-09-06T06:00:01+00:00https://firesidefiction.com/bite<p>Lily is too pretty a name for a girl like that. Lily-White, Lily-Pure, Lily-Innocent, lovely, do-no-wrong. <em>This</em> Lily should have been named Roxie or Regina or Priscilla. Something to warn you when she enters your classroom. To tell you exactly what kind of problems she’s going to cause.</p>
<p>The walls of the school turned her into a wild thing, a feral mountain creature that slept in caves and hunted other girls from the shadows. Lily. Not Lily-of-the-Valley. Not Lily-Plucked-from-the-Garden-and-Potted-Perfectly-in-the-Windowsill. Lily, as in the color of her fangs.</p>
<hr />
<p>I try to be optimistic on the first day of school. Or, at least, I try to look it. If I look it, the girls might treat me and one another with a little decency, at least while they’re in my classroom. They’re not bad kids, just mean. No one knows how to spit vitriol like a fourteen-year-old girl. All those raging hormones and change going on in their young lives.</p>
<p>The girls meander in. Each one is prim and proper. School is a show, a pageant where the girls compete, trying to outshine the others stuck in the same uniform, the winners decided by smooth and silky eyeliner, streamlined eyebrows, glittering white teeth. They come in chattering like a flock of flamingos, and they pay me no mind. One girl comes in, and she’s completely silent. She’s a couple of inches shorter than the others, with smooth dark-brown hair that strays out from behind her ears. There’s a white glint in her black eyes, like that of a shark. The girls take their seats, and I put my sweetest smile on my face.</p>
<p>“Hello, girls. My name is Ms. Hale, and I’m so excited to be your history teacher this year. To start off, I’d like each of you to create a nametag so I can get to know you. You can be as creative as you’d like, as long as it’s legible.” I hold up the one I made with my name. “Something like this.”</p>
<p>Slowly, as if the whole thing were terribly draining, the nametags go up one by one. Rosalie. Caroline. Jeanie. Trinity. Piper. Two Kates. Mallory.</p>
<p>The shorter girl with the dark hair crumples the paper up into a ball. She perches it on the end of her desk. Her name is scrawled awkwardly on the side of the ball, the letters forming a shape like a tiger’s grin. Lily.</p>
<p>My stomach flips, and it’s harder to hold my smile. I don’t want to let this child know I’m scared. First rule of teaching teenagers: You can’t let them know they scare you. I resist the urge to clear my throat. “Thank you, everyone. There seems to be a lot of creativity in this class, and I’m excited to see what you’ll do this year. For this first month, we’ll be studying the Enlightenment, then moving on to the French Revolution, and the American Revolution—”</p>
<p>Lily shoots up, slamming her open palms on the desk. “Ms. Hale, we did all of this! We learned all of this last year. Aren’t we going to learn anything new?”</p>
<p>A light snickering flits through the room. I smile at Lily. “That’s a great question, Lily. You may have studied these events before, but most likely not in the level of detail we’re going to be discussing them in now, and—”</p>
<p>“What about what <em>we</em> want to learn? <em>I</em> want to learn about the Egyptian queens and pharaohs and the Vikings, not a bunch of old dudes in wigs.”</p>
<p>“Oh, shut <em>up</em>,” Rosalie says. All the girls giggle. All of them except for Lily.</p>
<p>I purse my lips. “Okay, that’s enough. Those are all wonderful ideas, and maybe we can squeeze in a lesson on those things, but we have to stay on top of the eighth-grade curriculum. Like I was saying, we’ll be focusing on the history of Western civilization, finishing the year off with the U.S. Civil War. Let’s go over the syllabus, then after lunch, I’ll pass out your textbooks….”</p>
<p>When the lunch bell rings, Lily doesn’t follow like a normal girl. She walks quietly behind, her feet barely grazing the floor, and her neck bent low with her eyes on the others’ backs. It looks to me like she’s hunting them.</p>
<hr />
<p>My class is late returning from lunch. I’m unboxing the used textbooks, twenty-two in total, four more than I need this year. It’s three minutes until the bell, and I’m still missing six or seven students. Lily slips into the room and takes her seat, but she’s all alone. I’m getting worried that the rest of them aren’t coming back when two girls come running in, panting, with blotchy red cheeks. Mallory and Jeanie, I think — or maybe Caroline and Jeanie. I’m not sure.</p>
<p>“Ms. Hale! Ms. Hale! She locked Rosalie in the bathroom— She <em>trapped</em> her!”</p>
<p>“Girls! Slow down, please. What happened?”</p>
<p>The girl flicks her eyes back toward Lily. “It was <em>her</em>.”</p>
<p>I look over their heads at Lily. She’s sitting there quietly, looking peacefully out the window at the trees.</p>
<p>I turn back to the girls. “Where is Rosalie now?”</p>
<p>“Kate went to get Mrs. Harrington to get her out. She said she needed <em>pliers</em> to break the padlock,” Mallory — or Caroline — whispered. “Can you imagine what she would’ve done to her? Freak.”</p>
<p>“Girls, please, sit down. I’ll take care of it.”</p>
<p>The girls take their seats as far away from Lily as possible, scooching their desks away from her. I put my hand gently on the corner of Lily’s desk. I’m afraid to touch her.</p>
<p>“Lily, can I speak to you for a moment?”</p>
<p>Lily doesn’t answer, just silently rises to her feet. I walk her outside and shut the door so the others can’t hear.</p>
<p>“The girls say you locked Rosalie in the bathroom. Why would you do that? Did Rosalie do something to you?”</p>
<p>Lily says nothing.</p>
<p>“You can tell me. I want to help.”</p>
<p>Nothing.</p>
<p>“If you’re not going to tell me, I have no choice but to give you detention. This Saturday, 8 a.m.”</p>
<p>Nothing.</p>
<p>“Lily, did you hear me? I said I’m going to have to give you—”</p>
<p>“I heard you.”</p>
<p>And she goes back inside.</p>
<hr />
<p>Every day is more of the same, if not worse. On Tuesday and Wednesday, Lily limits herself to shouting at the other girls “for having stupid ideas” and even me when something “doesn’t make sense.” The girls laugh more openly now. On Thursday, Jeanie comes back from lunch crying so hard I can barely understand what she’s saying. Lily has chopped off huge handfuls of her hair.</p>
<p>I’m sitting on a stool at the far end of the lunchroom, eating a tuna salad sandwich without taking my eyes off the students. Blink and you can miss something. Though I wish I had lunchtime to myself, there are limits to the freedom we can give them. We know what they do with it.</p>
<p>On Sunday afternoons, my mother would go to the sunroom and sit in the windowsill and knit for hours, until my father came home with dinner. My sister and I would be left to ourselves, given free rein of the rest of the house. Those were always the worst days. The house would be quiet, except for the drone of cartoons or the washer. Boredom would set in.</p>
<p>Come here, my sister would say. Bella was older than me, and two years made a world of difference in size back then.</p>
<p>“No,” I would reply. “You’re going to hit me.”</p>
<p>She’d chase me down and sit on me. If she couldn’t pin me down, she’d hit whatever she could reach. My head was always tender from her yanking my hair. She usually left my face alone; it was an unwritten rule that she couldn’t leave a mark. She couldn’t leave proof, because proof would lead to consequences.</p>
<p>I would run quietly to the sunroom. I knew better than to wail or scream. “Bella hit me,” I would whine. Every Sunday, without fail, I would have the same complaint.</p>
<p>My mother never looked up from her knitting. “You look fine to me,” she would say. “You have to learn to let it go. She’s just doing it to rile you up.”</p>
<p>“I know,” I would say. <em>That’s the problem.</em></p>
<p>Caroline struts up to the empty table where Lily crouches over her lunch. Three other girls are beside her. Caroline is all hips in her uniform skirt — she could be sixteen, or even older, if I didn’t already know she’s barely fourteen.</p>
<p>“Look at her. Look at the way she eats,” Caroline says. “Fuckin’ sick, like a damn pig. Don’t you know eating like that will make you fat, dumbass?”</p>
<p>Lily barely looks up. “What’s <em>your</em> excuse?”</p>
<p>Caroline flinches, the movement so slight you might miss it, although I’m sure Lily didn’t. Caroline smooths her skirt over her round hips. “Didn’t your mom teach you not to eat like an animal?”</p>
<p>“Didn’t your mom teach you that fuckin’ with the wrong people will get your teeth knocked out?”</p>
<p>The other girls blanche. But Caroline doesn’t back down. She leans in and sneers, so loudly the whole room can hear. “You’re disgusting, a fuckin’ animal. I heard you <em>ate</em> your mom. Creepy fuckin’ pig.”</p>
<p>Lily lifts herself up, her shoulders poised to pounce.</p>
<p>Another teacher, Mrs. Gertie, steps in. “Caroline, we don’t use language like that. Both of you, sit down and eat your lunch, or you’ll be serving detention for the rest of the semester.”</p>
<p>Caroline turns her back. Lily stares at her from a table away. With her eyes trained to the back of Caroline’s head, Lily sticks her fork deep in her meat patty and rips into it with her teeth.</p>
<hr />
<p>Frankie passes the serving spoon to Lily, who uses it to load her plate with a mountain of Stouffer’s lasagna. It is twice the size of Frankie’s portion — Frankie is too small to eat like she does. Even Father can barely consume what Lily can. He’s stamped that part out of himself. Before Frankie can reach Lily’s age, Father will have stamped it out of him, too. But not Lily.</p>
<p>Lily takes after her mother. What she remembers of her, anyway. It’s been seven years since she passed away. But Iris was powerful, too. She was big like a bull — like a minotaur. She was all-consuming. She wanted her life, and she inhaled it greedily. (“Waste not, want not, darling.”)</p>
<p>There were no tea parties or dollhouses when Lily was young. There were walks in the woods and fishing trips and hours of make-believe. Lily takes fearsome bites. The food is too hot, and whatever taste buds survive the molten morsels are only met with a disappointing blandness. At the end of dinner, she will still be hungry.</p>
<p>“Hold your fork right, Lily. I raised you better than that.”</p>
<p>“Yes, Father.”</p>
<hr />
<p>I squint against the white sunlight and look out at the school yard. I hate being yard monitor. I hate hearing what these girls do to each other, and I hate it even more with Lily in my class. I’m afraid I might have to step into something more serious than teenage name-calling. I’m afraid I might get caught in the crossfire.</p>
<p>I always tried to stay out of my sister’s way. I would play with Barbies in my room or roll around in the grass in the backyard. I learned to be happy that way, and I didn’t bother our mother.</p>
<p>I see my students waltzing aimlessly around the schoolyard. Some throw a basketball back and forth — not competitively, just as something to do with their hands. A couple lean against a bench, their poreless faces pointed at the sun. Caroline, Jeanie, and Mallory laugh and chat as they make their way slowly around the barren soccer field.</p>
<p>My sister always found me. She was always looking for me. She wanted it that way. If she could have, she would have ground my body into dust. If she could have, she would have buried me alive in the backyard, stomping ruthlessly on my wrists and my stomach as she piled the dirt into my mouth. I think she would have liked to have been an only child.</p>
<p>I see Lily emerge from the fence line, but I am too far away to do anything. She moves silently, with the speed of a predator, and buries her teeth into the place where Caroline’s neck meets her shoulder.</p>
<hr />
<p>Caroline had to be carried to the nurse’s office, then driven up the road to the emergency room. Mrs. Gertie said she needed ten stitches.</p>
<p>I lean against my desk. My knuckles are white from clenching the edge of the wooden board. I almost feel like I could swipe it off with one move, but I don’t test it.</p>
<p>There’s a knock at my door. The knob turns, and Lily’s small shape is outlined in the doorway, flanked by two matronly teachers. When the faculty — half a dozen teachers, at least — pried the girls apart, I asked them to let me speak to Lily before sending her home. However, now that she’s here at the door, I’m not sure I made the right choice. I take a deep breath.</p>
<p>“Lily, come in for a moment — I’d like to talk to you.”</p>
<p>She takes a step in, but only one. The door closes behind her. Lily glares at me. “I’ve somewhere to be.”</p>
<p>“Lily, I really need to speak to you. Please, just listen.”</p>
<p>“I <em>told</em> you, I <em>have</em> somewhere to <em>be</em>.”</p>
<p>“Lily, your behavior is inexcusable. Speaking out of turn is one thing, but biting another girl? If there’s even one more hint that you might hurt someone, I’m going to have to have you removed from class for the rest of the year, placed in a remedial class. You don’t want that, do you?”</p>
<p>Lily grips the straps of her overstuffed Jansport with a vengeance. She clenches her jaw. She stares straight ahead. She won’t look at me. I’m relieved. I don’t know if I had it in me to take another evil, angry look from her and stay standing.</p>
<p>“I know you’ve had a hard time getting along with the other girls. I know you’ve been fighting. First you trapped Rosalie in the bathroom, and you chopped off Jeanie’s hair. Any one of those things could get you kicked out of school. I’m trying to have mercy here, but this violent streak has gone too far, and I have to do something.”</p>
<p>It’s like talking through the glass at the aquarium. Talking through inch-thick, break-proof glass to the fishes and the rays and the sharks swimming by, staring back with their deep, depth-perception-less eyes. “Lily, I don’t want to do this. I really want to help you. Tell me what I can do.”</p>
<p>Lily turns away and stares straight ahead at the tiles in the corner of the room. Her voice is soft but impenetrable at the same time. “Why can’t she just let me be?” Lily says, speaking as if I’m not there. “I need to get home. I need to meet Frankie at the bus stop. I need to make sure the kitchen is straightened up. I need to get the Stouffer’s out of the freezer—”</p>
<p>“Lily, you’re thirteen.”</p>
<p>“Doesn’t she remember what it was like being a kid? Doesn’t she remember how early it ends?”</p>
<p>“Lily, where is your mother?”</p>
<p>“I have things to do. I need to get home.”</p>
<p>“You’re a girl. You’re not a mother.”</p>
<p>“That’s what she thinks. I <em>am</em> my mother. That’s why he’s scared of me.”</p>
<p>“Lily, I’m sorry. I’m sorry that there’s so much going on at home — but this acting out in class, bullying other girls, I can’t allow it.”</p>
<p>“Ms. Hale doesn’t listen to me.”</p>
<p>“Lily, please, I want to listen. I’m sorry for not listening before. Please—”</p>
<p>“I don’t have time for any stupid books or stupid math problems or any stupid <em>homework</em>.”</p>
<p>“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I just don’t know what to do anymore.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know what to do anymore,” Lily echoes.</p>
<p>“There must be something I can do to help,” I insist.</p>
<p>“There’s nothing anybody can do but me,” she replies.</p>
<p>A tear slips out from my eye. The surety in Lily’s voice drains the surety from mine. I shake my head. “Lily, I don’t understand — why bite another girl?”</p>
<p>This time, she turns her dark, glinting eyes on me. “I’m hungry.”</p>
<p>I’m terrified. I’ve never been so terrified in my life. I want to tell her. I want to get down on my knees and tell her, “Please, I’ll listen, there’s still time,” but I don’t. Instead, a voice inside me says, “If you’re going to bite anyone, I deserve it. Bite me.”</p>emily-hopeLily is too pretty a name for a girl like that. Lily-White, Lily-Pure, Lily-Innocent, lovely, do-no-wrong. This Lily should have been named Roxie or Regina or Priscilla. Something to warn you when she enters your classroom. To tell you exactly what kind of problems she’s going to cause.The Day I Became Poseidon2022-08-30T06:00:01+00:002022-08-30T06:00:01+00:00https://firesidefiction.com/the-day-i-became-poseidon<p>I was at a dinner party when I became Poseidon, and it did more for me than any self-help book I’ve tried. I mean, look at me now. My agent’s even mentioned Oprah. And I’ve got Debra to thank, God rest her soul.</p>
<p>I guess you heard about it in the news already, but I can tell you that’s not the real version. I let them speculate, get a storm going, you know? These days, I like to be the eye of the storm.</p>
<p>Anyway, I can see you’re no journalist. (God knows I’ve met enough of those in the past month.) Can you keep a secret? Well, we’ve got time to kill before I meet Richard and Judy, so how about I give you the gory details.</p>
<p>The thing about Debra was you could never call her “Debs,” and she was really into amuse-bouche and scented candles. You can picture her already, can’t you? Every time I visited, there were more of those chubby jars, smugly bathing in their own light. I swear the things were breeding.</p>
<p>Debra and I weren’t even friends; we used to work as receptionists for this pharmaceuticals firm. She was going through a messy divorce — I mean, you could see her aging by the day, poor cow — and I suppose I felt sorry for her at the time. She left after it was finalized, got into finance, and I was made redundant the year after.</p>
<p>Point is, I was only invited because a guest canceled last-minute, and Debra needed one more place to make the table symmetrical. I was expecting a call from my landlord about the damp in my kitchen and, moron that I was, I hit <em>answer</em> before I checked the name.</p>
<p>“I’m cooking something vegan, just for you, Sharon.” I heard her take a deep draw of her cig and pictured the pale reams of smoke streaming down her throat like souls summoned to hell.</p>
<p>“Don’t do that,” I said. “It’s fine, I’m knackered anyway. Invite a carnivore.”</p>
<p>“There’s none left at short notice. Got to be you. I’m making you a tagine. You know. Moroccan. I’m going to a lot of trouble.”</p>
<p>“I can’t stay late. I’ve got—”</p>
<p>“Thanks, doll. See you at seven.”</p>
<p><em>Fuck</em>.</p>
<hr />
<p>So when Debra opened the door, squawked a greeting, and ushered me inside, the stink of fig and manuka was vying with the reek of Marlboro Lights knocked into glossy ashtrays, which in turn was vying with the spicy musk of my “tagine.”</p>
<p>It was mid-July, hot as Satan’s armpit, and I was seated farthest from the open window. Dearest Debra was twittering round the VIPs and ignoring my requests for water. So I sipped Chardonnay and smiled like a good little token vegan. Jesus, I was such a pushover back then.</p>
<p>I was introduced to Raynor and Phil, Sue and Beth, and Graham and Delilah. I pulled at the collar of my polyester blouse as Phil explained why Premium Bonds were better than shares, even stock shares, which can give you a great return on investment but not always in the long term, and it’s the long term where the big money is, and he should know. My smile hurt.</p>
<p>“So what do you do, Sharon? Other than avoid dairy?”</p>
<p>“I work at Costco.”</p>
<p>“Oh!” Phil’s smile twitched. “A checkout girl! How… whimsical.”</p>
<p>Graham and Delilah put down their drinks to peer at me like I was some fascinating but slightly grotesque museum exhibit. I was glowing with embarrassment, and Debra was barely smothering her glee as she unconsciously smoothed the magenta tablecloth she got from Selfridges last summer to match her Orla Kiely blinds.</p>
<p>So my tagine tasted like sawdust with raisins, and I was fixating on that drink of water like I was crawling through the Sahara, not stuck in a pretentious flat in Stoke. I was staring at the glass and crystal and porcelain twinkling in the light of all those bastard candles, and all at once and don’t ask me how, my head swam and I was seeing sunlight glinting off the ocean.</p>
<p>The sun’s a jewel in an immense azure sky. The slosh and glug of the waves is peaceful, and I’m rising into the air, buoyant as a gull. The stiff breeze is tugging at my hair, and the water’s open stare is oh-so-inviting. So I take the plunge.</p>
<p>I let it engulf me.</p>
<p>Below the surface, the water’s cold as stone; the diffused light on my skin is achingly beautiful. I raise my arms, point my toes and let myself sink. Ripples dance fluid patterns into the dark. The silence is like an embrace. The air in my chest strains for release; my pulse booms. I laugh, unleashing a thrill of bubbles that spin away, jostling for the surface. I know I should follow, swim for that dwindling patch of sunlight, but I can’t because I’ve got this sudden, wild urge to take a breath.</p>
<p>The water slams my lungs like an icy fist and spills livid through my chest, my limbs, my mind. My pulse pounds in my ears, and with each beat I swell bigger, until my distended feet graze the ocean floor and I can’t tell where I end and the water begins and we’re so vast, so powerful—</p>
<p>Debra’s elbow against my ribs brought me back to the room. “World of her own!”</p>
<p>They were all staring at me with their sweaty faces — some smirking. Spilled Chardonnay warmed sticky on my hand, dripping a maroon shadow on the tablecloth.</p>
<p>“No more wine for you, Sharon!” she whinnied.</p>
<p>I wondered then: <em>Why am I even here, doing a favor for someone I don’t even like? Psychiatrist’s field day</em>. “I’m just tired,” I said, my face burning. I stared at Debra, and it was like….</p>
<p>Have you ever got disconnected from a conversation, just for a moment, and seen below the surface of a person?</p>
<p>Well, I saw through the veil of bravado Debra held up to the world, just like the expensive décor in her cheap flat. And underneath there were no hidden depths. There was just insecurity, flimsy as balsawood.</p>
<p><em>She’s so very fragile</em>, I thought.</p>
<p>Then, weirdly: <em>I could just smash her into pieces.</em></p>
<p>The ground pitched. I closed my eyes.</p>
<p>The ocean — <em>my</em> ocean — seethes, dimming to slate and coughing up limey plumes of surf. The sky’s massing with all these dense, angry clouds the color of steel, and I know I’m imagining the impossible — of course I do, I’m not crazy — but even so, I feel cold air hit my face, see the ocean lurch sideways and rear into a peak, rising inexorably, like some huge mouth stretching wide.</p>
<p>Raynor passed the Pinot.</p>
<p>The wave grows into a vast, muscular wall, its crest lashing the clouds.</p>
<p>I braced in my chair, knowing I should prepare for the imminent plunge into chaos and darkness and death. (“Gone a bit chilly,” someone said; their hand clamped a fluttering napkin.) But I craved the freedom, the release at last from these petty people with their perfect jobs and perfect clothes and perfect teeth in their false fucking smiles, from never being good enough and always being a fucking joke, all of it washed away in one glorious, violent instant—</p>
<p><em>Bring it on</em>, I thought.</p>
<p>I tasted brine, bitter and delicious.</p>
<p>Debra proposed a toast.</p>
<p>I exhaled, and it was the hollow gasp of a sea gale. There was a bright crash of shattered crystal. The tinkle of voices around me faltered. The candles had gutted. Faces fell to gape at me like fish.</p>
<p><em>Their open mouths are open wounds</em>, I thought. I realized my own mouth had stretched into a massive grin.</p>
<p>Debra lowered her glass, slow and deliberate, her stare venomous. She might have suggested that I go lie down, but she didn’t matter, and I couldn’t really hear her anyway.</p>
<p>The wave thundered its advance, loomed a chill shadow over us—</p>
<p>“Is that… seaweed?”</p>
<p>I stand.</p>
<p>I <em>tower</em>. Tall as a cliff. Tall as the wave.</p>
<p>The gaping fish shrink to minnows before me. I flex and the sky crackles at my ears. The matchbox table crashes onto its side and skids like storm-tossed jetsam. I raise my glass. Liquid spills icy over my hand — a stream, a torrent, a waterfall. Too late, they try to run, their chairs crashing behind them. Too late, they realize how small their lives had been. But it isn’t enough. I have to <em>show</em> them.</p>
<p>My laughter is an ancient tempest tumbling over the Atlantic as I crush my glass into sand. I grab the wave, wrestle it in my mighty arms. It bucks and writhes against my ripped chest, spurts between my great pearlescent knuckles, white-cold and boiling. I lift it over my head.</p>
<p>I fling it at them.</p>
<hr />
<p>Honestly, after that, it’s all a bit of a blur.</p>
<hr />
<p>The first responders didn’t know what to make of “the incident.” To be fair, Debra’s flat was on the fourteenth floor. They squelched over strangled Peruvian rugs and around the shattered remains of chubby jars, using words like “unprecedented.’” Asking each other what code they should use in this or that section of their report. Asking themselves, “What the fuck?” under their breath.</p>
<p>I sat on a soggy sofa, clad in a damp blanket and still as a rock as the tide of officials drifted past. A policewoman with a blonde crop and a professional smile brought me a cup of tea.</p>
<p>“Where are the others?” she asked. “Where’s Debra?”</p>
<p>“The wave took her.”</p>
<p>The copper’s smile clenched a little. She glanced at her colleague, quickly, but I saw the look in her eye. “Alright, love.” Christ, she almost sang it. “Let’s take it slow, shall we? Let’s start from when you arrived….”</p>
<p>Her voice faded. It didn’t matter, and neither did she. I stared out of the window. Into a calm blue sky.</p>
<hr />
<p>There you have it. That’s what went down. As best as I can remember it, anyway.</p>
<p>Now, this is important, so pay attention: You mustn’t tell a soul. Like I said, I’ve got to keep the media guessing, okay? Got to embellish a bit, you know what I mean? I go to a lot of trouble to be a success, and I can’t have anyone spreading the wrong kind of rumors.</p>
<p>Listen, I’m on in five. Go grab me a glass of water, would you? Quick as you like. Thanks, doll.</p>leila-martinI was at a dinner party when I became Poseidon, and it did more for me than any self-help book I’ve tried. I mean, look at me now. My agent’s even mentioned Oprah. And I’ve got Debra to thank, God rest her soul.All the Boys in the Sea2022-08-23T06:00:01+00:002022-08-23T06:00:01+00:00https://firesidefiction.com/all-the-boys-in-the-sea<p>They left me to drown, sea salt clinging to the back of my throat.</p>
<p>I could hear the rolling rhythm of their rowing chants, drowning out my cries as succinctly as the sea would soon drown me. Yet no matter how hard my strokes, the boat diminished each time I came up for air.</p>
<p>And, as all the boys before me, I slowly lost my voice. My strength. My will.</p>
<hr />
<p>Every year, we sacrificed a boy to the waves. The strongest boy, the one who would survive the longest out there — out <em>here</em>. A boy who, like my brother Toma before me and others before him, would swim desperately until his muscles ached and his belly filled with saltwater.</p>
<p>Until the spirits welcomed their sacrifice.</p>
<p>People back home would nod sagely to one another as they commented on how sweet the winds were, how full the catch the following seasons. Surely, the boy that year must have swum hard and survived long in order for the village to receive the spirits’ blessings.</p>
<p>Yet if the winds were poor and the catch minimal? They would condemn the boy who swam for not being as strong as they’d hoped after all.</p>
<p>For dying too quickly.</p>
<hr />
<p>I thought — during that long boat ride where I’d pleaded for them to choose another, told them it wasn’t fair to throw in the same blood twice in a row — that I would feel more connected to Toma out here. But I didn’t. I couldn’t feel him in the waves. Couldn’t sense him in the air I gulped before reaching again for a sandy shore I could not see.</p>
<p>All I could feel was a gnawing, growing terror that grew colder with every painful stroke.</p>
<hr />
<p>I thought that I heard spirits.</p>
<p>They drew me onto their skiff. I clutched the whorled wood the way a child might his mother’s skirts, unashamedly. And there I remained, whispered songs swirling around me, my body shaking from exertion.</p>
<p>As I closed my eyes in relief, I was only vaguely aware I’d been saved, plucked from the ocean while the sun still glowed red from the morning sunrise. That I’d somehow lasted the cold, seemingly endless night.</p>
<p>I dodged consciousness, sleep coming in minimal spurts. As I drifted in and out, I wondered that ocean spirits sounded so much like people. Like men.</p>
<hr />
<p>I raised my head in a sudden dizzying rush, finding five men fore and aft in varying stages of dress and sunburn, the air suffused with the earthy scents of teak and oil. They wore their shirts off their belt-loops like the men back home. The shanty they sang, the one that had brought me into sudden alertness, was the same tune the village men had sung as they’d rowed away.</p>
<p>The man in front of me must have heard my gasp, for he twisted on the thwart. His oar paused in the air, saltwater droplets sparkling in the sunlight like gems gifted from the spirits.</p>
<p>Then I was looking up into Toma’s face, his lips set in a hard, unfamiliar line. I thought I dreamed him, pooling him together from water-logged hopes. I reached for him, worried he might dissipate, and his eyes softened, as if he were made of memory and reflections. Then he paused in his rowing to grip my shaking hand, his skin firm and real and hot.</p>
<p>“Didn’t think they’d throw us both away.”</p>
<p><em>Me either</em>, I tried to respond, but my voice fizzled at the realization that he was truly here, truly alive. All I had left to give him were gasps that only vaguely resembled questions, my relief tumbling out of me in pained noises. He pressed a waterskin into my palm and turned back to his rowing, a sense of bitter disquiet in his manner that had never been there before.</p>
<hr />
<p>Toma walked me through their sparse island home. The dock was thin. Their homes were little more than squat hovels tucked away from sea and sand, and there were so very few of them.</p>
<p>“What about the others?” I asked that first night, my voice as scratchy and battered as I felt, my emotions fragmented and me too exhausted to put them together again. I lay on Toma’s bed, a mesh cot with a rattan blanket that smelled musty.</p>
<p>“What others?”</p>
<p>“The other boys.” The boys that must have been saved before him. Before me. All the ones I would recognize from the last few years.</p>
<p>Toma shook his head. “The ocean’s a big place.”</p>
<p>He told me to sleep. Told me not to worry. I could only do one of those things, so I closed my eyes.</p>
<hr />
<p>He brought me to their shrine in the morning, in order to give thanks to the spirits for saving me. I knelt in gratitude and cut off enough of my hair to fashion an offering, though my fingers trembled as I made the weaves across the fish bones.</p>
<p>Their shrine had an air of freshness to it that the ones in the village did not. New shell wind chimes hung from curling branches. Driftwood cradled the table lovingly. Water basins — shells, crab carapaces — were arranged in a wave, while dried seaweed drifted against the rock.</p>
<p>Drifted. Like the seaweed still lived and breathed and shuddered in the sea.</p>
<p>Toma leaned close to me and whispered, “Don’t stare. They get nervous.”</p>
<p>So I snuck glances up at the wisps of water that rose from the basins and the shuddering seaweed. And prayed all the harder to the spirits who seemed to be here. Yet not from where we’d come.</p>
<hr />
<p>I joined Toma’s fishing trips after my first few days recovering. Out there, within that blue expanse, I found myself staring down into the cold water that had almost claimed me, searching for hints of the spirits here too. Darting glimpses of driftwood and seaweed moving against the current seemed to trail us out, then trail us back to shore. Companions I came to expect, then to greet each morning.</p>
<p>Our nets strained in fullness, more so than the village nets ever had. The winds came heavy from the west to cast us out to sea in the early mornings, then blew strong from the east to send us sailing homeward bound. The storms on the reddened horizons held off, spinning their fierceness out, away from the island, away from we who had been left to die.</p>
<p>In thankfulness, we always brought the first fish of our catch to the spirits’ shrine. Even before we pulled the catch off the boats. Even before we stopped to eat, to rest. What we did not do was go beyond our fishing grounds. As if there was some form of barrier made of heart-hurt out there in the water.</p>
<p>When I asked Toma why we did not go further, why we did not bring news of our survival — of the spirits’ rejection of our deaths and their bountiful blessings to our lives — to the village, he said, “For what? For them to find a new way to abandon us?”</p>
<p>But it wasn’t us I worried over.</p>
<hr />
<p>I added my own offerings of chimes and shells to the spirits’ shrine. My hair became patchier through the seasons as I wrapped seaweed about my locks and strung them on the rocks where the spirits danced. They sang to me sometimes, a rippling sound that reminded me of the frothing of the waves and the howling of the wind at once.</p>
<p>Toma claimed he could not hear it. “They’d let us know if they were upset. And not with mere sounds.”</p>
<p>Yet I felt the spirits at my side as I walked the dirt paths, my callused hands grazing the wildflowers and seagrass growing tall on either side. I felt them when I waded into the ocean, like a tug, a gentle insistence, as if hands that were not hands pressed against me, pulling me onward, outward.</p>
<hr />
<p>The spirits, shyly darting in my peripheral, urged me toward a fat, straight teak one late afternoon. I lay my ear against its bark and listened to them sing, their voices burbling like from the depths of the ocean.</p>
<p>So as the season turned, I cut the tree at its base and began to carve my own skiff under Toma’s worried gaze.</p>
<hr />
<p>Toma did not argue loudly, like the elders from the village.</p>
<p>He spoke softly some nights of our quiet lives filled with satisfaction. He spoke long of responsibility, of when and where it was required. And when and where it wasn’t. He spoke of his love for me, of his hopes from the previous year that I was living well, of the pain of finding me in the sea, of his happiness that we were together again. That I was safe.</p>
<p>He did not argue loudly, but I heard what he attempted to say nonetheless. His quiet insistence hid a fear for me. Yet as the days began to lengthen, as the water began to warm and the jellies returned and the rains slackened, I could feel the salt tang rising in the back of my throat. Could taste it when I dreamed of swimming toward shore in a desperate bid to survive. Swallowed mouthfuls that saw me waking, clutching at my throat.</p>
<p>The day of sacrifice approached.</p>
<p>Every time I set my offerings at the shrine, I could sense the spirits hoping for something more from me. While every time Toma caught me staring out over the ocean, my indecision grew. Had the spirits been more demanding, had Toma lathered me with guilt, perhaps I would not have felt so torn.</p>
<hr />
<p>I woke before dawn to find the spirits frothing in the waves, shivering like worried kelp. The ocean stretched long and dark. Violet clouds streaked across the sky like a guide, village-bound.</p>
<p>The others hovered on the bluff, on the paths before their small homes, watching. All the boys plucked from the sea. All the men scarred by the saltwater burn slipping into their lungs.</p>
<hr />
<p>Toma caught up with me as I bent to untie the slip. “You don’t owe them anything.”</p>
<p>“No.” I supposed I didn’t.</p>
<p>But then I tasted brine, a salty tang gathering in my throat, swelling until it touched my tongue, like the waves had taken residence inside of me as a reminder. I envisioned the next boy thrown to the sea.</p>
<p>And the next.</p>
<p>And the one after that.</p>
<p>Some of them surviving, found by these men. Some of them….</p>
<p><em>The same salty tang reaching down their throats as they sank, sank, into the chilly embrace where the sun could not pierce.</em></p>
<p>I leaned over the side of the skiff to grab Toma’s hand, our sweat mingling, sand scratching at our palms. For a heartbeat, hope flared in his sad, tired eyes. Then I slipped my hand free and pushed the skiff off the dock and out to sea.</p>
<p>The spirits flocked toward me, wet wisps of sea spray against my keel, damp breezes swelling in my canvas. They rode the waves, their shivering worries turned to exciting leaping as I turned us toward a village to set a tradition right.</p>
<hr />
<p>They left me in the ocean to drown. But all the spirits willing, I would be the last.</p>marie-crokeThey left me to drown, sea salt clinging to the back of my throat.Six Goats2022-08-16T06:00:02+00:002022-08-16T06:00:02+00:00https://firesidefiction.com/six-goats<p>Before the coup, Nuria heard that the descendants of the serpent ruled the city.</p>
<p>She saw it once, in a temple ruin on her way to the city as a barefoot, shackled child. The marble effigy was barely more than a stump, its sleek head and outstretched wings shattered by the hilts of conquerors’ blades. Later, Yessenia told her the legend: Long ago, before conquest drove refugees from riverbanks and mountains into crowded slums, each family among the serpent’s descendants owned a single white feather from the god’s plumage. It passed from generation to generation, treasured and guarded. It was said that if a child of the serpent burned their heirloom in their time of need, salvation would descend on feathered wings.</p>
<p>“But I don’t believe in fairy tales.” Yessenia’s tone closed the story, crisp as the latch of a chest. Cool night draped between her and Nuria. They sat above the foreign princess’s chambers, having leaped from balcony to parapet to roof, seeking privacy. They perched there nightly, maid and guardswoman, whispering elaborate escape schemes as the princess snored and the moonlight thickened.</p>
<p>Yessenia, herself a descendant of the serpent, rubbed the tattoo of the feather on the inside of her left forearm. She gazed over the occupied city that was once her birthright, her long ivory hair — loose from a stolen tumble with Nuria, silent so as not to wake the princess — gleaming like folded wings over her shoulders. These were her only inheritance now: ink against a bowstring’s callous, pressed into her flesh so long ago she had no memory of it. Her voice was bitter with loss as she said to Nuria, “Only you believe in magic anymore.”</p>
<hr />
<p>Now, the foreign princess Nuria and Yessenia served is dead.</p>
<p>In a single night, the throne has passed hands. History rewrites itself. When the bloody sun rises, morning will canonize the victorious in gold and forget Nuria and Yessenia between one verse and the next. Servants are but shadows, after all — shadows that have already been forgotten in the coup’s long, moonless night. The rebels set fire to the princess’s quarters, not caring that there might be servants trapped in that tower room without means of escape. Soon there will be nothing left to burn but the floor beneath their feet and then their own flesh. Two more nameless casualties of a red-soaked coup enacted, it will later be said, for the greater good of the city.</p>
<p>Nuria faces the wall of flame between them and the door, her grip on Yessenia’s sweaty hand bone-tight. Her heartbeat tumbles, thick with terror. Her breath scorches, offering no respite.</p>
<p>This <em>cannot</em> be her end, their end: lungs straining for air as her flesh roasts, excruciatingly slow. Not now. Not like this. Dizzy and choked by smoke, she knows one thing: she does not want to die.</p>
<hr />
<p>Her parents’ end by scimitar was quick, at least. They had no warning; their home was among the first raided as conquerors swept into their frontier city. Nuria was snatched for the slaver’s caravan, her dress the only thing that did not burn as acrid black smoke billowed through the mages’ quarter. Thousands of manuscripts about her parents’ arts perished that day, victims of iconoclastic zeal and the greed of conquerors.</p>
<p>Nuria should believe in magic. Her childhood was laced with it: every mug of spiced tea glimmered, effervescent with potential; every bedtime tale of resurrected gods was resplendent with its promise. Even her Baba’s goats in the courtyard were a part of a life’s education in magic.</p>
<p>“No matter what I teach you,” he said, resting the weight of his hand on her shoulder, “remember the goats.”</p>
<p>Nuria frowned, watching the goats race around the courtyard. A vigilant doe shooed mischievous yearlings away from her velvet-faced kids.</p>
<p>“What’s worth pursuing isn’t power or wealth or the confidence of kings,” Baba said, gesturing around the courtyard. “It’s this.”</p>
<p>A home of one’s own. A family. Goats.</p>
<p>But shackles weighed on Nuria’s neck and ankles; choked by enslavement, she kept her chin low, her eyes downcast. She forgot Baba’s lesson. The ears of the powerful were the currency of the conquerors; she bought and traded in it every time she was bartered from home to home, coldly grateful for how her wiles brought her into a palace, into the comfortable service of a conqueror’s daughter. Into a harem guarded by young warrior women.</p>
<p>Among them was Yessenia, with her long ivory plait and eyes like black sesame.</p>
<p>She tasted magic again on Yessenia’s lips. It stirred under her skin as they perched together in starlight, shoulder to shoulder and thigh to thigh, gazing at the city below. The fey wildness in Yessenia reminded her of Baba’s goats: brash, bullish, loyal. Her tenderness made Nuria feel less barren when they dreamed of escaping, of a life in faraway mountains.</p>
<p>“I want goats,” Nuria would say.</p>
<p>“Goats?”</p>
<p>“Six of ’em.”</p>
<p>“Six!” Yessenia’s laughter was silver castanets, falling to the city below like shattered moonlight. That was magic. Her sly grin, that wink of a chipped tooth. “We’ll see if I can afford you.”</p>
<hr />
<p>The feathered serpent coils through Nuria’s mind as smoke and burning silk scorch her nostrils. A wall of flame stands between her and the door; heat ripples thickly as she tightens her grip on Yessenia’s hand.</p>
<p>As she lifts it.</p>
<p>Yessenia’s sleeve falls back from her wrist; the feather’s ink gleams wet with sweat and rippling heat.</p>
<p>They will not die in fire. This is not their end.</p>
<p>Nuria places her palm on the tattoo. <em>Only you believe in magic anymore.</em> Because she was raised with it, until it was stolen from her.</p>
<p>But with Yessenia, she will steal back.</p>
<p>Yessenia’s shoulders lurch with coughing. “What are you doing?”</p>
<p>Nuria’s voice is hoarse. “I want goats.”</p>
<p>Gold stirs in her chest as she reaches into Yessenia’s skin. She takes the tattooed feather and pulls.</p>
<p>The feather is not white, like she expected. It slips like a splinter from beneath Yessenia’s calluses, slick with blood and wet like afterbirth. She clutches its shaft like a trophy before Yessenia’s wide eyes.</p>
<p>“Take it,” she whispers.</p>
<p>Yessenia obeys. She reads Nuria like a dance partner and thrusts the feather before them, into the flames.</p>
<p>It curls, resisting; then, it blazes. Yessenia cries out, holding it aloft like a beacon.</p>
<p>She looks down, a feral hope on her sweat-streaked face that Nuria knows is mirrored in her own.</p>
<p>“Six goats!” Yessenia shouts over the fire’s roar.</p>
<p>Nuria’s vision blurs as the feather burns down. She steps into her end: Yessenia’s embrace.</p>
<p>Loose hair stings her face as a wind rises, whipped by flames.</p>
<p>Or perhaps by wings.</p>isabel-canasBefore the coup, Nuria heard that the descendants of the serpent ruled the city.Papa Legba Has Entered the Chat2022-08-09T06:00:01+00:002022-08-09T06:00:01+00:00https://firesidefiction.com/papa-legba-has-entered-the-chat<p>Another child stolen from us, and you allowed it. No matter that you drove straight home once you finally heard, up past the border, only stopping for gas in Tucson, ignoring your granny’s texts the whole way. No matter that you stand here now at the crossroads of the murder, pacing in the moonlight, churning over forensics and the coroner’s report.</p>
<p>The protests have run their course. The ink has dried on the forms for administrative leave — paid, naturally. #SayHisName and #JusticeForManny have been plowed under by other trends (#SunsInSeven and #PHXvsLA) while the family — your family — still washes cars on Broadway for the funeral and fights over the GoFundMe set up for legal fees. Sunflowers and tulips wilt on the curbside memorial beside burned out, joyless candles. Windswept notes folded in origami flourishes demand you step around them. And the photos. Every selfie, every lopsided smile refusing to give way to night, dances across your eyes like splintered glass.</p>
<p>This is the part where you lie to yourself. Tears slither down your cheeks and into your palms. If only you weren’t blowing off steam down at Rocky Point. If only you weren’t off patrol that night. If only you weren’t on a social media pause.</p>
<p>If only you weren’t full of shit.</p>
<p>Truly? You received an <em>all hands on deck</em> notification from your rooted phone, a Christmas gift from your sergeant. You’re in the inner circle. The phone’s only app will never appear in an iOS or Google Play search. Text-based, clever, assembled over a decade from DIY tutorials, base code written by a shady federal cybercrimes analyst who needed funds to close on a vacation home in Sedona. The app denies camera access and scrambles screenshots. Messages self-erase, and the chat window auto-cycles through display schemes so even secondhand recording is difficult to read. You can’t decide what makes your eyes water more, the blitz of colors or the messages from other cops.</p>
<p>Open it. Join the chat, please. Your hands are not yours anymore. They are mine.</p>
<p> <em>::just_cam has entered the chat::</em></p>
<p> <strong>MAGA_Maddie</strong> keep laying low, it’ll be fine</p>
<p> <strong>bawlin_krapperquit</strong> u right. preciate it, wife just hates the attention</p>
<p> <strong>sarge_joey</strong> cam you made it buddy</p>
<p> <strong>rachel_from_QC</strong> hey @just_cam</p>
<p> <strong>MAGA_Maddie</strong> hi cam</p>
<p> <strong>just_cam</strong> hey y’all</p>
<p>You don’t know everyone’s name, still — only the ones you’ve lied for. You went to all the cookouts, introduced some to actual seasonings. Jambalaya. They tried but complained it was too hot. Family recipe, you explained, and some things can’t be slandered, not even for them. They guzzled beer and suggested ways to improve it anyway. Marinara — no, barbecue sauce.</p>
<p> <strong>semperfi_Ty</strong> so we’re supposed to be talking payback. my address is all over the fuckin internet thx to these fkcn people</p>
<p> <strong>sarge_joey</strong> too soon. be smart, there’s ways we do this</p>
<p> <strong>rachel_from_QC</strong> listen to him. he walked me through mine</p>
<p> <strong>bawlin_krapperquit</strong> so spill it i need this shit to be over</p>
<p>You tried, too. To belong. To be blind. Leaving your Kaepernick jersey in the closet on Sundays. You don’t watch football; you hate beer. So you some pale child’s godfather now? Does that make you any less of a cardboard cutout? No. You are a smudge in their eyes, the shadow behind their thin blue line, giving it definition and justification.</p>
<p>“I didn’t go through academy for this,” you say to the dying flowers at your feet.</p>
<p>Truly. You went through it for me.</p>
<p>Your eyes slide away from the chat and back to the scene, wasting time. Two hours, pacing and muttering when you have a real means to invoke change (of a sort). Why not give in? You know their ways better than you know yourself. Not one pebble is out of place on this block. You even uncover evidence the arresting officers didn’t need to plant — a dime sack. Three months away from legalization. Un-goddamn-believable. And still you linger, denying the lesson you’ve learned better than most:</p>
<p>You will never find justice here.</p>
<p>Footsteps approach from the south. You spin to face a lanky boy, glued to his phone. He doesn’t see your hand snap to your hip, reaching for the holster that’s back in your car’s trunk. So well trained, you are. Eyes conditioned, reflexes honed for threats of a certain hue. The orange haze of the streetlight turns the boy’s brown skin golden. He’s wearing a ?uestlove t-shirt and a black and yellow BLM bracelet. He cradles a mismatched bunch of flowers from the discount box at Fry’s; his other hand holds a blue Powerade. The grocery store is two miles from this block. Phoenix temps are well over a hundred, even with monsoons threatening tomorrow.</p>
<p>“Hey, young blood.” He trusts you. You’re not in uniform.</p>
<p>“Sup.” He arranges new flowers around the central lump of melted wax. They’re almost as wilted as the old ones. “Looks like shit.”</p>
<p>“Nah, it’s good.” He squints up at you at the lie. “You knew him?”</p>
<p>“Yeah…. We used to squad up on Fortnite, until he got me into this coding club around the way.” His hand gestures vaguely toward Roeser, the next street up.</p>
<p>Your throat tightens. You know who lives around the way. “Saturdays at six sharp? No breakfast if you forget to lock your screen?”</p>
<p>“‘Control alt delete, or you ain’t finna eat.’” He laughs, and the squint evaporates. “It’s not like my class at South. It’s…. I don’t know. It hits different. Manny was better at it than me. I’m gonna keep at it, though. For him.”</p>
<p>You see? If you won’t do what must be done, there is another. There is always another.</p>
<p>“I can help you with it, if you want?” You can’t tell which of you is more surprised to hear you say it. “That old lady is my granny.”</p>
<p>His eyes widen as you pull out your phone — your normal phone — and swap social media. “If she’s your granny, that means….”</p>
<p>“Yeah. We was cousins.”</p>
<p>“I didn’t want to say nothing….”</p>
<p>“But…?”</p>
<p>“It’s just…. You look like him, is all.” He closes the distance, hugs and releases you before you can react. “I’m Dameco.”</p>
<p>“Cam,” you say.</p>
<p>“…I’ll hit you up.” He frowns down at the memorial, then pours a swallow of his Powerade beside it. Then he’s striding back the way he came, scraping knuckles across his face. You remind yourself the evidence is seamless. Change will take time. People need to work inside the system, too.</p>
<p> <strong>sarge_joey</strong> remember B? problems with that black councilman awhile back?</p>
<p> <strong>bawlin_krapperquit</strong> oh shit i forgot about that! cuffed him in front of his own house ahahaha</p>
<p> <strong>rachel_from_QC</strong> he just got a medal right</p>
<p> <strong>MAGA_Maddie</strong> true true let PLEA work its magic</p>
<p> <strong>sarge_joey</strong> this to shall pass. so do urself a fvor and delete those plate #s you looked up</p>
<p> <strong>semperfi_Ty</strong> but but its opposition research ;)</p>
<p> <strong>bawlin_krapperquit</strong> LMAO</p>
<p>You slide the rooted phone into your pocket, done with the private chat despite everything your grandmother raised you to be. Go, drink your beer.</p>
<p>Halfway to your car, a ground-level spotlight steals your night vision. Your hands fly up. Compliments again. So very well trained. “Officer, I—”</p>
<p>“Save it,” a brusque voice behind the light commands. “Hands where I can see them.”</p>
<p>They already are.</p>
<p>Two silhouettes snake out of the glare. Hands snatch a phone from your pocket.</p>
<p>“So tired of you people stirring shit up. Not tonight.”</p>
<p>You allow what comes next. Asphalt scrapes your cheekbone. The street only grudgingly releases the sun’s heat; even so late after nightfall, it still burns. Grit sinks into your beard. These men are weak and slow, pasty and afraid. Above all, they are wrong. Almost as wrong as you.</p>
<p>But you obey commands because, down the block, Dameco’s eyes are wide as crab cakes in the moonlight.</p>
<p>Your gazes lock. In that moment, you are the same… until he raises his phone. Arm shaking, terrified, skulking closer to record. To bear witness. For your life.</p>
<p>He, at least, knows when to do what must be done.</p>
<p>One of your brothers in blue returns to the car with your wallet. The other keeps his knee on your back, sweaty and swearing because he dropped the zip ties. Back and forth, you shake your head, although your face scrapes against the street. <em>No. Go home</em>, you will the child.</p>
<p>“Shit. <em>Shit</em>.” The floodlight winks out. The one at the squad car calls, “Why didn’t you tell us you were plainclothes?”</p>
<p>Would it have mattered? The knee disappears like magic. You rise slowly. Regulate your breathing. Smother what little pride remains. Dab blood from your cheek while the sweating cop regards you.</p>
<p>“Do you know that kid?” he asks instead of apologizing.</p>
<p>“Yeah. He just misses his friend.”</p>
<p>“Maybe. Better call him back here. Past few weeks been hard enough for everyone.”</p>
<p>Dameco is just as smart as he looks and nowhere to be seen. Better to call him before these two try to pick him up. Best grab your phone.</p>
<p> <strong>BD_Nick</strong> we got a problem boys. at the crime scene</p>
<p> <strong>sarge_joey</strong> no we don’t</p>
<p> <strong>sarge_joey</strong> wait what where are you</p>
<p>Through the windshield, you spot the unmistakable glow of the chat app’s color-cycling display. Nick. He’s the one in the fucking squad car. Somewhere you hear a dog growl.</p>
<p> <strong>BD_Nick</strong> the kid had a friend. with a phone</p>
<p> <strong>bawlin_krapperquit</strong> JFC @BD_Nick what</p>
<p> <strong>semperfi_Ty</strong> YOU SAID WE WERE GOOD @sarge_joey</p>
<p> <em>::rachel_from_QC is typing::</em></p>
<p>“This is above me,” you whisper.</p>
<p>At last. You realize what your granny prepared you for. The code is but another language, and language is in your blood. All you must do is allow it.</p>
<p>Allow me.</p>
<p>I will cleanse out the dark corners where internal affairs, Black Lives Matter, and Black Jesus can’t reach. Your brothers in blue speak of retribution. Well. I will make the proper introductions. Manny and untold others would like a word. The price was paid — in libations or souls or Bitcoin, in tears and prayers and Saturday car washes on Broadway.</p>
<p>“Two phones?” the cop drawls. “Ain’t you fancy. Head on home. We’ll give that kid a lift. Person of interest and all that.”</p>
<p>“The hell you will.”</p>
<p>“What was that?”</p>
<p>You type furiously as he strides closer, lip curled. Shame lends speed to your fingers. You lost your way, but not the purpose your granny envisioned for your life. You still know the coding. Old words blended with new things, despite the academy’s best efforts to leach it out of you, despite the twelve-hour shifts and the loathing in your own people’s eyes. You still know how to open the door.</p>
<p>My door.</p>
<p> <em>::just_cam is typing::</em></p>
<p>“I <em>said</em>, ‘What was that?’” The sweaty one fondles his baton.
Ignore him, please. Yes. You’re nearly there.</p>
<p> <em>::papa legba has entered the chat::</em></p>
<p> <strong>MAGA_Maddie</strong> this app can’t support video. are you guys seeing this?</p>
<p> <strong>rachel_from_QC</strong> Joe ain’t that your house?</p>
<p> <em>::several people are typing::</em></p>
<p>You avert your eyes, rightly so. Baron Kriminel been waiting for this door to open. Too far? Maybe. Probably. No need to soil your dreams or turn your gentle stomach.</p>
<p> <strong>sarge_joey</strong> OMFG</p>
<p> <strong>bawlin_krapperquit</strong> is this a joke. is tht blood</p>
<p> <strong>bawlin_krapperquit</strong> is this serious</p>
<p> <em>::sarge_joey has left the chat::</em></p>
<p> <strong>semperfi_Ty</strong> guys these pranks aren’t cool</p>
<p> <strong>BD_Nick</strong> nononono wtf that’s chandler high my kids scrimmage</p>
<p> <em>::rachel_from_QC has left the chat::</em></p>
<p> <em>::semperfi_Ty has left the chat::</em></p>
<p> <em>::MAGA_Maddie has left the chat::</em></p>
<p> <em>::BD_Nick has left the chat::</em></p>
<p> <em>::bawlin_krapperquit has left the chat::</em></p>
<p>The squad car’s sirens flash on. “<em>Get in!</em>” Nick screams.</p>
<p>“What happened—”</p>
<p>“Mike, fucking <em>do it!</em>”</p>
<p>Officer Mike tosses your phone back and hustles off. They tear down the street. You remember to breathe again. You remember Manny’s ready, mischievous smile.</p>
<p>Your phone’s screen is cracked, but you can still see new texts. You tell Demeco you are safe and thank him for his bravery. You apologize to your granny for allowing this wickedness and abandoning your heritage; old words bound to new code. And finally, you leave your badge among the dying flowers beside two unlit cigars.
You have more work to do. We have more work to do.</p>davaun-sandersAnother child stolen from us, and you allowed it. No matter that you drove straight home once you finally heard, up past the border, only stopping for gas in Tucson, ignoring your granny’s texts the whole way. No matter that you stand here now at the crossroads of the murder, pacing in the moonlight, churning over forensics and the coroner’s report.The Czar of Smiles2022-07-28T06:00:01+00:002022-07-28T06:00:01+00:00https://firesidefiction.com/the-czar-of-smiles<p>Cosette awoke in the dim faux-dawn to a blinking notification. It was her sixteenth birthday, the end of childhood, though there was no one offering to celebrate. She lay in the closeness as she did any morning, considering her day: the books she might read, the lectures she might attend. <em>Influence</em> was the ultimate reward, reflected in consumption, and books were free. Cosette squirmed around in the low cubicle to check her appearance in the mix-mirror, to catch up on news. It was blank, save the flashing <em>OFFICIAL NOTICE</em>.</p>
<p>“Mirror, where am I?” she asked.</p>
<p>“In the Transitional Dormitory, forty-seventh floor, wing seven—”</p>
<p>“No— Why can’t I see myself?”</p>
<p>“Please open the notification entitled ‘Terms of Use for Your Facial Features’’.”</p>
<p>“My…. I’ve never bought any facial features.” Cosette had always been told she had natural good looks: teeth, lips, nose, chin, eyes… and smile. Besides, she had no money for features.</p>
<p>Cosette tapped the icon. The screen filled with a legal document linking to a web of property chains.</p>
<p>A synthetic voice spoke. “Multiple claims have been filed in the Mix Court, alleging that your features violate intellectual property rights to multiple non-fungible facial elements.”</p>
<p>“I don’t understand….”</p>
<p>“You are to appear before the Mix Court, in the real, for arbitration. If you do not appear, a summary judgment will be entered. The location of your appointment has been transmitted.”</p>
<p>Her wrist hummed as the message appeared. She glanced at the address and the travel chit glowing through her skin.</p>
<p>“Until the claims are resolved, a cease and desist order has been granted prohibiting your continued use of your appearance in the mix.”</p>
<p>“But I don’t use the mix! I can’t afford an augment.” She had an older pair of glasses — used — but only wore them to navigate the world, to avoid stumbling through the clutter of public virtuals and thus earning fines.</p>
<p>“You exist in the mix whether or not you choose to perceive it.”</p>
<p>“I can’t be a blank; people would walk into me! What will I look like?”</p>
<p>“Until the claims are resolved, you will be assigned an avatar.”</p>
<p>The mirror brightened and it appeared: her skin tone flattened, her curling hair a cartoon blob, her teeth a white bar, her lips a silly pout, her smile—</p>
<p>“No!” She looked away and buried her face in her pillow.</p>
<hr />
<p>Cosette wore her best shirt — still threadbare — and hid within the folds of its hood. Though she did her best to conceal her face, she could hear the snickers of passersby. The old glasses didn’t improve her caricatured features; she imagined they appeared as ugly black circles around her pinpoint eyes.</p>
<p>With changes, the cross-city tube carried her to Court. On the way, she skimmed the legal brief, referencing texts to decipher the terms and grasp the concepts. (Education was free, so she had educated herself.) The tube brought her to the hulking Newtown arcology, visible as the route of the transparent cylinder rose to the transportation hub. The many-faceted hemisphere gleamed bronze in its anti-UV coating. Cosette emerged from the train, greeted by pulsing arrows on the floor.</p>
<p>“Welcome to Newtown. Do not deviate from your route,” said the building through her glasses.</p>
<p>It did not have to remind her about the consequences of wandering.</p>
<p>The transit pass guided her in the mix through people-movers and into lifts until she arrived at a security post. The portal into the Municipal Space, a double-blind kill jar, closed behind her.</p>
<p>“You are being scanned; please stand still.”</p>
<p>Bio, nano, and mech weaponry would trigger an immediate containment response. Cosette held her breath until the door before her opened.</p>
<p>The spaces here were vast, the surroundings drawn from legendary scenes of ages past. People in the Municipal Space were high-Tiered, eminently elegant in the mix, their flawlessly rendered faces borrowed from a thousand years of beauty in art and reality.</p>
<p>The arrows led her through another doorway, into another world.</p>
<p>Cosette proceeded along an oceanside boardwalk, a sweeping curve beside a long-lost beach on a once-limitless ocean. The air was full of salt tang and living smells, the sounds of large white birds swooping and calling, and sunshine: safe, healthy sunshine. She slowed, savoring the illusion through her glasses, but came at last to a weathered wooden structure. She opened a door.</p>
<p>The chamber was as stultifying in its emptiness as the hallway had been heartbreakingly rich.</p>
<p>A deep voice emerged from the darkness. “Oh, this is <em>boring</em>.”</p>
<p>The speaker stepped out of the vague shadows: larger than life, tall with broad shoulders, dressed in a glittering toga pinned at one shoulder to reveal a sculpted pectoral. His heavy black hair gleamed against startling azure skin.</p>
<p>He had a name but preferred to be called the “Czar of Smiles,” and he claimed to own Cosette.</p>
<p>“I’ll assume you can be reasonable.” He eyed her speculatively. “If so, you’ll accept my generous proposal.” Before Cosette could respond, he glanced away. “I’m ready.”</p>
<p>The Justice Mirror appeared beside them: a cheval mirror, very tall, a simple black frame reflecting nothing. Cosette drew back involuntarily.</p>
<p>It spoke in a rich baritone. “The Mix Court of the Tiered will now consider the claims brought by multiple plaintiffs, represented in the real by the primary claimant, against one Cosette—” her UID appeared on the blank surface “—an adult in the mix, alleging multiple violations of the Code of Mix Licensing. Step forward.”</p>
<p>Cosette faced the framed void. She appeared, her natural self: naked, dissected into hundreds of features, each pinned and priced. <em>It isn’t you</em>, she told herself. She drew back, but her rendering remained, revolving slowly to reveal the extent of her offenses.</p>
<p>“Ninety-two percent of your features infringe the plaintiffs’ rights in non-fungible property. Unless you can assert licensing arrangements, you will cease and desist from using these features in the mix.”</p>
<p>“May it <em>please</em> the Court….” The Czar stepped alongside Cosette, too close. She stood her ground, accustomed to the intimidation some attempted in the crowded dormitory. “As the owner of record of the majority of the infringed features — and in particular, eighty percent of the facial features — I offer a settlement I’m sure the young… lady will find attractive.”</p>
<p>“Proceed.”</p>
<p>“I propose to acquire the defendant and settle the other claimants myself. I have already obtained letters of intent from them.”</p>
<p>Cosette stiffened. “You can’t own me.”</p>
<p>He smiled unctuously. “That is to say, acquire the defendant’s mix representation <em>in toto</em>. Her <em>physical</em> form holds no interest for me.”</p>
<p><em>They can’t buy and sell your body, just your image.</em> But Cosette remembered the histories she’d read, and wondered how this was different.</p>
<p>“No!” she said, face hard. “I’ll leave the mix.”</p>
<p>The Court spoke. “You would then forfeit all intellectual property rights to your appearance and be declared Untiered.”</p>
<p>The Czar’s <em>tsk</em> came with a moue of disappointment. “You wouldn’t want <em>that</em>. No status, no home, no social — just the dole. You’ll be no one.”</p>
<p>“I’ll be me! I’ll see myself in every shiny surface, every pool of water, and it will be me.”</p>
<p>“You’re passing up the opportunity to monetize your charms!”</p>
<p>Cosette resisted the urge to reply, to concede, her face a mask disguising her uncertainty.</p>
<p>The Czar’s expression hardened as realization dawned. “Oh, you’re a clever one. I like that!” He pondered. “Very well: License yourself to me, one hundred percent, and I’ll grant you—” he scanned the cloud of market valuations hovering around her naked image “—three percent of net income.”</p>
<p>“For one hundred percent of me?”</p>
<p>“Well, yes.”</p>
<p>“No.” Cosette licked her lips. She pondered the bargain; he offered comfort in exchange for her identity. Or she could hold on to what little of her was unclaimed. She cleared her throat. “My counterproposal. I relinquish my claim to the ninety-two percent you say infringes. In exchange, all plaintiffs agree that I retain all rights to the remaining eight percent.”</p>
<p>The Czar had not expected a counter. He frowned. “I don’t know….”</p>
<p>The Court intoned, “A counterproposal is before the Court. We <em>disapprove</em> of delay.”</p>
<p>The Czar chewed his lip, black eyes wandering the Mirror, longing not for the lovely body but the revenue stream it might generate, through tourism, marketing, the pleasure industry.</p>
<p>“I’d like to see a rendering of the eight percent,” the Czar said.</p>
<p>“No,” Cosette replied.</p>
<p>The Czar threw out his chest. “What do you—”</p>
<p>“The claim is noted,” the Court stated. “An owner does not have to reveal their property unless presented with an offer to license or purchase.”</p>
<p>“I might ask the Court to contact the minority claimants,” Cosette said. “Perhaps they would agree to my terms….”</p>
<p>The Court spoke. “That is the proper course, should—”</p>
<p>“No,” the Czar interrupted, with a troubled glance at the Mirror. “Please grant me five minutes to consider the proposal.”</p>
<p>“Granted.” The Mirror went dark, though the empty frame remained, recording.</p>
<p>The Czar loomed tall at Cosette’s elbow and spoke in a low voice, as though the Court might listen (as if he could prevent it).</p>
<p>“Listen to me, girl: I’m offering you Tier 2, mid-range or better — if you agree to my original one hundred percent buyout. I’ll make you an Influencer for a new trend — we’ll call it something healthy, natural…. <em>Natural!</em>” His smile pleaded. “Tier 2 — you’ll be regarded as superior to <em>ninety percent</em> of the population.”</p>
<p>The Czar, of course, was Tier 3, the top one percent. No one knew how high the Tiers went, since the handful who owned most of the world controlled the world’s access to information, including their own.</p>
<p>“You’re taking a big risk!” he said. “Your eight percent might be ugly — or worse, <em>mediocre</em>. What then?”</p>
<p>Cosette took off her shabby glasses. The Mirror vanished, as did the rendering of the Czar. He was not much above her height, pot-bellied, and not particularly attractive. And as he hunched forward, pleading, she knew what to do.</p>
<p>Cosette drew in a slow breath. “I don’t need to be a trend. I am a movement of one — <em>freedom</em> — and I will be myself.”</p>
<p>“You can’t rise in society without augmentation — accept my proposal, and I’ll cover the payment of your surgery as part of the deal!”</p>
<p>Cosette stared down at herself in her worn, shapeless shirt. “Before the mix, people cut themselves to fit the trends set by the likes of you. Slimmer or shapelier, darker or paler, taller or shorter. I read this — they would <em>cut</em> their flesh, with lasers and knives! Always trying to look like someone else. Just because it’s simpler in the mix doesn’t make it happiness.”</p>
<p>The conversation continued, Cosette defending her position, the Czar criticizing, until the man started and turned to the emptiness beside them. Cosette reluctantly slipped on the ill-fitting glasses as the Court called for the proceedings to resume.</p>
<p>“Has the plaintiff reached a decision in the matter of Cosette and her counterproposal? Namely, to relinquish all claims to the ninety-two percent of her appearance in the mix claimed, in exchange for clear title to all rights, real and irreal, to the non-fungible characteristics comprising the remaining eight percent?”</p>
<p>The Czar was once again tall and blue, but in Cosette’s eyes still somewhat deflated. He swallowed and said, “I accept the plaintiff’s counterproposal, on behalf of myself and the minority claimants.”</p>
<p>“Very well,” the Court said. “The decision of this Mix Court is to approve the arbitrated settlement of disputed rights and dismiss the minority claims, to be settled by the majority plaintiff within one standard day.”</p>
<p>The Mirror flashed. “Cosette, the Mix Court now displays your new default public façade.”</p>
<p>Cosette reappeared in the Mirror, in her natural state. One by one, the flagged infringements disappeared. Her eyes rounded, deepened, angled; her cheeks rose, rounded, widened; her lips broadened, thickened, curved. One by one, the stereotypes of human beauty vanished, leaving only the unacknowledged eight percent.</p>
<p>Cosette studied herself, reborn in the Mirror. She smiled and saw her image smile. She laughed in delight and watched the delight spread across the Mirror.</p>
<p>The Czar’s eyes went wide. “My dear,” he murmured. “May we talk? I have—”</p>
<p>“No,” Cosette replied.</p>j-l-royceCosette awoke in the dim faux-dawn to a blinking notification. It was her sixteenth birthday, the end of childhood, though there was no one offering to celebrate. She lay in the closeness as she did any morning, considering her day: the books she might read, the lectures she might attend. Influence was the ultimate reward, reflected in consumption, and books were free. Cosette squirmed around in the low cubicle to check her appearance in the mix-mirror, to catch up on news. It was blank, save the flashing OFFICIAL NOTICE.Like Stars Daring to Shine2022-07-26T06:00:01+00:002022-07-26T06:00:01+00:00https://firesidefiction.com/like-stars-daring-to-shine<p>When the boy opens his housing unit’s steel door and the incandescent lights pour into his face, he does not blink away. “Little suns” — this is what everyone calls them. The massive disks hover in the atmosphere, spilling streams of radiant light to the ground. The boy stares into the trees, mere meters from the door, and the forest encaving the unit stares back. A breeze finds him, whistling through the trees and into his dungarees. Threadbare with a Batman logo printed on them, the overalls belonged to his mother when she was a child.</p>
<p>Peeling his hand off the latch, the boy steals into the bright night. He hurries into the bushes, steering clear of the stone-paved forest pathways, each step sending emerald grasshoppers chirping off the shrubs. In the forest, its canopy a roof of green, darkness collects in patches, but the lights find a way — they always do. Through holes in the dense cover of leaves, they pierce the dark, creating lines of shimmering mist. The trees above crash gently into each other, and the rains that had collected in them fall to the boy’s skin in beaded drops. The musk of damp wood, bold and consuming, fills his nostrils as he weaves through the low-hanging palm fronds.</p>
<p>Before the light zones, the world had many green places — rainforests, savannas, mangroves — stretching as far as the eye could see. Not anymore. The Anambra Light Zone, with its damp places and its bird calls, is the only home the boy has ever known. He knows which months the leaves yellow and fall; he knows the poison mushrooms, their caps a vivid toxic scream. He knows the stones that birth the streams; he knows the places the Niger River breaks.</p>
<p>The boy stops when he sees the electric fence of the Multi-Science Research Facility, the words <em>RESTRICTED AREA</em> plastered across it in red. Made up of rows of cuboid structures, the facility stands at the west end of the light zone, with carpets of green algae crawling over it. When they were bored of tree counting, he and the other zone children would sometimes hide in the udala trees and guess at what might have once been the colour of the buildings.</p>
<hr />
<p>“Vermilion.” Kiki, who had a crack zipping across the lens of her glasses, always said the strangest things.</p>
<p>“That’s not a colour,” some chunky kid laughed.</p>
<p>“Raymond, you thought peanut butter was mashed meat,” she replied to the chunky kid without looking over at him. “Maybe sit this one out.” She adjusted her glasses, fiddling with the duct tape that was doing a terrible job at holding the hinges in place.</p>
<p>“That was a long time ago!” Raymond looked around to the others, begging to be believed.</p>
<p>“Not long enough, apparently.”</p>
<p>Nobody liked going river jumping or antelope watching with Kiki, and this was why. She didn’t want them around either, but holed up in the zone together, they were stuck with each other.</p>
<hr />
<p>Thirteen years ago, in the eternal winter of 2125, the boy and Kiki had been born here. They went to the same zonal school, climbed the same trees, and chased the same squirrels.</p>
<p>But Kiki was not one for words, and when she was, the other children ran back to their units in tears. So when she leaned forward in history class and whispered into the boy’s ear, “Meet me by the facility, under the udala trees,” he thought she’d mistaken him for someone else. But she hadn’t. “11 p.m. Don’t be late.”</p>
<p>“No talking,” Mr. Adesua, the geography teacher who also doubled as the history teacher, warned the class, his narrowed eyes jailed behind thick oval spectacles. “Now, where were we?”</p>
<p>He turned to the holographic board. “…Yes, on the 14th of May, 2060, Mount Nyiragongo erupted in the Congo Basin, an eruption that spanned ten months. With increased steaming, rumbling aftershocks, and smoke emissions occurring for the next decade, it was the longest, most intense volcanic disaster after the 1815 eruption of…?”</p>
<p>Mr. Adesua looked around at his students — some doodling on their holo-pads, others fiddling with their glow pens, and only a precious few making an effort to feign attentiveness. “Anyone?”</p>
<p>“The 1815 eruption of Tambora in Indonesia.”</p>
<p>“Thank you, Kiki,” the teacher sighed, resuming his lecture. “With an endless fount of ash saturating the atmosphere and obscuring the sun, Africa, our continent, truly became The Dark Continent.” A trail of dread crept into Mr. Adesua’s voice. That same dread found its way onto the faces of his now-attentive students.</p>
<p>“Sulfuric acid aerosols increased the reflection of solar radiation across the globe. Rivers and lakes in Greenland froze over; in Russia, buildings, cities, and millions of people were entombed in ice. And for the first time since the Ice Age, equatorial regions experienced winter….”</p>
<p>The boy’s attention drifted as he wondered what Kiki wanted with him. This was the first time she’d said more than a sentence to him. And though he made up his mind not to, he would later find himself hunching by the facility’s fence, breaking curfew.</p>
<hr />
<p>Shifting his weight from one foot to the other, arms crossed tightly over his chest, the boy tries to stay hidden. An industrial-grade air filter thrums next to him, sending soft vibrations up his legs. With the incandescent “little suns” blazing bright, it is just a matter of time before the tight security team spots him.</p>
<p>Equipped with a self-regulating heat-yielding capability, the little suns warm frozen landscapes while simultaneously taking over the real sun’s photosynthetic role. This made the Anambra Light Zone home to some of the last surviving biological species in Nigeria, as well as the rest of the planet — which is the reason it’s heavily guarded by high-voltage walls against poachers and raiders from outside.</p>
<p>“Boy.” The boy looks up to find Kiki hanging from a branch. “You’re late.” She lets go, and when her feet meet the ground, they do not make a sound.</p>
<p>“This doesn’t feel right,” the boy says, his breath quickening. “Let’s—”</p>
<p>“There’s no security on this side. I checked.” She takes his hand. “Come.”</p>
<p>They slink onto the Facility grounds through a rip in the wired fence and head towards one of its many buildings. At the entrance, Kiki slips out a key card. She slides it across the door-lock, and it buzzes open, revealing an empty hallway.</p>
<p>“My dads work here,” she explains, catching the questioning look on the boy’s face. “Research biologists.”</p>
<p>Half-tiptoeing, half-running, hand in hand, they hurry down the hall. The walls on each side are large glass panes, and behind them are laboratories full of things the boy has seen only in books — microscopes, Petri dishes, titration filters, jars with brownish stuff floating in them — and, in some of the rooms, things <em>not</em> in the boy’s books.</p>
<p>Kiki whirls around. “What are you doing?” His hand has slipped from hers.</p>
<p>The boy leaves her to peer through one of the glass panes. “Is that a—?”</p>
<p>“Yes. A prototype. Let’s go.” She pulls on the strap of his overalls, but he does not budge.</p>
<p>“I want to see it.”</p>
<p>“You’re seeing it now.”</p>
<p>“Up close.” He goes to the door, and Kiki knows she’s not winning this one.</p>
<p>“I am so going to regret this.” She swipes the key card across the lock.</p>
<p>Inside, a little sun fills the room. Far from what the boy imagined, it is not flat but cylindrical, like a bass drum, and insanely massive. And there is nothing ethereal about it. Wires, plugs, and circuits jot out from within it, like twigs on a dying tree. He runs his finger along its dusty metal exterior.</p>
<p>Kiki stiffens where she stands. “We need to go.”</p>
<p>With its two surfaces — one plated with blue solar cells, the other made of columns of fluorescent tubes — the little sun is in practice a solar-powered streetlight, only larger and more complex.</p>
<p>“How does it work?”</p>
<p>“I. Don’t. Know.” Kiki punctuates every word, exasperation working into her voice.</p>
<p>But of course she knows. Unlike the boy, she paid attention in Introductory Tech class. To fight the climate crisis, world governments invented the “little suns.” The disks, a hundred times more powerful than the average solar panel, absorb light energy from the sun, converting it to beams too concentrated for the sulfuric aerosols in the atmosphere to reflect. And so, dusk till dawn, the little suns shine, sentries on guard.</p>
<p>“Woah.” The boy looks up. A map is etched into the ceiling. “Is that a world map?”</p>
<p>“More like a map of what’s left. Come on. Let’s go.”</p>
<p>“What are those? The red spots?”</p>
<p>“Light zones.”</p>
<p>“So few?” He slants his head. “Why couldn’t they just shield the whole world?” He gestures to the prototype.</p>
<p>“Do you ever listen in class?”</p>
<p>The boy shrugs.</p>
<p>“With limited time and resources, the advanced multi-purpose billion-dollar design of the technology was not accessible enough to enclose entire countries,” Kiki starts like she’s reading out of an encyclopedia. The boy blinks at her. “A compromise was reached, and the suns were suspended over arable lands, wildlife reserves, and forests.”</p>
<p>“Monaco did it.” The boy smirks, crossing his arms. He knows something she doesn’t.</p>
<p>“Monaco was a very small, very wealthy nation,” Kiki sighs. “They could afford to shield their entire landmass.”</p>
<p>The boy looks back up. The area above the US and its five zones is a sheer patch of white. “Mr. Adesua said Canada was a frozen graveyard long before a little sun got mounted.”</p>
<p>“The aftermath of the eruption was hardest on polar countries. Most had to migrate their citizens towards the equator, to Kenya, Indonesia, Colombia, and here. Sure, it’s cold here, but it’s tolerable.”</p>
<p>“Do you think the people on the outside are okay?”</p>
<p>“Seeing as they’re always trying to get in here, I take it they’re not.”</p>
<p>“We should just let them in.”</p>
<p>“We— We can’t.”</p>
<p>“Why?”</p>
<p>“There’s barely enough room and resources as it is. We can’t risk an overpopulation crisis. Our parents are only here because the work they do is important, nothing more.”</p>
<p>“My mum doesn’t work here in the facility like your parents. She’s down in agriculture.”</p>
<p>“And without her, we’d all starve, including those on the outside relying on us for monthly supplies.” Kiki takes his hand again. “I want to show you something.”</p>
<hr />
<p>They head to the end of the hall and down a spiraling metal staircase. The stairs empty into a mass of interlocking pipes and dripping tanks that comprise the central grid of the drainage system. A chemical stench hangs in the air.</p>
<p>Kiki lifts a sewage lid like she’s done it a hundred times before, and the lights spill past her, into the dark below. “Get in.”</p>
<p>“No.” The boy backs away. “I’m not jumping into some random sewer.” His astonishment at seeing the prototype is long gone at this point. “I knew I should never have come.”</p>
<p>“So why did you?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know. I thought maybe you— I don’t know.” He coughs once, scratching the side of his neck.</p>
<p>“Oh god, you thought I wanted to kiss you?” Kiki’s expression cannot decide between disgust and shock.</p>
<p>“Ye— No— That’s not what I meant.”</p>
<p>“Just get in.”</p>
<p>Too embarrassed to protest further, the boy climbs down the greasy wet ladder. Following him, Kiki closes the lid, and the sewer goes pitch black. In the forest, under the cover of the canopy, the boy has experienced shades of darkness, but nothing like this. This is encompassing, ripping him of his sense of space, of being. He cannot tell where his body ends and where the darkness begins.</p>
<p>“Kiki, where are you?!”</p>
<p>“Relax, I’m right here.” She shines a headlamp in his face.</p>
<p>“I want to go back.”</p>
<p>“Not yet.” Handing him a lamp from the row of others hanging on the sewer wall, she trudges ahead, dispatching puddles of water with every step. The boy follows. Walking with a knowing sway, Kiki does not pause when the tunnel splits in three, and — unlike the boy — does not shriek when a rat scurries over her toes.</p>
<p>“How many times have you been down here?”</p>
<p>“Hm,” Kiki mutters, and nothing else.</p>
<p>The air starts to smell of river rocks as the pipes, mucky water, and defined walls give way to a larger, rough, cave-like exterior. Kiki stops.</p>
<p>“Are we there?”</p>
<p>“Turn it off,” she says, switching her lamp off. “They don’t like the light.”</p>
<p>“Who?” The boy hesitantly does as she says. “Who doesn’t like the—”</p>
<p>Then he sees it: a speck of light afloat in the dark. Another follows, twirling and glinting, up and up. A third comes, then a fourth, then a thousand.</p>
<p>“Fire— Fireflies.” The word leaves his lips as a whisper, his breath catching in his throat.</p>
<p>“Have you ever seen anything like it?” The swirling lights glint off the lenses of Kiki’s glasses, casting her entire face in a scintillating glow.</p>
<p>In the cave’s immensity, swelling with the euphonic hum of lacy wings, swarms of fireflies dance, a rain of stars. No, the boy has seen nothing like it.</p>
<p>“But….” He finds his voice. “My mum said…. She said they all disappeared when she was little. She said the lights blinded them. She said—”</p>
<p>“I know, I know. The lights made their mating glow invisible and, unable to evade predators or reproduce, they went extinct. I know.” Kiki lets her impatience show. “But look, they’re right here!”</p>
<p>“How did you find them?”</p>
<p>“I didn’t. My dads have been coming down here for months, studying them, how they’ve survived this long.”</p>
<p>“I guess the warmth from the little suns helped.” The boy inhales the fresh warm air.</p>
<p>“About that….”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“Don’t freak out, but we’re not in the zone anymore.”</p>
<p>“Where— Where are we?”</p>
<p>“Where do you think?” Kiki scoffs.</p>
<p>It takes a minute, but it comes to the boy. His eyes widening, he spins around, frantic.</p>
<p>“No, no, this is a good thing.” She reaches for his shoulders. “We’re outside the zone, but it’s not freezing down here. Don’t you see what that means?”</p>
<p>“We can’t— We can’t possibly be that far away?”</p>
<p>“We’ve been walking for hours.” She beeps her timepiece in his face. “It’s 6 a.m.” The boy gasps. “I’m usually faster on my own, but thanks to your side quests, we are <em>definitely</em> getting caught. Point is, the earth is healing,” Kiki says, her voice charged with something the boy cannot describe. “My dads say soon we might not need the little suns anymore.”</p>
<p>“Really? How soon?”</p>
<p>“They’re not sure.” She pauses for a minute. “But can you imagine? Seeing the oceans, a sunset, the moon!” Her hands tighten around his shoulders, and she shakes him. “Boy!”</p>
<p>“Zaram.”</p>
<p>Kiki raises a brow.</p>
<p>“My name is Zaram.” The boy stares down at his fingers.</p>
<p>“And all this while I thought it was ‘Boy.’” She lets out a mocking chuckle. “I know.”</p>
<p>Zaram looks up at the fireflies. “Kiki, why— Why did you pick me?”</p>
<p>She does not look at him, but not in the same way that she doesn’t look at the other zone children, like Raymond. “Well, out of everyone here… I hate you the least.” A shy humming silence builds in the space between them. “What would you like to see, Zaram, when the earth is normal again?”</p>
<p>“I— I—” He has never thought about it. This — the light zone, the little suns — is his normal.</p>
<p>“It’s alright,” Kiki smiles. “You don’t have to think about it now.”</p>
<p>Zaram smiles back. And they stay, watching all the little things daring to shine.</p>somto-ihezueWhen the boy opens his housing unit’s steel door and the incandescent lights pour into his face, he does not blink away. “Little suns” — this is what everyone calls them. The massive disks hover in the atmosphere, spilling streams of radiant light to the ground. The boy stares into the trees, mere meters from the door, and the forest encaving the unit stares back. A breeze finds him, whistling through the trees and into his dungarees. Threadbare with a Batman logo printed on them, the overalls belonged to his mother when she was a child.