On Spec #122, Winter 2022
“Fire Flows Downhill” by Alex Langer
“I’ll Have My Toast With Jam, Please” by Andrea Bernard
“Blister” by Judy Helfrich
“Compassion Fatigue” by David Tallerman
“Loaner Bodies” by Aaron Perry
“Botman’s Tale” by Liz Westbrook-Trenholm
“Acceptance” by E.A. Mylonas
“The Yellow House” by Jonathan Lenore Kastin
“Quirks” by Arinn Dembo
Reviewed by Victoria Silverwolf
Nine new works of imaginative fiction appear in the latest issue of this Canadian publication.
“Fire Flows Downhill” by Alex Langer takes place in a fantasy world in which one nation has dominated others for centuries by making a deal with a powerful dragon. A few oppressed people make a long and dangerous journey to the dragon’s lair in order to reverse matters, but one of them has a different idea in mind.
This synopsis makes the setting sound like the typical pseudo-medieval one found in much fantasy fiction. In fact, it resembles the modern world in many ways, with firearms and explosive mines. Much is made of the fact that the protagonists have to pass through a wall, showing paperwork that allows them through. This suggests analogies with modern political situations. These aspects of the story and a creation myth that appears in the middle of the narrative do not always fit together gracefully with the classic fantasy premise of a dragon.
In “I’ll Have My Toast With Jam, Please” by Andrea Bernard, a toaster starts talking to the narrator, who has been treated for mental illness. The small appliance offers helpful and even lifesaving advice.
There is not much more to the story than the premise. As expected, it begins in a whimsical fashion, but soon becomes serious and even violent. The change in mood may disconcert some readers expecting light comedy.
The protagonist of “Blister” by Judy Helfrich produces fleshy growths on her body formed from her emotions. When the husband who left her for another woman returns, she attaches one of her growths to his body, allowing him to experience her emotional agony.
This is just the start of a fairly long and complex allegorical fantasy that moves at a frantic pace. The growths are used as works of art that allow patrons to recall their own emotional experiences. There is also a subplot about an object that the husband gives to the woman that I did not fully understand.
The premise may remind movie buffs of David Cronenberg’s horror film The Brood, although the two works develop it in very different ways. Appropriately, the story reads as if it were written in an emotional frenzy. I was not always sure what the author was trying to say about emotion, but it certainly made for a breathtaking experience.
The narrator of “Compassion Fatigue” by David Tallerman is a college student who goes to a party where he witnesses a man save a woman from a drug overdose in a miraculous manner. The procedure requires the man to suffer agony. Over time, the narrator becomes close to the group of people associated with the man, and heals himself in a very different way.
The premise appears to be used as a metaphor for the narrator’s emotional struggle. The message may be that healing can only occur with pain. The theme is an important one, but the fantasy content is not needed to express it.
In “Loaner Bodies” by Aaron Perry, aliens take people away for seven years at a time, exchanging them with identical clones that have the original’s memories. The narrator’s husband is replaced in this way. When the original returns, a crisis ensues.
The premise is interesting, but I found it hard to accept the way the narrator reacts to the situation. In particular, her behavior at the very end seems to come out of nowhere, given how she acts earlier in the story. Perhaps some readers will find her attitude more believable than I did.
“Botman’s Tale” by Liz Westbrook-Trenholm takes characters from Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream and brings them into the modern world. The queen of the fairies sends her donkey-eared servant to the realm of mortals in order to retrieve her daughter from adoptive human parents who raised her from infancy. The child, now a teenager, has her own ideas.
The story combines slapstick with fantasy and a sentimental message about parenthood. This warmhearted jape will best appeal to those in search of light amusement.
The narrator of “Acceptance” by E.A. Mylonas experiences all of life at once, her consciousness jumping back and forth in time. (The premise is very similar to that of Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death.) The text, through multiple flashbacks and flashforwards, tells of the narrator’s relationship with her husband, from their first meeting to his death in a future dystopia.
Although the concept, as explained above, is not entirely original, it is used in a more intimate way than in Vonnegut’s classic. The story is mostly about the narrator’s inability to make her husband understand that the future has already happened, so to speak; nothing they do can change it. The hopelessness of the dystopia to come is powerfully conveyed, but may seem out of place in an otherwise quiet tale.
“The Yellow House” by Jonathan Lenore Kastin is a very brief story about a little girl who doesn’t want to leave her beloved home when her parents decide to move. This tiny tale of terror is effectively chilling, if minor.
The title of “Quirks” by Arinn Dembo refers to people with extraordinary abilities. They are hunted down and killed by normal folks. The narrator, with the aid of her similarly gifted sister, protects herself by taking on a new appearance and changing her name to Nobody, which causes others to ignore her. She helps another Quirk escape assassination by combining her extraordinary power with words and his ability to create things by drawing them.
Although the plot suggests an action-packed story about superpowered mutants straight out of a comic book, the author seems more interested in a metaphor for the way in which art and literature can change the world. The plot logic may be questionable, as to why normal people are determined to exterminate the Quirks, or why they think they can defeat those who have such god-like powers, but the story offers much food for thought.
Victoria Silverwolf has seen The Brood.