Is this your fight?
Did you have nothing and no one else to fight for?
Your mama?
Your best friend?
Your imaginary friend?
God?
Which one?
Which name will fly from your lips first if it’s not your own?
Ares?
Allah?
Jehovah?
What makes you the chosen one?
Is it because if you can’t have it no one can?
Whom are you willing to believe to justify your moves?
Whose side are you willing to take?
How far are you willing to go?
What are you willing to do?
Throw down a phaser to throw a punch?
Believe in a prophecy?
In divine will?
In how thick your blood runs?
Are you willing to cut someone?
Cut someone off?
Shoot them?
End them?
Run away?
Stop running?
Go back to school?
Quit school?
Pick up a pen?
Pick up a mic?
Throw down a gauntlet?
Squeal?
Snitch?
Steal?
Hide?
Dig a shallow grave if it’s the right thing to do?
The only thing to do?
Are you willing to pick up a sign and march?
Are you willing to do more than post a status update?
Willing to forgive?
To disagree?
To shake on it?
Willing to save someone’s skin that isn’t your own?
Willing to save someone’s skin
that doesn’t look like your own?
Are you willing to take the blame?
To sign your name?
To lose your name?
Lose time?
Lose money?
Let someone else take the credit?
Let someone else keep score?
Are you willing to get caught?
To be locked up?
To dodge a draft?
To go in someone else’s place?
To do it for free?
And what then?
What if it works?
Say you get what you want.
Say no one needs your chants anymore.
Or your hashtag campaigns.
Or your platform.
Or your publicity.
Or your protection.
Or your advice.
Or your condolences.
Or your guilt.
Or your tears.
Or your voice.
Or your trench.
Or what you went through in your trench.
Say no one needs you to wear your armor anymore.
No one needs you to bust open the floor
and retrieve your guns and gold bricks.
Not the ones you thought you were fighting for.
Not even the memory of them.
Would you sheathe your sword?
Would you take off the chain mail?
The bulletproof vest?
Hang up your spurs and saddlebags?
Would you come home?
Could you relax your trigger finger?
How would you know when to indulge again
in long lazy naps on summer afternoons
and laughter that doesn’t remind you of screams,
cookouts that aren’t in the wilderness
but fenced-in backyards, no rations,
no more making do, no slogans, no more campaigns?
At what point do the bombs stop
going off in your brain?
What if nothing is left in your life that’s set to blow?
When will you see the boogeymen
in the closet are just shirts on hangers
and the monster under the bed is a pile of dust?
When is it time to come out with your hands up—in thanks?
When is it time to come in peace, not in pieces?
In what lockbox have you hidden your heart?
Is it rusted shut?
Could you even find the key if you wanted to?
In what well have you drowned your mind?
How deep does it go?
And of what of your hubris?
When is it time to dial it down,
fade to black, roll the credits,
and switch off red alert?
Would you even want to come back
if coming back meant you wouldn't be
asked to fight anymore?
No one ever said the journey
of a thousand miles begins outside yourself.
What they don’t tell you when you take
that first swing is how to know when to stop.
Author Bios
New York Times bestselling author Alethea Kontis is a princess, a voice actress, and a force of nature. She is responsible for creating the epic fairytale fantasy realm of Arilland, and dabbling in a myriad of other worlds beyond. Her award-winning writing has been published for multiple age groups across all genres. Host of “Princess Alethea’s Fairy Tale Rants” and Princess Alethea’s Traveling Sideshow every year at Dragon Con, Alethea also narrates for ACX, IGMS, Escape Pod, Pseudopod, and Cast of Wonders. Born in Vermont, Alethea currently resides on the Space Coast of Florida with her teddy bear, Charlie. Find out more about Princess Alethea and the magic, wonderful world in which she lives at patreon.com/princessalethea.
* * *
Annie Neugebauer is a two-time Bram Stoker Award-nominated author with work appearing and forthcoming in more than a hundred publications, including magazines such as Cemetery Dance, Apex, and Black Static, and anthologies such as Year’s Best Hardcore Horror Volumes 3 and 4, and #1 Amazon bestsellers Killing It Softly and Fire. She’s a columnist for Writer Unboxed and LitReactor. You can visit her at www.AnnieNeugebauer.com.
* * *
Bianca Lynne Spriggs is an award-winning poet currently based in Athens, Ohio, where she is an Assistant Professor of English at Ohio University. She is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently, Call Her by Her Name (Northwestern University Press, 2016) and The Galaxy is a Dance Floor (Argos Books, 2016). In 2018 she co-edited the horror poetry collection Undead with Katerina Stoykova-Klemer (Apex Book Company, 2018). You can learn more about Bianca’s work at www.biancaspriggs.com.
* * *
Brooke Bolander writes weird things of indeterminate genre, most of them leaning rather heavily towards fantasy or general all-around weirdness. An alum of the 2011 Clarion Writers’ Workshop at UCSD, her stories have been featured in Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, Tor.com, Uncanny, and various other fine purveyors of the fantastic. She has been a repeat finalist for the Nebula, the Hugo, the Locus, the Theodore Sturgeon, and the World Fantasy Award, much to her unending bafflement. Her first book, The Only Harmless Great Thing, was published by Tor Dot Com Publishing in 2018.
* * *
Cassandra Khaw writes horror, video games, tweets for money, articles about video games, and tabletop RPGs. These are not necessarily unrelated items. Her work can be found in professional short story magazines such as Clarkesworld, Fireside Fiction, Uncanny, and Shimmer. Cassandra’s first paranormal rom-com, Bearly a Lady, released this year. Her recent Lovecraftian Southern Gothic, A Song for Quiet, is a considerably different animal.
* * *
Christina Sng is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of A Collection of Nightmares (Raw Dog Screaming Press, 2017). Her poetry has appeared in numerous venues worldwide and received nominations for the Rhysling Awards and the Dwarf Stars, and honorable mentions in the Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror and the Best Horror of the Year. Visit her at www.christinasng.com and connect on Twitter @christinasng.
* * *
Dee Warrick writes short fiction and video games, and sometimes hides short fiction inside of video games. An Ohio native, she currently lives in De
nver, Colorado after spending most of her adult life as an expatriate in South Korea, Germany, and the Netherlands. Her work has appeared in short fiction venues like Tor.com, Apex Magazine, Shimmer Magazine, and Daily Science Fiction. She’s your rad trans friend.
* * *
E. Catherine Tobler has never roamed a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but given the world we’re living in, there’s time yet! Among others, her short fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Apex Magazine, and on the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award ballot. Follow her on Twitter @ECthetwit or her website at www.ecatherine.com.
* * *
Eugenia Triantafyllou is a Greek author and artist. She writes ghost stories. She currently lives in northern Sweden with a boy and a dog. Her short fiction has appeared in Apex, Strange Horizons, Black Static, and other venues. You can find her on Twitter @FoxesandRoses or her website at eugeniatriantafyllou.wordpress.com.
* * *
Fran Wilde’s novels and short stories have been nominated for two Nebula awards and a Hugo, and include her Andre Norton- and Compton-Crook-winning debut novel, Updraft (Tor 2015), its sequels, Cloudbound (2016) and Horizon (2017), and the novelette “The Jewel and Her Lapidary” (Tor.com Publishing, 2016). Her short stories appear in Asimov’s, Tor.com, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Shimmer, Nature, and the 2017 Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror. She writes for publications including The Washington Post, Tor.com, Clarkesworld, iO9.com, and GeekMom.com. You can find her on Twitter (@fran_wilde), Instagram (@fran_wilde), and at franwilde.net.
* * *
Jeremy Paden received his Ph.D. in Spanish from Emory University and is Professor of Spanish and Latin American literature at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky. He is the recipient of a 2019 Al Smith Individual Artist Fellowship for poetry from the Kentucky Arts Council. He is the author of three chapbooks of poems and a chapbook of translated poems. His poems and translations have appeared in Adirondack Review, Atlanta Review, Asymptote Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Cincinnati Review, Cortland Review, Louisville Review, Rattle!, Words Without Borders, and other journals and anthologies.
* * *
Jo Miles is building a more hopeful future, both in her fiction and through her day job, where she helps nonprofits use the internet to save the world. Her stories have appeared in Diabolical Plots, Analog, and more. You can find her online at www.jomiles.com and on Twitter as @josmiles. She lives in Maryland, where she is owned by two cats.
* * *
John Hornor Jacobs is the award-winning author of Southern Gods, This Dark Earth, the young adult Incarcerado series, and The Incorruptibles. His fiction has appeared in Playboy Magazine, Cemetery Dance, and Apex Magazine. Jacobs resides in the American South and spends his free time when not working on his next book thinking about working on his next book. You can learn more about him at johnhornorjacobs.com or talk to him on Twitter @johnhornor.
* * *
Joshua Gage is an ornery curmudgeon from Cleveland. His newest chapbook, Origami Lilies, is available from Poet’s Haven Press. He is a graduate of the Low Residency MFA Program in Creative Writing at Naropa University. He has a penchant for Pendleton shirts and any poem strong enough to yank the breath out of his lungs.
* * *
Karin Lowachee was born in South America, grew up in Canada, and worked in the Arctic. Her first novel, Warchild, won the 2001 Warner Aspect First Novel Contest. Both Warchild (2002) and her third novel, Cagebird (2005), were finalists for the Philip K. Dick Award. Cagebird won the Prix Aurora Award in 2006 for Best Long-Form Work in English and the Spectrum Award also in 2006. Her books have been translated into French, Hebrew, and Japanese, and her short stories have appeared in anthologies edited by Nalo Hopkinson, John Joseph Adams, Jonathan Strahan, and Ann VanderMeer. Her fantasy novel, The Gaslight Dogs, was published through Orbit Books USA.
* * *
Lucy A. Snyder is the five-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author of over 60 published poems. Her most recent books are the collection Garden of Eldritch Delights and the forthcoming novel The Girl with the Star-Stained Soul. She also wrote the collections While the Black Stars Burn, Soft Apocalypses, and Chimeric Machines. She’s faculty in Seton Hill University’s Writing Popular Fiction MFA program. You can learn more about her at www.lucysnyder.com.
* * *
Mary Soon Lee was born and raised in London, but now lives in Pittsburgh. She writes both fiction and poetry, and has won the Rhysling Award and the Elgin Award. Her work has appeared in Analog, Asimov’s, Daily Science Fiction, F&SF, Science, and Strange Horizons. She has an antiquated website at MarySoonLee.com and tweets @MarySoonLee.
* * *
Marie Vibbert has played tackle football, fought with sword and shield, and even bicycled through a mob to catch a glimpse of LeBron James riding down East 9th. She’s a proud Clevelander and applications developer at CWRU. Her short fiction has appeared in Apex, Analog, F&SF, Lightspeed, and other awesome places.
* * *
A community organizer and teacher, Maurice Broaddus’s work has appeared in Lightspeed Magazine, Weird Tales, Apex Magazine, Asimov’s, Cemetery Dance, Black Static, and many more. Some of his stories have been collected in The Voices of Martyrs. He is the author of the urban fantasy trilogy, The Knights of Breton Court, and the (upcoming) middle grade detective novel series, The Usual Suspects. He co-authored the play Finding Home: Indiana at 200. His novellas include Buffalo Soldier, I Can Transform You, Orgy of Souls, Bleed with Me, and Devil’s Marionette. He is the co-editor of Dark Faith, Dark Faith: Invocations, Streets of Shadows, and People of Colo(u)r Destroy Horror. His gaming work includes writing for the Marvel Super-Heroes, Leverage, and Firefly role-playing games as well as working as a consultant on Watch Dogs 2. Learn more about him at MauriceBroaddus.com.
* * *
Meg Elison is the author of The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, a Tiptree recommendation, Audie Award finalist and winner of the Philip K. Dick Award. Her sequel, The Book of Etta, was published in February 2017, and the third and final book in the series comes out in April of 2019. She has also been published in Slate, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Shimmer, Lightspeed, McSweeney’s, Catapult, and many other places. Elison is a high school dropout and a graduate of UC Berkeley. She lives in Oakland, CA and writes like she’s running out of time.
* * *
A. Merc Rustad is a queer non-binary writer who lives in Minnesota. Merc is a 2016 Nebula Awards finalist and their stories have appeared in Lightspeed, Fireside, Apex, Uncanny, Shimmer, and other fine venues. You can find Merc on Twitter @Merc_Rustad or their website: amercrustad.com.
* * *
Nayad Monroe is the editor of two anthologies, What Fates Impose and Not Our Kind, and her short stories have been published in several speculative fiction anthologies, including the diverse steampunk hit Steampunk World, edited by Sarah Hans. Nayad also shares her artwork on Instagram, and is on Twitter as @Nayad … in those rare moments when she is not cooking incredible amounts of food for her three sons or getting riled up about politics.
* * *
Rachael K. Jones grew up in various cities across Europe and North America, picked up (and mostly forgot) six languages, and acquired several degrees in the arts and sciences. Now she writes speculative fiction in Portland, Oregon. Her debut novella, Every River Runs to Salt, is available from Fireside Fiction. Contrary to the rumors, she is probably not a secret android. Rachael is a World Fantasy Award nominee and Tiptree Award honoree. Her fiction has appeared in dozens of venues worldwide, including Lightspeed, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Strange Horizons, and all four Escape Artists podcasts. Follow her on Twitter @RachaelKJones.
* * *
Rich Larson was born in Galmi, Niger, has studied in Rhode Island and worked in southern Spain, and now lives in Ottawa, Canada. His short fiction appears in numerous Year’s Best anthologies and has been translated into Chinese, Vietnamese, Polish, Czech, French, and Italian. His debut novel, Annex, came out in July 2018, and his debut collection,
Tomorrow Factory, followed in October 2018. Find more at richwlarson.tumblr.com and support him via patreon.com/richlarson.
* * *
Russell Nichols is a speculative fiction writer and endangered journalist. Raised in Richmond, California, he sold all his stuff in 2011 and now lives out of a backpack with his wife, vagabonding around the world. Find his work in Fiyah, Apex Magazine, Fireside Fiction, Strange Horizons, Nightmare Magazine’s POC Destroy Horror special issue and others. Look for him at russellnichols.com.
* * *
Sarah Pinsker’s short fiction has won the Nebula & Sturgeon Awards, and she’s been a finalist for the Hugo and numerous other awards. Small Beer Press will publish her first collection, Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea, in March, 2019, and her first novel, A Song For A New Day, will be published by Berkley in September, 2019. She’s also a singer/songwriter with three albums on various indie labels and a fourth on the way. She lives with her wife and dog in Baltimore, Maryland.
* * *
If Shanna Germain were a god, she’d be the Benevolent God of Rainbow Sprinkles. Sadly for all of us, she’s only human. Her award-winning body of work encompasses stories, games, poems, and essays about lust, lies, and leviathans, and includes Predation, No Thank You, Evil!, Invisible Sun, As Kinky as You Wanna Be, The Lure of Dangerous Women, and The Poison Eater. Currently, she’s hard at work on a fantasy novel about drunken gods and Post-it notes; a roleplaying game about fairy tales and madness; and a cookie recipe that she hopes will bring all the puppies to her yard. Follow her down the rabbit hole at shannagermain.com.
Do Not Go Quietly Page 31