They called us wicked.

When the fire came, and tore on through the day

They called it justice.

When we died, and our skin popped and roasted on the spit

We cursed them all.

And still we remain

We crawl

We doom

And yes we are

Still

Wicked.

29 Jun 1992

“As is often the case here at Redstone, we feel like we are catching this month’s writers on the rise. Both Michaele Jordan and Lynette Mejía presented us with quality science fiction stories that we are excited to publish. They both demonstrate storytelling ability that will, no doubt, lead them to find success in their writing careers. We expect to see many more stories from them published in the coming months and years.

I Will Love You Forever by Michaele Jordan considers many traditional SF themes, including human-robot interaction and what planet colonization might be like, while Steady State by Lynette Mejía is a heartbreaking take on the SF ideas of the solitary space traveler and a black hole’s event horizon. We think you will enjoy them both. Both authors. Michaele & Lynette, also generously submitted to interrogation by our publisher Paul Clemmons. Great questions and answers across the board this month.”

I was afraid, going in, mostly of the anesthesia not working correctly, but also of the intubation tube. I was afraid I would wake up and have my gag reflex turn on full throttle, or feel the pain and not be able to move. I wasn’t ‘need narcotics’ afraid, but it was definitely there. The fear, I mean.

They wheeled me into the operating room and I remember thinking that it looked exactly like the ones you see on those medical dramas on tv. I was slid over onto the operating table, and my arms were spread out, crucifixion-style (this seemed significant at the time), and the oxygen mask was lowered over my face. The last thing I remember was the anesthesiologist telling me that they were starting. That’s it. Nothing. Lights off.

My next memories were a series of ins and outs during which the nurse asked how I felt and I came closer and closer to waking consciousness. I remember hearing the LOML’s voice, reaching out toward it, grabbing his hand, not letting go. I remember how good it felt to sleep, and then sleep some more. Later I woke up for good, and I got dressed and went home.

In the overall scheme of things, even in my life, this day was not a big deal. I was one of several surgeries that doctor performed that day, an ordinary day in an ordinary week. But, still, the whole experience changed me, to some degree (not counting the errant gallbladder). After it was all over, I started thinking about it, started thinking about that loss of consciousness, when, for all intents and purposes, the thing that makes me, “me” had disappeared. It wasn’t painful, or scary. My life didn’t flash before my eyes. It was more like, here one second, gone the next. A winking out. The flick of a light switch. The snuff of a candle. If anything, it felt like I was laying a burden down. Resting. Just…resting.

And I thought, if death is like that, just a light, flickering out, then that doesn’t seem so bad. It’s not scary, not even a little bit. The only pain, the only real pain (aside from any experienced in an accidental death), in the pain of goodbye to the people you love. The act itself, the crossing of that threshold, so to speak, holds no terror for me anymore.

Most people who know me know that I’m an atheist. Still, there’s that small part of me, that thing with feathers that perches in my soul.  It’s the thing that imagines that somehow, somewhere, there’s some other place where we go when we die. That one day I’ll see my Dad again, and my Mom, and my Aunt who loved me like another daughter. I’m not ashamed of it, because I know it’s one of the things that makes me human, the imagination that takes me every place that ever was, or will be, and teaches me to ask, “What’s next?”

After last week, though, and the experience of going under, I’m more comfortable than ever in saying I’m an atheist, even if that means that when I die there will be nothing left of me, nothing at all.

Except for my words.

Sonnet XXIX*

When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least,
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate

For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

*As a side note, I think it's sad that schools no longer teach kids how to read roman numerals. Like handwriting, it's going the way of the dodo. Public education in this country is a joke.

News from Lightspeed – I think it’s going to be a better magazine.

How Sausage is Made-Selling a Short Story – Oddly, this made me feel a little better.

Fahrenheit 451 to be released as an e-book despite Bradbury’s wishes – Am I the only one who thinks this is sick and twisted? Irony, anyway? Man, I really hate corporations.

10 Mistakes SFF Writers Make with Research – a little wordy, but yeah, I agree.

Informal Checklist for Author Websites – Good info to have.

Five Manifestos for the Creative Life – I like Holstee the best. Generally I don’t like feely good motivational-type things. I like manifestos, though. Manifestos smack of revolution. And hey, you gotta believe in something…uh, don’t you?

And now, if you don’t mind, I”m going to crawl off into a hole and die.