The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2021
- Автор: Рот Вероника, Адамс Джон Джозеф
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: HMH Books : Mariner
- ISBN: 9780358470076
- Жанр: Малые литературные формы прозы
Электронная книга - «The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2021». Краткое содержание книги:
This year’s selection of science fiction and fantasy stories, chosen by series editor John Joseph Adams and bestselling author of the Divergent series Veronica Roth, showcases a crop of authors that are willing to experiment and tantalize readers with new takes on classic themes and by exchanging the ordinary for the avant-garde. Folktales and lore come alive, the dead rise, the depths of space are traversed, and magic threads itself through singular moments of love and loss, illuminating the circulatory nature of life, death, the in-between, and the hereafter.
The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2021 captures the all-too-real cataclysm of human nature, claiming its place in the series with compelling prose, lyrical composition, and curiosity’s never-ending pursuit of discovering the unknown.
I got into the water in my bra and panties. I may as well have gotten naked; they were both white cotton and went see-through in the water. I tried not to think about it. I dunked my head, sat on one of the submerged steps, and soaked with my neck laid back against the rim.
I could hear people coming and going. I could hear the things they whispered to me. Voices in the salty dark called me rare and magnificent and soft and enticing. I said nothing. I didn’t even hint that I could hear.
After a few hours, my nameless handler came back with a fluffy, soft towel the size of a bedsheet that smelled like lavender. He thanked me and showed me how to download the app to get paid.
I had been there for three hours, and I had more money than I had ever had at one time, in my entire life. He watched my face very closely when I saw the number.
“My name’s Dan,” he said softly.
“Do you own this place?”
“No, I’m just a recruiter. I’m going to give you my number.”
I watched him type it into my phone as “Dan Chez Corps.”
“What makes you think I’ll call you?”
I thought he was going to remind me of how much money I had just made, but he didn’t. He kinda shook his head a little, then asked, “Where else are you going to go?”
He had brought me replacements for my wet underthings, much nicer than the ones I was wearing. They were exquisite and well made and carried no tags.
“A gift from the house,” he said, before leaving me to change. They fit like they were made for me.
I went back to the dorm and watched my roommate twitch in her sleep. Her side of the fridge held a single hard-boiled egg and a pint of skim milk. My bed groaned beneath me as I lay down, still in my fancy gift underwear.
I dreamt about my dad.
The laws changed that year, but they wouldn’t go into effect until January. They weren’t making it illegal to be fat, exactly. But it was as close as they could get. It was going to be legal to deny health insurance to anyone with a BMI over twenty-five if they refused the Pill. Intentional obesity would also be grounds for loss of child custody and would be acceptable reason for dismissal from a job.
Where the law went, culture followed. Airlines were adding a customer weight limit and clothing manufacturers concentrated on developing lines to individualize the Pill body. Journalists wrote articles on the subject of renegade fats. Could their citizenship be revoked? Should parents of fat children be prosecuted for abuse if they didn’t arrange for them to receive the Pill as soon as possible?
I submitted a treatment to my short film class detailing my desire to film a secret enclave where fat renegades performed for the gratification of a live Pilled audience. My professor wrote back to tell me that my idea was 1. obscene and 2. impossible.
The Friday before Thanksgiving break, Mom called.
“I’m so glad we’re getting this done before the change in airline policy. Can you imagine having to come to Ohio by train? Anyhow, your Aunt Jeanne is coming in for the holiday—”
“Mom. Mom, listen. I don’t want to do it.”
“Do what? See Aunt Jeanne?”
“No, Mom, listen. I’m not going to take the Pill.”
She was quiet for a minute. “Sweetie, we all took it hard when your father passed. I know you must be worried about that, but they say there’s no genetic marker—”
“It’s not just Dad. It’s not just the odds that I might die. I just don’t want to do it. I want to stay who I am.”
She sighed like I was a child who had asked for the ninetieth time why the sky was blue. “This doesn’t change who you are, Munchkin. It only changes your body.”
“I’m not coming home,” I said, flatly.
There was a lot of yelling, with both of us trying to be cruel to the other. I’d rather not remember it. What I do remember is her crying, saying something like, “I gave you your body. I made it, and it’s imperfect like mine was. Why won’t you let me fix it? Why won’t you let me correct my mistake?”
“I don’t feel like a mistake,” I told her. “And I’m not coming home. Not now, not ever.”
I remember hanging up and the terrible silence that followed. I remember thinking I should turn my phone off, but then I realized I could just leave it behind. I could leave everything behind. I took my camera and my laptop and left everything else. I didn’t even take a change of clothes.
I borrowed a phone from someone on the quad, making up a story that mine had been stolen. She waited for me as I called Dan. I told him to pick me up where I was.
The car arrived ten minutes later.
The redhead buzzed me in without asking for a password, which was great because I couldn’t remember what Dan had said. Down through the purple hallway and a woman I’d never seen before shook my hand and told me I could call her Denny.
Denny had a Pill body, hidden away beneath a wide, flowing caftan and a matching headwrap. She showed me to my room, my king-size bed, my enormous private bath, my shared common room and library. She gave me the Wi-Fi password and explained the house’s security.
“You may stay here as long as you like. The house will feed you and clothe you. Your medical needs will be seen to. Your entertainments will be top-notch. You may leave anytime you wish. Your pay will be automatically deposited into your account as it comes in, without delay.
“However, you must never disclose the location or the nature of this house to anyone via any means; not by phone call or text or email. You may take photos and videos, but we have jammers to prevent geotagging of any kind. If you are found in violation of this one rule, you will walk out of here with nothing but the clothes on your back. Is that clear?”
I told her it was. She left and returned five minutes later with a new phone for me. I signed into my bank account—the one my mother wasn’t on—and set about creating a new email, a new profile, a new identity.
I eased into the work. I ate cupcakes and I danced in a leotard. I read poetry aloud while sipping a milkshake. I lounged in a velvet chaise nude while people drew me and painted me. I began to speak to my admirers and I watched my pay skyrocket.
I met the house’s head seamstress: a brilliant, nimble-fingered fat woman named Charisse. She had an incredible eye and hardly had to measure anyone. She made me corsets and skirts, silk pajamas and satin gowns, costumes and capes and all manner of underwear.
I realized when I had been wearing her work for months that some of my clothes were a little too small. My favorite bikini cut into me just so, just enough to accentuate the flesh it did not quite contain. I filmed myself in the hall of mirrors, wearing it and trying to understand what it meant.
Some of my gowns were a little too big, though I could remember the exactitude with which I was fitted. I made short clips showing the gaps in the waist and hips, the way I could work my whole hand in between the fabric and my skin.
Charisse was too skilled for it to be an accident. The implication became clear.
All around me there were heavenly bodies in gowns and togas, a stately fleet of well-rounded ships gliding alongside the pool or lying silkily in our beds. We were beautiful, but we were all aware of a subtle campaign to make us larger, ever larger, more suited to satisfy whatever it was that brought the throngs of thin whispering wantons to our door.
In twos and threes, we began to talk about what it meant. About who we could trust. About who was running this place, and why.
The lower floors of the house were a brothel. Somehow I knew that without being told. There was a look in the older fat folks’ eyes that let me know it would be waiting for me when I was ready. Nobody pressured me. Nobody even asked. One day I just headed down the stairs. Cheeks were swabbed at the door and everybody waited fifteen minutes until they were cleared. I got my negatives and went through.