Someone You Can Build A Nest In launches on April 2nd!

My debut novel is extremely nigh! It releases April 2nd in the U.S., and April 11th in the U.K.. In this post, I'll walk you through everything you need to know.

Let's start here: what is Someone You Can Build A Nest In about?

Shesheshen is a shapeshifting monster who lurks in the ruins of an isthmus, fending off monster hunters and other vile humans. After she is poisoned and driven off a cliff, she's rescued by Homily, a bookish and gentle lady who mistakes Shesheshen for a fellow human. Homily nurses her back to health, and Shesheshen is shocked to find herself growing attached. Homily seems to be an outcast like herself. The more they fall in love, the harder it is for Shesheshen to hide her true identity. She has to confess. But just as she's about to come clean, Homily reveals why she's visiting in the isthmus. Homily is hunting a shapeshifting monster. Has Shesheshen seen it anywhere?

You can read the first chapter for free at Reactor.

The pre-release experience has been overwhelming. I keep getting tagged by readers who got advanced copies and have fallen in love with Shesheshen and Homily. Recently The Library Journal gave Someone You Can Build A Best In a starred review and named it the Debut of the Month for April. Ingram named it one of the three Best of the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books for 2024. Someone You Can Build A Nest In has also graced numerous Most Anticipated Bookslists, including Literary Hub, Apple Books, Polygon, FanFiAdddict, Reactor (A.K.A. Tor.com), and Winter is Coming.

The responses from authors has been amazing, too.

"Someone You Can Build A Nest In is sweetly furious, darkly funny, and gruesomely wholesome. It's a love story for the unloved, a happily-ever-after with a higher-than-average body count. I just adored it."
—Alix E. Harrow, New York Times-bestselling author of Starling House and The Ten Thousand Doors of January

“Surprisingly sweet, unsurprisingly horrific, and entirely humane—only John Wiswell could have written this monster and her book, and I'm so very glad he did.”’
—Arkady Martine, Hugo Award-winning author of A Memory Called Empire

“I love the wonder and the darkly enchanting danger of this story. It makes me think of fairy tales, but John Wiswell understands what so many have forgotten: that true fairy tales are gruesome and magical at the same time, and he nails it here.”
—C.L. Polk, bestselling author of Midnight Bargain and Even Though I Knew the End

“Someone You Can Build a Nest In is the future of fantasy: a fairy tale with boundaries, an
imaginative world created in the shape of collective values rather than the boring old id, a portal to a place you've really never seen before instead of just a princess in a different outfit. This novel is going to change the entire genre.”
—Meg Elison, Hugo and Locus award-winning author of The Book of the Unnamed Midwife

Pre-orders are available at all major book websites.

Announcing My Debut Novel: SOMEONE YOU CAN BUILD A NEST IN

I have some huge news to share with y'all. It is my great pleasure to announce that I've sold my debut novel, SOMEONE YOU CAN BUILD A NEST IN, to Katie Hoffman at DAW Books. In fact Katie liked it so much that she signed me to a two-book deal. We're making books, my friends!

I've been honing my craft at novels for years, finding ways to pack them with the same kinds of warmheartedness and weirdness that make my short stories come alive. This first book is one of my favorite things I've ever written. SOMEONE YOU CAN BUILD A NEST IN is an entire novel about how hard it is to be a monster in a world full of monarchs and monster slayers.

So what is this novel about? Here's a taste.

Shesheshen has made a mistake fatal to all monsters: she’s fallen in love.

Shesheshen is a shapeshifting monster who happily resides as an amorphous lump in the swamp stink at the bottom of a ruined manor. When her rest is occasionally interrupted by impolite monster hunters intent on murdering her, she constructs a body fit for devouring by reabsorbing the remains of past meals: a metal chain for a backbone, borrowed bones for limbs, a bear trap for lungs—and for an extra mouth.

However, a particularly resourceful party of hunters chase Shesheshen out of her home and off a cliff. She’s found and nursed back to health by Homily, a warm-hearted human, who has mistaken Shesheshen as a fellow human. Homily is kind and nurturing and would make an excellent co-parent: an ideal place to lay Shesheshen’s eggs so their young could devour Homily from the inside out. But as they grow close, she realizes humans don’t think about love that way.

Shesheshen hates keeping her identity secret from Homily, but just as she’s about to confess, Homily reveals why she’s in the area: she’s hunting a shapeshifting monster that supposedly cursed her family. Has Shesheshen seen it anywhere?

Eating her girlfriend isn’t an option. Shesheshen didn’t curse anyone, but to give herself and Homily a chance at happiness, she must figure out why Homily’s twisted family thinks she did. And the bigger challenge remains: surviving her toxic in-laws long enough to learn to build a life with, rather than in, the love of her life.

SOMEONE YOU CAN BUILD A NEST IN is due out Spring 2024. In the time between now and release, I'm looking forward to sharing a lot more about this book via my Patreon. This is the next step of my career and I couldn't be more excited. 

To head off one question: no, this is not the end of my writing short stories. In fact I'm working on a new short story in another window right now. I have several shorts out on submission today, and I have a couple more shorts I'm desperate to finish before the end of the year. I can't imagine a time when I won't love short stories.

But ever since I was a bedridden kid who was kept alive by the power of novels, I've wanted to write them myself. We're going to make the world a better place for us weirdos. Thank you all so much for joining me in this ride.

My Favorite Things in Books, 2016

The longer the live, the less I believe in objectively good literature. Even subjectively good literature is a concept deserving some scrutiny. When we listen to someone "love" a book, they're generally gushing about one part of it. Too Like the Lightning's plot twists, or Uprooted's dauntless quirkiness.

So this year I don't want to tell you about the "best books" I read. Instead, let's talk about my favorite things in books. Those things that define our memories of the book long after we've put it down. Come with me. Let's enjoy things together.

The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson

There is this theory that all Secondary World Fantasy is told to us in translation. The people of Wizard of Earthsea and Sword of Truth don't actually speak English - they live on planets where there was never an England. So all such works are in a contrived translation to us. But that translation has almost always default to a nigh-facsimile of Proper British or Chicago Manual Style English. Thus Sorcerer of the Wildeeps is jarring because its dialogue is relayed entirely in levels of African American Vernacular. Consider:

“Y’all do what you want,” said Mosteyfa called Teef. “But this nigga here?” They called him that for the obvious reason: long, snaggled, missing… “Is going all the way to Olorum.”… pewter-black, moss-green, yellow… “My ass ain’t tryna go right back up to the desert.”… cracked, carious, crooked. “A nigga need some rest behind that motherfucker!”

Demane felt much the same, crudity notwithstanding. A unanimous rumble rolled across the gathering of brothers.

“Anyone?” said the captain. His right hand pantomimed a man walking away, left hand waving goodbye.

“Come this far,” said some brother, “might as well go on.”

“I ain’t never seen Olorum, noway,” said another brother.

“Silver full-boys, y’all!” said a third. “Much as we can grab, y’all!”

There is nothing any more contrived about any of this language than Lord of the Rings's Middle Earth having tobacco and potatoes, or all the Fantasy novels that use the words "aphrodisiac" and "volcano" in worlds where worship was never held for Aphrodite or Vulcan. Wilson mentions "volcanic" in his first chapter, which has to be deliberate. This is fiction highly informed by cultures ignored by too much of mainstream American Fantasy. And while it has great contents all the way to the monster stalking the heroic party at the end - and that monster is the freaking coolest Fantasy monster this side of Helene Wecker's Golem - it's the language that allows access to so much character and culture. After this and The Devil in America, Kai Ashante Wilson has proven one of the most promising voices in our genre.

"Where I'm From, We Eat Our Parents" is live at Daily Science Fiction!

I'm tickled to be back at Daily Science Fiction this month with a new story: "Where I'm From, We Eat Our Parents."

The story follows Fiend, a tentacle monster with romantic intentions. *Actually* romantic intentions. He's found a great girlfriend and the biggest conflict in his life right now is meeting her parents.

I might be riffing off a genre you've heard of on the internet. But will you admit having heard of it? As with "The Terrible," DSF's editors have let me publish some of my inner weirdness. I owe thanks to my beta readers: T.S. Bazelli, Nadya Duke, and Leigh Wallace.

You can read the story by clicking here.

Couple of Horrors - #fridayflash

It’s not my fault we live in the middle of the woods. It’s not hers, either, but I can use this. We finish Nightmare on Elm Street around 2:30 AM and hustle to get the Netflix disc back to the mailbox before the morning mail. That is a quarter mile trek under an overcast of clouds and oak boughs, so I bring the flashlight. An actual fog rolls between the trees, making Lita shiver despite her coat and long skirt.

“I don’t know why they remake classics,” I say, depositing the Netflix envelope. I close the lid and flip up the flag. “You know, why not just remake crappy movies? Ones that will benefit from new effects or re-writing?”

She inhales through her nose, loud and elegant, and we both know that no matter how many flaws I can find in this remake, she’ll be afraid to go to sleep tonight. It’s not my fault. Not hers, either, but I can use this. I eye the distance to the edge of the road. About three steps. When we get far enough from the mailbox, I shut off my beam.

Phallus for the Sky - #fridayflash

A gorgeous shot from Icy Sedgwick's photo prompts.

"Hey honey."

"Oh for God's sake, Earth."

"I know you see it. It sure sees you."

"Put that away. It's not even morning. I'm tired."

"I can see the sun behind those clouds! Come on, it's the weekend."

"Where'd the romance go? You're all architecture these days."

"I sent you that shuttle!"

"I know it's the last one, Earth. All your TV satellites are floating in me."

"Have I told you that you look spacious lately?"

"I'm going back to bed."

"I bet a full moon will be out!"

"You're the worst planet I've ever dated. Pluto never needed artistic viagra."

"And look what happened to him! No, baby. I got you figured. You go take a nap. Dream on all this. "

"The single worst planet I've ever..."

White Knighting

Discussed feminism with my girlfriend. She didn't understand why I kept walking in L-shapes around her. I explained that I was White Knighting her.

We broke up.

Bathroom Monologue: Twenty Years

They were the high school sweethearts who didn’t know they were in love. They ran the school blog, spending long nights figuring out HTML and never so much as touching each other’s hands. They were each other’s default guest at parties.

They were running jokes for all their friends, through college and into work places. No one spent that long on the phone with somebody they weren’t screwing – except they weren’t. They were starting up a company that was going to revolutionize non-invasive ads, a topic that was only exciting for the two of them, and an excitement that everyone else understood differently from the two of them.

Too broke to buy houses, they pitched in for rent on one apartment from which to launch their venture. They did each other’s laundry, drove each other home from surgery, and patiently faced down accusations from each other’s parents about the location of sin and their proximity to living in it.

It was almost twenty years before a college intern shoved one of them on New Years Eve and demanded they kiss. And they might have been drunk, and they might have been hiding things, but they did and it lasted an eternal seven seconds – they both knew because it made them so nervous they couldn’t focus on anything but their watches.

Then they were quiet.

Then one of them said, “We should do that more often.”

So they did. They spent another twenty years together starting the next morning, and another twenty after that.

Girl of Steel w/ Magnet

Theirs was barely a love story. And the attraction? Unfair. She was the Girl of Steel, and he was a magnet. She never bent, she never broke, but she couldn't let go of him. They met in the middle of a Chemistry exam: an alloy plus an object possessed of a magnetic field equaled true love. Neither were consulted about the affair they'd never stop having. They were merely equated, as romance tends to work.

It hurt the Girl of Steel's self-esteem. She was used to resisting, to withstanding, and at her favorite times, upholding. But this boy walked by and she instantly zipped to his side, and she never minded it. She minded that she didn't mind. She minded what others would think, too.

The world still needed her to build cars and skyscrapers and specific models of cans. They needed her for frying pans and satellites. There was not a country on the planet that didn't view her as a one-woman industry. Not a country on the planet that wouldn't judge the affair with this boy with his lopsided electrons.

He didn't see her as an industry. The magnet didn’t even see her as industrious; she got no work done around him. They looked into each others' eyes, studying the ripples in electron behavior, and watching countless hours of The Food Network. It was stuff the other major materials made fun of – the stuff she'd made fun of until that fated exam. The stuff she'd thought was cliché without having ever considered how clichés established.

He said that perhaps clichés were an industry. Was not all industry repetition?

That was trite, and she knew it, and she couldn't help liking it anyway. Not giggling, certainly not giggling like he did at her slights and insights. He was so enthusiastic, despite never having been asked to love her, to always be there, to, in his own way, always zip to her side, which, when she paid attention, she realized he did, being less massive than her. Sometimes bites of him chipped off on impact. The Girl of Steel collected those bits of him, and turned them into earrings, since they were clingy. He called her industrious. She called that trite, and she was right, and she didn't care, and that ambivalence bothered her, and she didn't care about that either.

Soon they went on public dates to every Friday exam at the lab, to see what other couples Science would pair up on paper. To see what else would come out the other side of equations. It was difficult to understand, and the magnet never really understood, but it felt nice. That was the Girl of Steel's reasoning, too, not that she ever said it. It was easier watching the inexplicable when the explicable didn't work. Love and the Friday exams were exasperating.

Poltergeist Leak, OR, To Each, Another

Tuesday D’amato smells it, but thinks it’s a bad dream. Then Trystram and Ysolde’s claws tack-tack-tack up the stairs as they flee the basement, and they mewl so loud they’ll wake Delilah. Cats are so needy. So Tuesday gets up and opens the basement door, and they flee for the safety of the bedroom, while he takes in the musty smell. Like sweat on copper pennies.

There are two water leaks down there. Physical water is at least two inches deep in the gloom, lapping around the base of the stairs and the boxes from two years ago that he still hasn’t unpacked. His fault, he’s resigned, and he doesn’t care about that water. The other water, a ghost leak, shimmers halfway up the stairs, and translucent trout swim in the air.

“Except they’re not trout,” he corrects himself. It’s late and he’s groggy. He pads back into the bedroom, careful not to wake Delilah. Trystram and Ysolde are already in his closet, twining around his iron harpoon. Ninety-nine percent iron, a ghost’s least favorite metal. Delilah had just about killed him when he ordered it, but it kept coming in handy.

Tuesday D’amato hastens back to the stairs and sits at the top. He stirs the second water, the spectral water leak, with the tip of his harpoon, and the things that look like trout spook and swim away, into the recesses of the basement. Of course they look like trout. The ghost pipes are leaking directly above his unpacked boxes, and so they’ve gotten into his mementos, and they know all his childhood memories. About him falling in the water while fishing.

The trout fleeing, he rests the harpoon on the third stair down. The tide is climbing and he’ll need to keep an eye out until the ghost water dissipates back into another plane of existence. Then he’ll need to call a plumber. The super better cover this.

He doesn’t realize he’s grown nervous, that his bare feet are shifting on the top stair as though begging him to run. He doesn’t realize anything until Delilah touches his shoulder, and then he jerks up at her. He’s never been so relieved her head isn’t a trout.

“What is it, Big D’am?” she asks, pushing on his shoulder until he slides over. Then she plops down beside him, her hip rubbing against his. She’s wielding a night gown and that precious tablet of hers.

“Another leak,” he says, gesturing at an errant spectral trout with his iron harpoon. “Got to make sure it doesn’t rise to this floor.”

“Mhm. Mhm,” she says, turning on her tablet. “Anything neat in the water this time?”

Tuesday D’amato so tired that he forgets how to answer, and he rests his head against the harpoon. Sweat on iron does not smell the same as sweat on copper, at least not when you’re afraid for your life. Or when you’re relieved for company.

Delilah takes his head from the harpoon and instead lays it on one half of her broad lap. He can’t argue; it’s more cushioned here. But she doesn’t baby him, rather staring down into the retinal screen, booting up an avatar to slay digital ghouls for better loot drops. As the beeps and squelches and high-def MP3 soundtracks whirr into being, he wonders if there are harpoons in her game. She always plays the same one, never buying different ones, only the sequels to this. He doesn’t understand the game. He doesn’t like the game. So why, he wonders as he hears the attack sound for the two-millionth and thirty-thousandth time while resting his temple against her knee, does he find that sound soothing?

“Got to keep watch,” he says, trying to blink sleep from his eyes, trying to blink sight back into them. The ghost water laps five steps down now; he thinks it’s receding, draining into another dimension. “Got to keep us safe.”

The two million, thirty-thousand and first attack noise is her first response. Then there’s a little victory tune, and she strokes his temple with the back of her hand. “I know, and you always do. Lucky you don’t have to stop the Ghoul Lords from breaking out of the digital dimension.”

“Yeah,” he murmurs into her lap. He’s glad he bought her the silk nightgown for Christmas. “That work seems hard, too. How do you keep it up?”

“Hm?” she asks, eyes already diving back into the game, new attack noises sprouting up as she slays the undead trapped into silicon chips. “It helps having someone who understands.”

Bathroom Monologue: You Didn't Have to Elope

You didn’t have to elope. Okay, your mother never would have given her blessing to you marrying a… one of them. But I would have. You’re my boy. You would have made the decision no matter what I said – that’s obvious because you ran off and got married without asking me! And if you had to do it that weekend, fine. But if you called, I would have come. I would have been on the first plane to be there. I would have gone to your Bachelor Party. I would have paid for dinner after the reception. I will spend the rest of my life wishing I could have been there for this. And I’m not angry at you. You’re a married man now, and you’re going to have a lot more problems than some over the hill guy from the middle class being mad at you. I’m telling you this because I want you to call me. When you buy a house. When she gets pregnant. When my first grandchild is born. I don’t know what I ever did to make you think you couldn’t call me or shouldn’t tell me, but please: call. I will be on that first flight to see my grandson take his first steps or graduate third grade. Just call.

Bathroom Monologue: The Head Case

Reed’s head was a book, and one that was three-quarters unwritten.

Penn’s head was a writing utensil. Not a pen or pencil, because even I’m not that bad, but a fine horse hair brush. Penn fell madly in love with Reed, and he went on to scrawl most of the following in the margins of his lover’s head.

Taryn’s head was a fire hydrant. She spat on burning buildings, and for this was considered a hero. She had many unwanted suitors.

The Finn Quintuplets’ heads were fish. They kept trying to swim in Taryn’s spittle, following her around from heroism to heroism. She found this untoward, and so kept her valve shut whenever the Finns were at the similar parties.

If there was someone Taryn admired, it was Antonio, whose head was a water filtration system, and whose head filled hers with the naughtiest thoughts a hydrant can retain without leaking. He was, to Reed’s estimation, Penn’s mental image of himself. Antonio threw the best parties, with the spiciest foods, and interesting foreigners who played the latest music on their heads, and it all would have been perfect if Antonio didn’t own the biggest and most elaborate swimming pool in the city. The Finns always used this as an excuse to come, and so they followed Taryn along through the intricate tubing of the pool. They could be in any room she was.

Marta Maria’s head was the most elaborate swimming pool in the city. It was very hard on her neck, and she got quite lonely having to keep her body two floors below the best parties in the city. Thus Antonio often excused himself early to go downstairs and visit with her, and rub tiger balm on her neck.

Taryn would excuse herself early and follow Antonio to be jealous of Marta Maria’s neck problems.

The Finn Quintuplets tried to excuse themselves, but were stuck up in the pool, unless it was raining. If it was raining, they followed Taryn down and performed obnoxious tricks with flakes of calzone crust.

Marta Maria would have given them all a disparaging look if she were capable. However, she was capable of asking Miss Yaki for help. Miss Yaki was a city councilperson and universally heralded as wise since her head was an idea. If you wanted solutions, you had to look into Miss Yaki’s eyes. Fortunately for Marta Maria, Miss Yaki loved spicy food and was entirely intolerant of it, and so always attended Antonio’s parties, and always ate a bite too much, and always needed a glass of water. As you’d imagine, Marta Maria had always been good at finding glasses of water. Miss Yaki owed her a favor, and Miss Yaki came up with a solution seven seconds later.

Now Penn thought this solution should have been: “That solution, like the rest of this story, is in Reed’s head.”

Reed, however, kept blotting away Penn’s brush strokes. Reed felt that the solution should be: “And they found Rosetta, a nice girl whose head was the world’s best neck support, and Rosetta and Maria Marta fell madly in love, and they explained sexual harassment to the Finn Quintuplets, and Taryn confessed her feelings to Antonio, who let her down gently about his lack of reciprocity, and the two of them instead became casual friends with minimal awkwardness ever after.”

Penn felt that his lover, while cute, was a terrible writer. And so the man with head of pages and the man with the head of a brush argued about the ending for three dawns, until as a gag they started transcribing the best parts of their bickering, the sharpest lines and barbs, and goofiest ideas. It is surely for that reason that Jove showed up in their story, a radiant third-gendered young person with a god for a head, who fixed everything for everyone to everyone’s satisfaction.

If that seems like a disappointing ending, then you’ve likely guessed that by the third dawn, Reed and Penn had stopped taking their joint novel seriously. Co-authoring is very difficult for some people. Partners tend to get ahead of themselves.

Bathroom Monologue: The Giant and the Mediocre Kisser

"If you keep looking at me like that, I'm going to assume I'm a lousy kisser."

"The kiss part was nice. But why do you look at me like that?"

"Like what? Look at you from this angle? Because I have to look up. You're a hundred feet tall."

"I'm one inch taller than you."

"The difference looks bigger from down here, you giant."

"Now I'm not kissing you anymore."

"Good. My tippy toes were starting to ache."

"Hey!"

"You're a thousand feet tall."

"I thought it was a hundred."

"Maybe you grew while we were talking. I wouldn't put that past you."

"It really burns you up to be shorter than me."

"Mostly, I'm afraid I'm a lousy kisser."

"You're not. You're mediocre-to-decent."

"Really?"

"Don't get needy, you tiny thing."

"Needy? I'm relieved. I don't have that much practice. Mediocre is an achievement."

"Oh, now that's sad. Come here."

"Only with you, who's probably of another genus. Titanica or something."

"Yeah, no more kissing."

"Can you get some tissues from the top shelf for me?'

"And now I'm leaving."

"To fight crime?"

"I'm starting to think you like this more than making out."

"I knew the truth would travel up there eventually."

"Mediocre kisser."

"Thank you!"

At which point the narrator turns to you and asks: what did you think their genders were?

Bathroom Monologue: At Our Best

He set aside his entire evening. He spent half a month's salary on bribes to get them a table at the city's most exclusive restaurant. He bought her the best chocolates. He found her favorite wine, in its best year.

Nervous, he showered three times and used that cologne he couldn't stand, but that she said reminded her of the ocean. She loved the ocean. So he made sure that their table overlooked it.

He had his best suit dry-cleaned and held off wearing it for a month, saving it just for that night. He wore the tie she'd gotten him last year. He got a dozen black roses, and put them in a bouquet with a dozen white ones. In the very center, he placed a single, brilliant red rose. That bouquet sat on the middle of their table for two hours as he waited for her. She never came. At the stroke of ten, he looked out at the night city skyline. His jaw fell as he realized. He'd forgotten to invite her.

Bathroom Monologue: Thinking over what to say when Mom says she wants to date again, Redux

"Date me? No? Then it sounds fine. It’s been years! And the woman next door was totally looking you over. If you go lesbian it’ll take care of any Daddy Issues I might have. I hear women are more sensitive than men anyway. Don’t have any empirical evidence of it, but it’s a rumor. You can date any woman you want, but leave the under-25’s for me. Men? Well, if he mows the lawn. And make sure he’s rich. And generous to his step-children."

Bathroom Monologue: Anton and Anton

Anton sits on his knees before the grave of Anton. For a while, Emil and Yulia's son holds Anton's left hand and does his impression of prayer; at three years old, he no better understands prayer than he does who is buried beneath his soles.

"Amen," Emil and Yulia's son mutters, releasing Anton's hand to rub at his eyes. The drive here has made him drowsy, and Yulia stoops to pick him up. She bows a quarter of the way she normally would, dipping herself and her child toward the headstone.

Instead of 'Amen,' she says, "Thank you for saving my husband, Anton." She says nothing more, and ends her bow. She did not think much of Anton, the drunken shadow of her Emil. She is two paces behind Anton when he checks her, her gaze already on the car.

It is four years to the Saturday since Anton Behrs was blown up pulling Emil from a foundry. That is what everyone knows. They commemorate it on Saturdays because Emil Behrs has never in eleven years missed a day at the exchange, and Anton will not let Emil fail now. He misses absinthe.

Bathroom Monologue: I'm Your Boyfriend from the Future

"Bullshit."

"You don't swear as much in the future, but you do so much more creatively."

"You've been here two minutes and already you're trying to change me?"

"You try to pick no-loss fights like that in the future, too."

"Do I believe your bullshit time travel story in the future?"

"You'll find out if you go on a date with me."

Bathroom Monologue: Mercy, Kind of Mind

"No, you go on. I'll wait here. I don’t mean to drag you down."

"You never do! Sometimes you remind me to slow up. I need that. Here."

"Thanks. I just get tired so easily. I hate it."

"I don’t. You’re comfy to lean on when we sit together. Like this."

"Ow. Hey, ow."

"Sorry, did that hurt?"

"I bruise too easily, too… And the acne? At my age? How do you even look at me?"

"Because those aren’t the things I stare at. Honey, I’ve never even noticed."

"People are always judging at me when we walk together. You have to notice that. It has to weigh on you."

"I haven’t noticed it weighing. But it bothers you?"

"Really. What would you change about me?"

"Well… Some of your anxieties could go."

"Only some? My bitching alone--"

"—could be scaled back. I couldn’t get rid of all the flaws altogether, though. Then you wouldn’t be you anymore."

Bathroom Monologue: Dialogue on Drunkenness

Randy: What would you do if someone whacked Ninx?

Vineguard: Pardon?

Randy: Hypothetically. And she wasn’t around for you to glom on anymore.

Vineguard: It wouldn’t happen.

Randy: Hypothetically, it happened.

Vineguard: Hypothetically, I stopped it. I beat the assassin about the head and shoulders.

Randy: But let’s say there’s five assassins. You’re knocking around the first four, but then the fifth whacks her.

Vineguard: That’s preposterous. She’d strike him in the neck, or crush him between boulders.

Randy: Nine assassins. And you knock around the first four, and she knocks around the other four. But the ninth slips past you both and shanks her. One poke, one kill, quick as anything.

Vineguard: Neither of us saw him?

Randy: He was very good. She was very dead.

Vineguard: She’ll love knowing you think about these things.

Randy: So what would you do?

Vineguard: Where we you for this?

Randy: Oh, drunk. Very drunk. Slept through it like a coma.

Vineguard: That does seem plausible.

Randy: So? What would you do if the ninth guy whacked her?

Vineguard: I’d imagine I’d kill him on the spot. Cut him into… five even pieces? Hypothetically.

Randy: I mean with your life, you sissy.

Vineguard: I’d mourn her. Collect her remains, observe her family’s funeral rituals. Visit her mother and sisters, make peace.

Randy: A little late to win them over.

Vineguard: Gather any remaining plans she had for heists. Carry them off, perhaps mark her resting place with the prizes, except those too garish.

Randy: You’d spend the rest of your life decorating her?

Vineguard: I imagine I’d live longer than that. With all her remaining heists carried out, I presume enough time would elapse to find the genealogies of the nine assassins who attacked us on the hypothetical day. They themselves would be long-rotten, but they would have families. Parents, spouses, siblings, spawn, assorted aunts, uncles and grandparents.

Randy: …What?

Vineguard: Surely they weren’t immaculately conceived. With the genealogies mapped, it would only be a matter of finding their localities. I would start with those most dearly and closely related, in that priority, and execute everyone in their localities.

Randy: Hold on. Hold on. “Everyone?”

Vineguard: Unless they lived solitary lives, I presume there would be other folk around.

Randy: Innocent people?

Vineguard: True love does not short-sell.

Randy: And you’re not afraid a militia’s going to stop you?

Vineguard: No, because it’s not going to happen.

Randy: You would go after militias that never did anything to you just because someone stabbed her?

Vineguard: They’d have to go first, being practical. Strike a few hours after midnight when the watch is flagging and the sleepers are not yet rested. After that, fairly certain I would have the skill. If they took my life, then so be it. Otherwise, old age would have it.

Randy: You don’t know how to make hypothethicals fun, do you?

Vineguard: Of course I do. Don’t get drunk, Randy. 

Bathroom Monologue: Ninja in the Chapel

“Listen, we have to make this quick, because my brother’s eldest daughter is getting married in ten minutes. I know where your ninja are. There are twelve, counting the two out here – one behind the statue of St. Aloysius, and one in the rafters over my head. I’m guessing you intended to execute me along with my brother and his family. I haven’t told many people because I don’t want to spoil the weekend.

“So let’s make this quick. I poisoned your crepes this morning with an extract from a newly discovered species of jellyfish. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to darken the afternoon, and I figured if you were polite at the wedding, then I’d put the antidote in your cake at the reception. It blends seamlessly with syrups and icings.

“So. If you don’t make a stir, and all of your invisible assassins remain unseen, I’ll hand you a piece of cake in an hour and we’ll go home. I’ll even write the names of your three associates who I’ve similarly poisoned today on your napkin so you can go about saving them, or letting them die and taking their place. Don’t rush into the decision now. It’s a wedding day. This should be something special.

“And where are you sitting?”