Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 16 by Gavin J. Grant Kelly Link

Author:Gavin J. Grant, Kelly Link
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: zine, Science Fiction, Short Fiction, LCRW, fantasy
Publisher: Small Beer Press
Published: 2010-08-17T17:21:24.552425+00:00

The Monster Wore Reeboks

Dr. Frankenstein's monster wore Greedbok hightops, the only shoes that fit his size eighteen quadruple

E's.

Irregularly arched, he needed special support to keep his feet from turning inward.

"Pronation,” the Doctor said, shaking his head, and vowed to do better next time.

Meanwhile, Greedbok's funding of Frankenstein's research had an antidefamation clause.

The nameless monster loved his Greedboks.

External stitching and Promethean lightning bolts seemed significant to him, but he didn't know why.

When he learned they were made in Indonesian sweatshops by workers earning $2.00 a day, his great heart broke, but he couldn't give them up, swearing to wear them

'til their soles died and their tongues fell apart.

No longer believing in a future formed and favored by the fruits of benevolent technology, the motherless monster became depressed.

"Could be bipolar disorder,” Frankenstein muttered.

The monster overheard and set out for the North

Pole instead.

"Better to be a frozen stiff than a capitalist shill,"

he thought.

Quarter past Finland, Frankenstein caught up with him.

"Wait! Wait!” Frankenstein shouted.

"It's true, Greedbok pays forty cents an hour but the local standard is twenty.

They're really quite enlightened, their publicist says."

The monster turned back and settled down in Lapland.

Naming himself Bok the Unconquered, he became labor negotiator for disfranchised reindeer.

"Pack animals suffer as much as third-world wage slaves, but cannot speak for themselves,” he wrote.

Now he wears self-made felt boots and leggings;

his Reeboks hang in a special place in his tent.

Finally he seems content. Good shoes have given him sole and eyes and tongue but the heart has always been his.

* * * *

A Hermaphrodite at Menopause

I was always androgynous—a pretty boy, a handsome girl, sliding easily between the sexes coming—up and out in the best of both worlds, strength and agility for quarterback, breasts and hips for cheerleader, too;

then the years of father/motherhood, nurture and nature necessarily nested within the bloodtides of the moon.

I was myself, circled but undefined by stereotype, so when the change overtook me in a burn of hot flashes, a haze of ill health, a wheel of seasons when nothing worked,

I was loosed from the hormones of female attraction and became crone/codgered, my body softened like an old cushioned chair, an unassuming fringe of gray mustache.

Now that I'm ripe for grandparenthood, the urge to procreate once again consumes me.

Grandma's teacup is empty, but

Grandpa's pipe still rises to the occasion.

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