Exploring Dark Short Fiction #3 by Eric J. Guignard

Author:Eric J. Guignard [Guignard, Eric J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Exploring Dark Short Fiction #3: A Primer to Nisi Shawl
Publisher: Dark Moon Books
Published: 2018-12-18T00:00:00+00:00

STREET WORM: A COMMENTARY

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THIS REMARKABLE STORY INTRODUCES US TO BRIT (a spunky and gifted girl we will meet again in this collection in “Conversion Therapy”). She’s a questioning young woman whose essential journey is discovering who she is as well as how to understand and manipulate her otherworldly visions. This story shows us Shawl’s fabulous talent for crafting characters who are multi-layered, questioning, and powerful in ways that the world around them cannot comprehend. We see runaway Brit “passing” for different personalities as a means of survival, and using what other people assume about her as a way of conning them into helping her. Like many of Shawl’s protagonists, the young woman exploits the weaknesses in the system to navigate it, and partners with those who are either empathetic or innocent victims of their situation.

The story gets hyperreal when it references Brit’s supernatural skills as being akin to “The Shine” in Stephen King’s The Shining, inviting readers to see the relationship between Crofutt and Brit as similar to Hallorann and Danny, inverted in race and gender. Crofutt helps Brit discover her power as a “visioner” who can “translate non-physical entities into concrete, manipulable analogies.” This description treats her as a magical superhero type of character in the story proper, but we can also read it quite directly as a metaphor for the speculative fiction writer, for this is precisely what authors do with abstractions.

And what is Shawl doing with this story? Many things, especially in regard to cultural identity. Brit’s independent spirit stands as a testimony to the autonomous power of young women who are Othered by their cultural circumstances. But the setting—the “street” of the title—makes this social allegory an interesting critique of the blindnesses of bourgeois life, as Brit hops in and out of fancy restaurants and abandoned buildings. Her encounters reveal the stratification of city life and the urban blight to which the dominant classes turn a blind eye. Brit uncovers the “worms” that are infested everywhere in the world, if one only pays attention. “The worms ate dreams,” Brit realizes, coming to a clearer understanding of her vision. But here Shawl, the storyteller, creates dreams with her work, thereby calling attention to social issues, treating reality as allegory, and crafting a rich, culturally-informed drama.

—Michael Arnzen, PhD

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