Twinkie ...

 

Mom named me Twinkie because she wanted me to stay fresh and sweet for a thousand years. But I know that I really survive in this wasted city because of Oscar.  Like his namesake, I keep him sharp and he's clever and quick in my hand and with his help I find people to talk to. They don't talk back but they're still company until they start to stink.  The best part of those relationships is that I can tell them all my secrets and they keep their mouths shut.  The worst part of those relationships is dragging them up to the open air to burn them once their stink keeps me awake because I'll be double-buggered if I'll drag them all the way down to the forest to bury them there.

Boys are easier to trap or hunt than girls.  I think it's because us girls are always alert to predators and because we're smaller and not as strong we have to be like little grey foxes when we move through the waste and feral little demons if we're cornered.

Boys are stupid, and come in two breeds – well, three if you count the ones who only like other boys.  Most boys want to rape you or fill you with babies or both, and no way I want either of those to happen to this body.  So I trap them or hunt them and take them quick so they don't bleed too much.

It's nice to take them just before the night shadows creep up out of the tunnels because their bodies are still warm when you cuddle with them.  I love the smell and feel of a boy's skin against mine when I'm safe with them in my bolt hole, I always sleep best that first night.  And don't think I'm a creeper; I don't eat them like some do, but I do take everything they've foraged and find some flavourful things in their backpacks and sling bags.

Aaron D McClelland

Penticton, BC

Author's Website

The Other Fallen ...

"Ya' wanna tone it down, Meatball?" Lilith called from the server station at the end of the bar where the under-counter beer fridges were.  Meatball laughed her off, lobbed a couple more wife comments at Erastus before wandering off to the pool tables.

"Did I not tell her?" Riot said, shaking his head.  Told her or not, Lilith walked behind the bar and brought Erastus a fresh beer on the house and leaned forward with her elbows on the bar to engage him in quieting conversation.

Lilith had gotten a bit chubby and gone goth out of spite since we three landed here in Humbolt, but she was still my favourite cowgirl.  Even with a purple stripe running through her silver hair and wearing outfits that looked like she'd raided a steamer trunk from the Rocky Horror Picture Show, she was the secret crush of half the men in Mad Dog's, myself included.

"Yeah, you told her." I agreed with Riot and smiled when I saw Erastus nodding his head and looking sheepish.  Lilith leaned further in and kissed him on the cheek before walking back to the server station and winked at me.

I felt a smug satisfaction that Lilith had diverted the situation so Humbolt could keep its population steady for tonight at least, when out of the corner of my eye I saw Riot make a little hand flick and the next song that cued up on the Wurlitzer was 'Stand by Your Man', and I swear it was just that much louder than Twitty and Steagall.

"You're a son of a bitch." I told Riot.

"Yep."

Right on cue I saw Erastus' shoulders tighten before he downed the rest of his longneck, set the bottle down on the bar and walked over to the pool tables.  I was still hoping he'd just use his fists or even a pool cue, but he grabbed the brass-headed rake and took Meatball down with one shot then proceeded to beat him to death with the heavy end like it was a potato masher as everyone in the vicinity backed away.  A circle of no-man's-land grew around the two men that was just a little bigger radius than a swinging pool rake.

When he was done, Erastus stood up, spat on Meatball's bloody corpse and dropped the rake before walking out through Mad Dog's front door like nothing had happened.  Half a dozen heartbeats later, Meatball got up and walked out too, but he used the wall.

'The Other Fallen'

Aaron D McClelland

Penticton, BC

Author's Website

No Character of Mine ...

 

Though I at times write some pretty badass characters and gnarly scenes, I have never written one of my characters raping or forcing or even coercing someone sexually.  The act sickens me.  People who do it sicken me.  And for the life of me I can't imagine how committing that vile act on someone could be pleasurable.

Years ago, while working as a security supervisor in Vancouver, I was visiting our guard at Queen Elizabeth park (aka “Little Mountain”).  As we were checking in, two full-patch bikers rode up the hill to the upper parking lot.  One of the bikers had a female passenger who almost fell off his bike as they rounded the last curve.

The guard and I walked up into the parking area and saw that the bikers had ridden onto the grass and the female was lying on her back, the bikers standing over her.  As we approached, the female - who was very intoxicated - was reaching up, inviting both bikers to have sex with her.  I overheard one of the bikers say to his brother; “This ain’t right, man.”  The other agreed.

The bikers saw us approach and one noticed the portable radio on my belt.

“Can you call for an ambulance?” he asked, “I think she needs to go to the hospital.”

I radioed our Dispatch and they called 911 for us (I specified an ambulance and not the police as both bikers had been drinking as well).  As we were waiting, the female started vomiting and choking and one of the bikers rolled her into the recovery position, rubbed her back and even held her hair as she vomited.

It turned out that the female was unknown to those men - they had picked her up in a bar, and despite their intention to have sex with her, they knew she was in no state to give proper consent for sex and suspected she was approaching medical distress.

Shortly after the ambulance arrived, the female stopped breathing and the paramedics had to intubate her and use a breathing bag.  If the bikers hadn’t felt empathy for her and acted on it, that female may have died.

My big question is; Why is it that two bad-ass 1% full-patch bikers respond with empathy when they see a passed out female and ensure she gets medical attention, but a bright university athlete or a politician or a millionaire decides to rape her instead?

Has two decades of “rape culture” in rap music, online homemade porn videos featuring men dominating and abusing women, and examples by a few professional athletes turned some young men away from their natural empathy?
I wish I had the answers.

But I do know one thing that we should all be alarmed by …

We have mirror neurons in our brains that activate an empathic response to someone else suffering.  These mirror neurons and our entire Limbic system are all part of our survival system - survival of self and survival of species.  As Dr Bruce Perry said in one of his books; “We are born for love”.  We are hardwired to care about and care for each other.  But what is happening to our society through rapes, murders, assaults, mass shootings, and religion-driven violence is evidence that there is a growing number of people who have lost touch with that survival system.

As authors, people honour us by reading our short stories and novels.  It is a privilege that very few are afforded, but with it comes responsibility.  We need to lose the tropes where the big strong man grabs the girl and bends her to his will.  We need to purge our novels of anything that glorifies rape or coercion.  We need to write strong women, strong transgendered characters, and men with a moral compass.  To sit passively by while rape and coercion continues in our society and do nothing about it, well … “This ain’t right, man”.

Aaron D McClelland
Penticton, BC

Author's Website