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Fox and Burger Podcast #4: From Cosplay to Fursuit Making, Pawaii, and More - Feat Daza. ---- This time, we're going to a place that we've never been before - Indonesia. As our first non-lion guest, we're extremely excited to have Daza on the show. Daza is a fursuit maker from Indonesia, making over 50 partials and over 10 full bodies. He was also the GOH for Pawai 2018. Join us as we delve for the time into the Indonesian furry fandom! ---- Social Media Fox: https://twitter.com/foxnakh Burger: https://twitter.com/L1ghtningRunner Daza: https://www.facebook.com/Daz_Wolf-Fursuit-381282592429555/ https://www.instagram.com/daz_wolf21/ https://twitter.com/wolf_da ---- Footage Used: https://twitter.com/191119inori/status/1329258227284865024?s=20 https://twitter.com/wolf_daz/status/1360190671345250308?s=20 https://twitter.com/wolf_daz/status/1340157444186488832?s=20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Llhs2FMLtxY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuPp5Rwm07I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_UIISregp4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpYzSOIw__k Stock photos provided by Pixabay

Roo, Sammy, Klik, Firebreath, and Nuka talk about fursuit handling and fursuit handlers in this episode.





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MUSIC

Opening Theme: RetroSpecter – Cloud Fields (RetroSpecter Mix). USA: Unpublished, 2018. ©2011-2018 Fur What It’s Worth. Based on Fredrik Miller – Cloud Fields (Century Mix). USA: Bandcamp, 2011. ©2011 Fur What It’s Worth. (Buy a copy here – support your fellow furs!)
First Break: Thinking of Us - Patrick Patrikios, Creative Commons, 2020.
Second Break: Hyun Yang - Starship, Argofox, Creative Commons 2019.
Patreon: The Tudor Consort, Inflammatus, Creative Commons, 2010
Closing Theme: RetroSpecter – Cloud Fields (RetroSpecter Chill Mix). USA: Unpublished, 2018. ©2011-2018 Fur What It’s Worth. Based on Fredrik Miller – Cloud Fields (Chill Out Mix). USA: Bandcamp, 2011. ©2011 Fur What It’s Worth. (Buy a copy here – support your fellow furs!) S9 Episode 6 – Handling the Handlers - Roo, Sammy, Klik, Firebreath, and Nuka talk about fursuit handling and fursuit handlers in this episode. - NOW LISTEN! SHOW NOTES SPECIAL THANKS Everyone who wrote in! - PATREON LOVE The following people have decide

Hello Furry Writers’ Guild! I know it’s a bit silly to call this a guest post, but I was hoping to take of my President hat for a moment to write a post for the blog on a personal experience and I thought that it would be far more fitting. Recently, an anthology I am involved in editing had its submission call reach a larger audience of folks who haven’t worked with traditional Furry publishers before and it caused quite a stir.

I help maintain the Furry Writers’ Market so I see all the submission calls put out by the community. This call didn’t look like anything out of the ordinary. However, gaining these fresh perspectives from outside eyes showed me there are ways we could try to improve submission calls in the community to help attract more authors to write for anthologies.

I want to personally thank Personalias, Daddy Wuffster, and CK Crinklekid for opening up these discussions. I hope the information I can share with you all here can help all of us find new ways to improve the anthology process. With the preamble finished, I’ll get to the good stuff!

New Authors Don’t Know About Furry Publishing Standards

I say this not as an insult, but more of as a fact that somehow we’ve all been missing. We as authors, publishers, and editors, are used to the general process involved here. This isn’t the case to people brand new to the writing scene in general or those looking at submitting to an anthology for the first time.

For example, it’s standard for anthologies to include a section about the authors where they can promote themselves. We may know this, but an outside observer would have no clue. When we lack this transparency, even if accidentally, it’s easy for someone to look at a submission call and feel like something shady is happening. With this in mind, here are some of the things I was directly told would be awesome to see in submission calls from outside observers.

• The anthology payment is placed prominently on top of the call, not buried after explanations of stories that are being looked for.
• Mentioning the promotional section for authors.
• Stating the period of exclusivity for stories.
• Stating if stories can can use their stories as the basis for other works like sequels or continuations.
• Directly state how stories should be formatted for submission. (My number one question from new authors as President is how do I format submissions. A link to the Standard Manuscript Format could help with this.)

These suggestions made a lot of sense to me and I am positive there are more things that we take for granted but outside observers would have no clue about we don’t explicitly mention. The potential to make submissions more attractive to submit to through transparency and clarity is something we all should consider.

Payment For Anthology Stories

This will not be a debate on payment for anthologies being too low. Furry publishers cannot feasibly offer SFWA rates of eight cents per word and be able to reasonably continue production. A half cent per word has been standard for some time and some projects like Difursity have even managed to offer higher rates. In general, compensation for anthology writing has been on the rise as of late in terms of flat rates and contributor’s copies offered which is an exciting prospect.

Now, several anthologies have offered contributor’s copies as payment for their work as the only payment. This can make a lot of sense as many authors end up buying a copy of the book they are in and want a copy. With many anthologies being passion projects made more for authors than readers, this makes a lot of sense. Sometimes, the flat rate that could be offered would be less than the cost of buying the book in the first place, so to those in the community this makes sense as payment.

However, it’s easy for this to look like this is a typical vanity press scam to those who aren’t familiar with the process. This became very apparent when this became a discussion on Twitter with people upset authors were being paid “in exposure” but becoming more understanding once the situation was better explained to them. With this in mind, I was given two suggestions to improve on this.

• Have publishers offer either a contributor’s copy OR monetary compensation (author’s choice).
• Allow authors to buy the anthology at cost (or at least at a discount).

This would make it easier for outside observers to see authors are not simply being paid “in exposure” which is good optics for everyone involved. Making contributor’s copies easier to purchase could also benefit publishers and authors as well. Cheaper books create the potential for authors to purchase copies for giveaways (which grows both the publisher’s and the author’s audience) and provides another perk for authors in terms of payment. For those who writing is mostly a hobby, being able to buy copies of the book they can share with friends and family at a better price point would help bridge that gap between half a cent a word and a full eight cents per word.

Making Submissions More Attractive To Independent Authors

As previously mentioned, many Furry authors write as a way to engage with the fandom, promote Furry literature as a while, and enjoy their hobby. The goal isn’t always to make a big profit or get famous. However, plenty of authors are able to make livings (or at least have an impressive side hustle) purely writing commissions, running a Patreon, or getting donations from stories on gallery sites.

Traditional publishers cannot manage to offer the lean production a single self-published author can when producing their work and that is understandable. However, we need to realize that as it stands many anthology submissions calls would be a detriment for some of these authors to submit to.

If an author is making less on their anthology story than they would get writing a commission, what is the value in submitting to a publisher? Maybe it’s the prestige of being featured in a very competitive anthology or an easier chance to win awards. Maybe it’s just wanting to see a story in a printed book.

However, even the best furry anthologies don’t sell more copies than the views more popular authors can get on stories posted to a gallery website like FurAffinity or SoFurry. If we cannot pay them the rates for commissions and even a free story is going to offer them more exposure to a general audience, it’s reasonable for these authors to think their time is better spent writing elsewhere. This makes it harder to attract the best talent to anthologies to write, which would in turn boost anthology sales and allow publishers to pay more.

I wish I had ideas on how to do this — sadly I don’t. I’m willing to admit when I don’t have answers to a question. However, if publishers, authors, and editors all work together and brainstorm, I’m positive we can find solutions. Perhaps the Guild hosts a round table to discuss these ideas or these talks take place across whatever social media and chatrooms people participate in. It doesn’t matter where they happen, I just hope that they do so we can find ways to keep bringing Furry literature to even greater heights.

I hope everything I wrote today was useful and at least a little entertaining to read. I would like to remind everyone that while I may be the Guild President, I am perfectly capable of being wrong on a subject. If you disagree with anything said here, I want to hear that feedback (or any feedback) so I can gain more perspectives. Learning from the amazing members of the guild and those who strive to join us someday has helped lead to many improvements for us and I hope this editorial can lead to discussions that help make the Furry writing community as a whole stronger.

— Linnea Capps

First the Ursa Major Awards announce their nominees for 2020, and now the Annie Awards — considered to be the Oscars of animation — have done the same. 2020 must have been a good year for furry animation, because many of the Ursa Major and Annie nominations line up! Onward and Soul are up for Best Feature Annies, while Wolfwalkers is up for Best Indie Feature — along with Shaun the Sheep: Farmageddon. And all of those are up for multiple individual achievement Annies too — like Best Character Animation, Best Character Design, Best Direction, and so forth. Best Special Production nominees include The Snail and The Whale and Shooom’s Odyssey, while the Best TV/Media for Preschoolers includes Muppet Babies, Stillwater, and The Adventures of Paddington. Also up for a variety of awards are TV and streaming favorites like Hilda, Bojack Horseman, Amphibia, Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Brand New Animal, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, and Mao Mao — Heroes of Pure Heart. And more! Visit the Annie Awards web site to see all the nominees, and watch for an announcement about this year’s virtual awards ceremony.

image c. 2021 Cartoon Saloon

撰文／傑克

　　臺灣毛毛文化交流協會（下稱協會）於民國109年7月登記成立，是國內獸文化圈中第一個全國性的非營利人民團體，目前約有三十位成員。協會理事長為主辦圈內大型聚會《以茶會毛 FurryTeaParty》（下稱《茶會》）已有多年經驗的冰羽貓，此次特別受本報採訪，說明協會從無到有的成立過程，以及途中遇到的種種困難。

冰羽貓。圖／冰羽貓提供

協會的成立

　　 冰羽貓表示，協會能成立其實是一群志同道合的朋友們共同努力的結果。在協會成立之前，絕大部份成員的日常生活都非常忙碌，而如何想出一個共同目標讓朋友們聚在一起，便成了冰羽貓當時最大的難題。為了解決這個問題，他開始聚集朋友們舉辦小型聚會，並逐漸地擴大規模，開始嘗試舉辦大型活動。冰羽貓與他的朋友們因此從小型聚會，演變成大型活動的工作團隊，最後便成立了協會。

　　然而，協會是需經由內政部正式立案成立的全國性團體，在成立的過程中，冰羽貓等人也遇到了許多困難。「第一次總是最困難的！非常多繁瑣的資料以及公文！」由於協會是屬於全國性的非營利人民團體，申請過程除了需要準備大量公文、敏感性個人資料以外，從當初提案送件到立案成立，前後更是花了約一年的時間才完成。

疫情：挑戰，也是契機

　　剛成立後的協會，首先遇上的挑戰當屬疫情的肆虐。冰羽貓等人本來已經規劃好在協會成立後要舉辦一些活動，卻因遇上了疫情導致多數計畫被迫推延，「一切公開活動都暫時先停止了，等到疫情趨緩後才會有下一步的動作。」

　　在2020年中，協會早已與其他單位一同合作，順利舉辦了《Furry Meeting in Taiwan》（下稱《FurMIT》）。《FurMIT》作為大型活動，主辦單位在籌備時須考量到防疫的要求。除了活動本身的籌備外，在防疫的考量下，協會與《FurMIT》工作團隊也多次和主管機關申請、洽談活動準備事宜，以確保活動能在疫情下順利舉行，並保證防疫做得滴水不漏。冰羽貓也認為，《FurMIT》可說是「在疫情之下綻放的花朵」，肯定了活動在疫情嚴峻當下體現的價值。

　　對於因今年初疫情漸趨嚴重而停辦的《以茶會毛2021》，冰羽貓則表示，即使2021年的活動停辦了，但明年恰好是《以茶會毛》活動的第五周年，因此活動將以更大規模呈現在圈內同好面前。冰羽貓表示：「雖然今年的茶會因為疫情而停辦，但明年會再以更盛大的五週年復活的！」。

以茶會毛與高雄捷運的合作。圖／冰羽貓提供

以茶會毛

　　談到《茶會》，就需要介紹一下這個自2017年開始舉辦的圈內大型活動。《以茶會毛》是由冰羽貓等人在高雄舉辦的獸迷同好聚會。根據官網介紹，《以茶會毛》是一個能「讓毛毛以及喜愛毛毛的朋友們能夠一起交流」的聚會，「有著自由開放的空間能與毛毛一起互動，享受美好的午後時光」。活動從一開始參加的人數只有約為50人，到去年《茶會2019》已有423人報名參與，規模不斷的擴大。

　　對於未來擔任協會理事長後是否會繼續主辦《以茶會毛》，冰羽貓表示，自己與團隊共同主辦了好幾屆，「所以之後應該還是會繼續兼任毛毛協會理事長及茶會主辦吧」。

　　而針對日後《茶會》是否會交由協會主辦，冰羽貓則表示：「協會本身大多都還是做協助的一方而已」，協會在《茶會》的籌備上僅能算是協辦的角色，未來並不會轉而主辦這場活動。

以茶會毛與高雄捷運的合作。圖／冰羽貓提供

圈內的一大里程碑

        臺灣毛毛文化交流協會可說是獸圈內第一個全國性組織，對於國內獸文化而言，也是推廣獸文化之路上的一大里程碑。冰羽貓與他的夥伴們透過經驗與實踐，從無到有創立了協會，期望能夠促進毛毛們的權益，並持續向外推廣獸文化。

　　對於協會的成立，冰羽貓也表示：「（協會的成立）從起初帶著毛毛走到大眾及螢光幕面前開始，也很高興跟我們的夥伴們一直在一起奮鬥，未來也會繼續一直走下去，讓更多民眾了解到毛毛文化」，肯定協會的價值，也感謝與他一起奮鬥的各位夥伴。

　　被問到協會日後是否會開放給獸迷同好們加入，冰羽貓則表示協會未來會開放給更多獸迷同好加入，也會繼續協辦各式各樣的毛毛活動。

　　針對近日圈內發生的多起毛毛設定盜用事件，以保障毛毛權益為一大核心理念的協會，目前也在草擬各種具體方針，協助受害毛毛們解決問題。但冰羽貓也提到，協會目前的具體方針仍在與業界的專業人士討論，等擬定出協助受害毛毛們的方針後，才會交由協會正式公告。

結語

　　作為臺灣獸文化圈內第一個全國性團體，也是第一個以保障毛毛權益、推廣獸文化為宗旨的團體，協會在圈內所具有的價值不言而喻。具有多次舉辦《茶會》、《FurMIT》等大型活動經驗的冰羽貓，擔任了協會的理事長，日後也會繼續透過協會協助辦理《茶會》、《FurMIT》等大型活動。對於協會整體，冰羽貓表示，「我覺得協會對於毛毛來說是一個很棒的作為協助的存在價值，未來也會繼續努力推動協會」。

　　目前協會仍然算是草創期，甫成立的協會也因疫情影響，無法大力舉辦各式活動。雖因疫情影響無法辦理活動，協會現階段仍在與業界專業人士討論保障毛毛權益的方針，以應對近日毛毛權益受損的事件。

　　協會的成立，無論對於獸迷或是毛毛而言，都可說是獸文化圈中的一大里程碑。雖然協會尚未相當活躍於檯面上，但隨著時間流逝，協會也將能透過各種途徑彰顯其價值。待疫情稍微緩和後，協會便能以更積極的角色主辦、協辦獸圈內各種大、小型活動，讓獸迷文化能在協會的輔助下持續發揚。

I just want to tell you how I’m feeling … and it is sorry not sorry.

 

 

I’m so sorry….

If you love pizza and furries, VOTE HERE for the Ursa Major Awards! Support furry creators from March 1-31. Love is the best topping.

There is 1970’s country music about pizza. I was obsessed when I found it. I must have played it 7 times in a row. It’s so joyful, who hasn’t inhaled steam from a fresh pizza in the car and been full of longing? I’m pie-ning for some now.

Is there other country music like that? Most of what’s around these days is about trucks and things that don’t fit lyrics about spending $3.99 for a 16-incher because you’re not a penny pincher.

I have no idea when it will be safe to have furry meets again, but when it is, there’s definitely going to be a furry pizza party at my place. It would be picking up where we left off. That was the last thing that happened here before the covid lockdown, after Further Confusion 2020. We only got one started and it was supposed to be regular. Hosting 15 local furries was a nice turnout for a small private low-key night. Just add pupperoni.

Have any plans yourself?

Helped do a pizzacon furry movie marathon shindigaroonie. Not posting the group pic for privacy, but here's my pizzaratsona and art done on the spot by lovely @2ManyStripes. 15 furs came and saw Robin Hood, Animalympics (courtesy of @Skiltaire_Party), Fritz the Cat, and Zootopia. pic.twitter.com/uEenghZvca

— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) February 10, 2020

I have been building a music playlist for the return of good times. It has pizza rock, pizza punk, pizza rap, pizza disco, pizza death metal, and the tasty lyrics of Eddie Rabbitt, one of the most furry country music names I can think of.

Any way you slice it, pizza makes a common doughnominator you can top with anything. Add furries for a guaranteed win.

Don’t forget pizza cocktails and furry drinks.

I made a drink for mice pic.twitter.com/6ez50XN7Cz

— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) February 26, 2021

YES https://t.co/6h00nYMzT6

— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) February 26, 2021

If you see me post anything saucy, I’ve probably been experimenting with recipes and planning for a furpile.

Message me privately for a link to a 50+ song playlist. Here’s a few fun ones.

Like the article? These take hard work. For more free furry news, follow on Twitter or support not-for-profit Dogpatch Press on Patreon. Want to get involved? Try these subreddits: r/furrydiscuss for news or r/waginheaven for the best of the community. Or send guest writing here. (Content Policy.)

What will fursuits look like a few years in the future? Arrkay gazes into the crystal ball for a peek at the hottest innovations for these colorful critters. Fursuit consultant: Tentakal Creations Fursuit Studio https://tentakalcreations.com/ Animatronics consultant: Nyaasu https://www.furaffinity.net/user/nyaasu/ Merch, Sweet Tees and stuff: http://www.culturallyfd.com https://teespring.com/stores/culturally-fd-merchandise Support Culturally F'd: https://www.patreon.com/culturallyfd Plus a Newsletter: http://tinyurl.com/gsz8us7 Listen in on TEMPO TALKS with Tempe O'Kun https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIPk-itLl1jPyIK2c7mK-LpbvfDNqfcSW Check out Tempe O'Kun's books "Sixes Wild" and "Windfall" here: http://furplanet.com/shop/?affillink=YOUTU2907 Here's a playlist of his other Culturally F'd videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIPk-itLl1jPS7tnT4hdJwBI-CeLF8Kb_

Resources, Social Media & Donation Links
Follow Kai Drossom
Join Rhyner’s Telegram Channel
Entail
Barkade Furs
Help Texas
Guest Application Form

In late January I sat down with Kai Drossom a Ghanaian and British fur living in the far away land of London England. This episode was such a treat to take part in. Kai is exceptionally sharp! They waste no time discussing anything and everything that made them the person they are today as well as why some of those things need not be tread by anyone in the future. Since they're the official CEO of Entail - the kickass new furry app set to launch and out speed past all competitors - I expected nothing less than the brilliance on display here.

If being the head of Entail wasn't enough they also detail their relationship with the furry community as a whole. From being a furmeet friendly face to eventually getting fed up with the systems that be and picking up the mantle themselves and creating Barkade Furs with previous guest Saint Panic. A remarkable, and daring endeavor that's made a real impact on the furs of the UK. 

Kai describes their identity in a way that feels personal... Because it is. Even their struggles with the UK's government feels deeply personal to me - an American. For good reason at that. They paint a picture of a bleak UK that's a ticking time bomb to anyone paying attention, but it's not all doom and gloom. The future may just be bright after all.

Thanks for listening to the show! Make sure to tell us what you thought, follow the guest, and wash your hands~

Support the show

Interview With Kai Drossom - Entail, Facing Prejudice, & The UK

TigerTails Radio Season 13 Episode 01. Join the Discord Chat: https://discord.gg/SQ5QuRf For a full preview of events and for previous episodes, please visit http://www.tigertailsradio.co.uk. See website for full breakdown of song credits, which is usually updated shortly after the show. Backing music by Sanxion7.

[Sorry we’ve been dormant a few days folks — Had some technical arguments with WordPress to work out. That done, here were are again! — ye ed-otter] Ursa Major Award favorite Rick Griffin has a new science fiction book out. It’s available in paperback, and digitally at Smashwords: “The Captain’s Oath is the second installment of The Final Days of the White Flower II Trilogy by multi-award-winning artist and writer, Rick Griffin. Featuring nine illustrations by the author himself, this science fiction epic continues the exciting story of struggle against oppression that began in Traitors, Thieves, and Liars… The best-laid plans of geroo and ringel often go awry. Nobody knows that as well as the crew of the White Flower II, the geroo ship whose captain still bears the literal scars of his last failure. Despite their best efforts, his ship and its crew still languish in slavery to the cruel krakun. But when a new opportunity for freedom presents itself, will the geroo be able to pull off an even more daring escape plan — right under the nose of a krakun overseer?” We missed plugging the first book, so we’d better get off our fuzzy butts and help to plug the second!

image c. 2021 by Rick Griffin

More in my series of furry alternate reality found footage shorts. In this case I think it was just an excuse to play around with New Coke commercials.   Everything was animated or created by scratch and I’m really proud of the look of the coke and Pepsi cans which while photography had to be mucked with a bunch to get the feel of the original commercial.  The AT&T ad was a blast to do and I really think that voice goes well with a shiba.

Furry “Found Footage” commercials

Welcome once again to another FWG Newsletter! We’ve had a busy month here at the Guild so let’s get on with the news.

First, we would like to recognize that the Ursa Major Awards are now open for voting! We hope Furry authors, editors, and fans of Furry works of all kinds go vote for their favorites. The voting form is available here.

Two projects associated with the FWG are up for awards and we would like to encourage our members to consider giving them their vote. The first thing is that From Paw To Print is nominated for Best Non-Fiction Work. Compiled by Thurston Howl, this collection of essays features multiple guild members and is a marvelous resource for anyone wanting to get into Furry writing.

Profits from the sale of From Paw To Print are donated to support the FWG as well, so we would love to see it get some serious recognition on an awards stage. For those who haven’t picked up a copy, it is available here from Bound Tales Press.

The second is the Furry Writers’ Guild Blog which is nominated for Best Anthropomorphic Magazine. Those who have enjoyed posts like our Black History Month spotlights, interviews with authors and editors, and even things like this newsletter should consider giving the blog their vote. A win would be wonderful for the Guild and make our blog an even more powerful promotion tool for members of the FWG.

Speaking of the blog, this month we featured four separate Black Furry creatives there. We hope those who have yet to check out these interviews will give them a look — there’s a lot to be learned from them.

• Black History Month Spotlight: Ryuukiba
• Black History Month Spotlight: Rhyner
• Black History Month Spotlight: Cedric G! Bacon
• Black History Month Spotlight: Kirisis “KC” Alpinus

Remember, we now have our Promotion Tip Line to submit to if you have new releases coming out, so don’t hesitate to fill that out so we can feature your book in our next newsletter! Here’s a new release we spotted this month:

• The Captain’s Oath by Rick Griffin

You can find all kinds of submission calls for Furry writing in our Furry Writers’ Market! Currently, these markets are open.

• Shark Week: Ocean Animals – Deadline: April 30th, 2021
• Selections of Anthropomorphic Literature: Vol 2 – Deadline: May 15th, 2021
• Furs With Benefits – Deadline: June 1st, 2021
• Less Fur-Milliar Spaces – Deadline To Commit: June 1st, 2021
• CRINKLE: A Littles Anthology – Deadline: June 15th, 2021
• Pirating Pups – Deadline: November 30th, 2021
• The Nightmurr Before Christmas – Deadline: October 1st, 2021
• #ohmurr! – Deadline: Ongoing

One last thing this month: Don’t forget to nominate works for the 2020 Cóyotl Awards! The nomination deadline is March 15th so time is running out. It’s one of the perks of guild membership to nominate, so exercise it! You can nominate works here.

I know that it’s the anniversary of COVID-19 lockdowns for many people, so I want to remind everyone to take care of themselves and keep working hard to stay safe. Anniversaries of traumatic events have been shown to cause extra stress for people, so make sure to give yourself some kindness in whatever ways you can. Until next time, may your words flow like water.

– FWG President Linnea “LiteralGrill” Capps

Hey Papa Bear, I hope you’re well.

If I’m being honest, I’m not entirely sure what kind of answer I’m expecting from this question or whether this is really a question at all or where the root of this problem lays. I’ve milled over what kind of thing I’m facing actually is, and how any one way might end up making me look ignorant, spiteful or at worst discriminatory. Something that disgusts me to think about.

It’s probably best if I set things up. I started partaking in furry activities, attending meetups and familiarising myself with the scene from around 2014 or 2015, and my earliest months went about as you’d expect a newcomer’s early months to go: A few good friends, a fair bit of time watching from the sidelines and occasionally chipping in where I felt comfortable. It wasn’t until a few months later into the first group of friends, comprised of a number of individuals (including some well-known faces in the community) who would frequently talk to me and otherwise make me feel welcome. These are friends I have often met with, and even gladly invited to my wedding some years ago.

This group felt wonderful to be with, and taught me a great many things about gender identity, the issues surrounding LGTBQ individuals and helping me to understand and appreciate the issues that such a community faces daily when I’d previously not been exposed to such issues or even properly talked to or met those involved. I’m proud to say that these are now issues I long to help any of my LGTBQ friends with wherever in the world they may be, and I’m proud to say I’ve made numerous friends across the globe in this community.

My problem now, however, revolves around this friend group’s behaviour that has always been present but appears to have intensified in recent years, and some of the things that are now said on a frequent basis. A common thing is the discussion of drama pertaining to individuals the group may see as enemies which are already draining enough, but the more worrying and discomforting to me is their apparent readiness to brand cisgender and heterosexual individuals as inherently problematic people who are deserving of ridicule and contempt (including posting derogatory memes intended to mock those people to public social media).

My time talking to these friends helped make me aware of the inherent privilege I have over others: I’m a white, adult male who is married to my wife in a fairly traditional marriage. Despite this however, it didn’t make the apparent news that I am inherently harming some of my closest friends by being who I am any easier to come to terms with. It was and still is hurtful to hear that being a cisgender person is somehow making the lives of others and the lives of those I care about worse.

I have reached out to a few of these in the group privately to discuss my concerns and how such comments make me feel, and the feedback I’d receive didn’t inspire much in the way of confidence; being told that how I had no right to be upset given my privilege. Being told that if I wanted to be a true ally to LGBTQ people that it was my duty to take what they were saying and just agree. Being told to simply accept that being who I am inherently causes problems in these people’s lives.

This leaves me with my current dilemma. This has gone on for long enough that I feel like I need to walk away from these people and their mindsets. It feels like what could be described as a toxic environment to be in, especially when I look at my friendships with others elsewhere that are all genuinely wonderful.

Despite my heart telling me that it’s the right thing to do, my head leaves me conflicted. Will walking away from this group mean I’m betraying them and their struggles, given my position of privilege? Am I betraying the struggles all my friends from further afield have faced?

Many thanks for your time, and apologies for the lengthy write-up.

Anonymous (England, age 30)
​
* * *
Dear Furiend,

Thank you for writing me on such an important topic. Oh, my, it opens a can of worms, doesn't it? If I do say so myself, you are asking the right bear. As a man who thought he was straight for 40 years of his life (long story) and who was married to a woman for 22 years and is now openly gay and married to a man, I can view the LGBTQ community from both sides. This has to do with reverse prejudice and applies not only to LGBTQ v. hetero debates but also to any debate involving bigotry (race, religion, nationalism, etc. etc.)

But let's just focus on LGBTQ rights in England (and in the USA, since I'm more familiar with that) for this letter, since that was your question. Both countries have treated gay and trans and bi people horrifically for hundreds of years. In England, homosexuality was a crime until 1967, when the Sexual Offences Bill was passed, but even then you had to be over 21 and discreet about sex, AND the law only applied to England, so being gay was still illegal in Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. A great example of the pain and injustice caused in England by this policy can be summed up in two words: Alan Turing. (You might know this story, but it is also for the benefit of my other readers, so be patient). Turing was the brilliant mathematician and computer scientist who, along with his staff, invented the machine that solved the Germans' code during World War II, saving millions of lives. After the war, the British government determined he was gay and found him guilty of "indecency." He was forcibly chemically castrated. Turing was so tormented by this that he committed suicide. So, the man who saved untold numbers of people from the Nazis was tortured to death because he was gay. Oh, the queen pardoned him in 2013, long after he was dead. So helpful.

Back to the law. So, anyway, Scotland then decriminalized being gay in 1980 and Northern Ireland did so in 1982. The Isle of Man finally made it legal in 1994. Homosexuals in England could serve in the military beginning in 2000, and the Civil Partnerships Act of 2004 gave gay couples the same rights as married hetero couples. But it wasn't until 2014 that gay couples could marry in England and Wales.

The point of the above is that these events are still fairly recent, and the pain of injustices perpetrated against homosexuals in England runs deep. It has been an uphill battle all the way. For example, Pope Benedict XVI berated the English government for its gay equality laws in 2010 (fortunately, Pope Francis is much more tolerant). In America, homosexual couples did not have the right to marry until 2015, and in many U.S. states, businesses can still legally discriminate against us. The House of Representatives just passed a new equality bill, but it has to get approved by the Senate, still.

So, you can easily understand--and it sounds like you do--why LGBTQ people are still miffed, to say the least (I didn't even go into all the stats on gay and trans people being beaten and murdered over the years), at the hetero community, many of whose members still behave horribly to us today.

When a group of people is discriminated against, hated, and abused simply for being who they are, those people tend to group together to find strength in one another. So, the black community in America has formed a strong, unionizing culture; Native Americans have; LGBTQ people have, and so on. But these groups all have something in common: Their tormentors are, by and large, white straight people. So, the hate has been focused on white straight people from all kinds of different minority groups. By and large, it's deserved. When one adds the increasing demand that everyone be Politically Correct, you have a recipe for reverse prejudice and reverse discrimination.

Am I saying that all white, straight people are bad? No, no I am not. Focusing again on just heterosexuals, I would venture to say that the majority are good people who don't refuse to serve LGBTQ people at their businesses and don't beat them up or shout insults at them. At the same time, however, they do live in a world of privilege that makes them a bit blind and dull-witted about what gay people go through. I'll use myself as an example. Growing up, I was a very protected child, not knowing anything about the dangers in the world. When it came to homosexuality, I was clueless. About the only "exposure" I had to what it was like being gay was British comedies such as Monty Python's Flying Circus and The Two Ronnies, in which gay men were always wearing women's clothing and talking with a lisp. So, I thought that was being gay. It wasn't until much later that I learned there were many masculine gay men (bears, leathermen, or just plain joe's like me), and that was quite a revelation. My point here is that, being brought up middle-class, white, and sheltered, I probably made many incorrect assumptions about gay people (and bi, trans, etc. about whom I only found out later in life), which likely resulted in my saying stupid things when I was an adult. Not sure, but I probably unwittingly insulted a lot of gay people in my youth and early adulthood. Now, if you take someone like me and put them in a restrictive, conservative, religious environment, they probably end up coming off even worse to the LGBTQ community without meaning to.

I do believe that, because of this and the long history of discrimination, LGBTQ people will conclude that all straight people are intolerant bigots, and if you don't agree with that assessment, then you're an intolerant bigot as well in their minds.

This, of course, is incorrect.

So, we have three factors that combine to result in the attitude you are seeing in your LGBTQ group: 1) a long history of discrimination and hurt against LGBTQ people; 2) the ignorance of those in the straight community that causes them to be dense or unsympathetic about their plight; and 3) the current atmosphere of hyper-PCness that causes people to bristle at the slightest hint of a potential slight against their community.

This triple whammy results in the offended community (in this case, the LGBTQ community) taking an overly defensive, hypersensitive posture that then results in their becoming blind to other points of view, and this is what causes prejudice on their part. They are being prejudiced against you because you come from a "privileged" background. And once people start seeing you as something "other" than them, you are going to have a very difficult time fostering empathy from them.

As you might know, a lot of gay people have fled into the furry fandom, hoping to land into the comforting arms of a welcoming community, and most of them did. There are a lot more furries identifying themselves as LGBTQ in the fandom than in the general population. Establishing a safe haven within the community has the side effect of also becoming defensive of said territory, as you have personally experienced. Part of that defensiveness includes intolerance for outsiders and differing opinions, which then results in what I call the George W. Bush position of "you're either for us or against us." No in-between; no compromise.

Intolerance of outsiders within a community of people who feel oppressed can lead to the blindness of their own shortcomings. For example, black people have sometimes discovered that furries--who are by and far largely white--treat blacks rather myopically and, yes, with prejudice. A big problem is that white (notably, often gay) furries seem to be under the impression that black people have to pick fursonas that stereotype the black community (I'm talking about America now; obviously, black people have a different history in England but I'm sure they suffer from discrimination, too). One black acquaintance of mine said that furries felt her fursona had to be an urban thug kind of furry, a gangsta, a rapper, things like that, and that they couldn't be, for example, a Celtic warrior; they even went so far as to say her fur should be black and couldn't be, say, purple or pink. I've seen videos of black furries complaining they do not feel very welcome in our furry community, and that's just sad. The fandom shouldn't be just for gay white furries but for ALL people who want to have imaginative fun without restrictions, rules, or barriers.

In summation, LGBTQ people have been oppressed for generations and, understandably, have become wary of straight people. In the furry community, they have hunkered down into their own, relatively safe communities where they can feel accepted, but a side effect is they have become overprotective and fearful of outsiders, leading them to form prejudices of their own and forgetting why they came to the fandom in the first place: to have fun and be free of society's constraints.

Back to your personal concerns: If your furry group is saying you have "no right" to question them because of your "privileged" birth, they are flat-out wrong. If they are making you feel uncomfortable, then you have every right to call them out on it. Prejudice begins with ignorance and intolerance for people who are different. Point that out to them. Point out that you are on their side but that condemning an entire group for who they are (in this case, straight people) is no better than what straight people have done to them. It works both ways.

Our society can only progress if we listen to each other and empathize with each other. No group is perfect. No group is superior to another. The furry fandom should not be a haven only for gay white people but for ALL people. It could be a great equalizer by helping us discover common ground as, ironically, human beings who all desire love, friendship, hugs, and personal freedom.

Show your group this letter. Hopefully, this will open their eyes a bit.

Hugs,
Papabear

Welcome to Issue 10 of Zooscape!

This issue of Zooscape would like to invite you to have coffee with dolphins, travel to Jupiter with dragons, and visit heaven with crabs.  Unfortunately, it can’t, because none of those things happen in these stories.  Oh, there are dolphins and coffee; Jupiter and dragons; heaven and crabs; but they’re all mixed up in a different order, and you’ll have to read the stories to find out what order they’re actually arranged in.  Think of it as a treasure hunt that will take you to outer space, the afterlife, and back again.

* * *

Dance of Wood and Grace by Marie Croke

The Lonely Little Toaster by A Humphrey Lanham

How to Safely Engage in Telepathy with the Dolphins of Ocean Paradise by Elizabeth Cobbe

Bliss and Abundance by Nicholas Stillman

Heart of Ice by Anna Madden

And the Red Dragon Passes by Emily Randolph-Epstein

Kypris’ Kiss by Slip Wolf

Coffee and the Fox by Mari Ness

Dominion by Christine Lucas

* * *

As always, if you want to support Zooscape, we have a Patreon.  And while we are currently closed to submissions, we will re-open on June 1st, 2021.

by Christine Lucas

“By noon, the Serpent was annoyed. None of the Garden’s animals had humored her.”

On the morning of the Seventh Day, the Garden of Eden was calm and peaceful. The Serpent stretched. She had to fix that. Perfection was very, very boring.

She crawled through the tall grass to the pride of lions sunning their fur in a clearing by the Euphrates’ bank.

“Hey, did you know what lambs are made of? Meat. Fresh and juicy meat. Why would they be made of meat if you weren’t supposed to eat them? Go on, give it a try,” she whispered to a lioness, her scaly tail pointing at a herd grazing close by. She had never liked lambs.

The lioness rolled over, her amber eyes half-closed. “Too hot to run. The lambs don’t bother me, so I don’t bother them.” She yawned and continued her nap.

Disappointed, the Serpent moved on to a brown bear eating berries by the river.

“There are fat fish swimming in the water,” she told him. “Juicy, writhing salmons and carp, filled with nutrients for great fur. And they taste much better than berries.”

The bear looked up, his muzzle smeared with juice. “But I like berries. Why should I get wet and harass the carp?”

By noon, the Serpent was annoyed. None of the Garden’s animals had humored her. God’s last creations, the furless bipeds, seemed promising, but she hadn’t dared to approach them. According to the sparrows’ gossip, He had made the male after His own image. And judging by His blatant preference for lambs, the outcome couldn’t be good.

Curled around the Tree of Life, the Serpent decided that Creation needed fun–mischievous–creatures. She had watched Him do it from clay with the humans. How hard could it be, especially with the aid of the forbidden fruit? Across the grove, the man scratched his crotch, watching the clouds. It couldn’t get any worse than that.

She gathered a pile of soft soil from around the roots of the Tree of Life and curled around it, kneading and shaping to the best of her abilities. Perhaps the humans’ opposable thumbs had indeed some merit. It took her the better part of the afternoon, but she finally stretched and inspected her handiwork.

The creatures looked good: one male and one female, for all creatures needed a mate in life and an accomplice in mischief. She had made the male bigger and thick-headed, with fast claws and toxic urine to leave his mark all over Creation. The female was more delicate, but faster and fierce when defending her litter. The Serpent lashed her forked tongue and hurried up the Tree of Knowledge. The full moon was ascending and she hadn’t finished.

She grabbed a fruit and squeezed it over the creatures, anointing them.

“I give you knowledge of Good and Evil,” she whispered, and a sudden breeze shuffled the foliage around them. The clay animals trembled, the mud turning to fur and flesh. “I give you sight to see through the dark hours of the night and through the darkness of souls. May the moon be your ally, may the sun warm your fur. Tread fast, tread soft, and knock down all fragile objects in your path.”

She breathed in and spat at them.

“I give you free will, your choice either poison or cure. Whatever divine spark lays in me, I share it with you.”

A tremor ran through the Garden. She rubbed a fruit from the Tree of Life on them, and dried clay fell of, revealing soft fur underneath.

“Cats, I give you Life. Go forth and multiply. Do it often, do it loudly, until your offspring overruns Creation.”

The kittens blinked and sniffed the air. Their eyes glowed, reflecting the moonlight. When they noticed each other, she held her breath. Their eyes grew huge, their backs arched and their tails stood rigid, upright and fluffed up. Bolder than her ginger mate, the calico kitten dared a sniff of his muzzle. A shy lick followed the sniff, and in no time they were curled together, grooming each other. Soon, they grew bored of grooming and started chasing each other’s tails.

Perfection isn’t always serious.

The kittens stalked unsuspecting fireflies, shredded leaves, and clawed their way up onto the branches of the Tree of Life. The Serpent lay belly up beneath it, laughing herself breathless. It was almost dawn when the kittens, exhausted, climbed down. They curled by the Serpent’s coiled body and fell fast asleep, their whiskers and tails twitching in dreams of hunt and mischief.

True perfection is never boring.

* * *

The next morning, the Serpent sunned her scales, watching the kittens play. She’d have to feed them soon. They’d probably manage to catch bugs or even a frog on their own, but she’d rather keep them from hunting until they were old enough to defend themselves. And, hopefully, hunt decent prey, like lambs.

A sudden movement caught her eye. Barely turning her head, she spotted the human female hidden among the thick bushes a few paces away. Wide-eyed, mouth agape, Eve watched the kittens play. The serpent lashed her forked tongue and stifled a snicker. Behold the solution to the kittens’ feeding problem.

“Come closer, Eve.”

Eve licked her lips. She walked out of the bushes, each step slow and cautious. She reached out to touch the kittens.

They fluffed up and arched their backs. The calico growled and showed sharp little claws.

Eve pulled back her hand, her brow furrowed. “Why is it doing that?” She turned to the Serpent, her eyes moist. “Why doesn’t it like me?”

“Perhaps it’s hungry.” She tilted her head toward a nearby plain. “There’s a herd of cows grazing over there. Perhaps if you brought them some milk they’d let you pet them. They are very soft, you know. And they purr.”

Eve blinked. “What is ‘purr’?”

“Purr is bliss,” she replied and watched Eve hurry to the nearest cow. The purring had been her greatest idea. It overpowered the opposable thumb any time.

* * *

By noon, the kittens had warmed up to Eve. She brought them milk and they rubbed their backs against her legs, played with her hair and curled on her lap, purring.

Half-asleep, the Serpent lay content under the Tree. Her work was complete. She had created perfection and found a guardian for the little ones. At the threshold of a dream, a male voice somewhere close awoke her.

“Eve, where are you?”

Eve’s gaze darted from the napping kittens in her lap to the source of the voice and back. The calico stretched and curled tiny paws over her face. Eve’s shoulders slumped.

“I must go. Adam needs me.”

The Serpent stretched her neck. She couldn’t let her leave–not yet. Not for him.

“Why does he need you?”

“Um, to gather fruits, and comb his beard, and –”

The serpent rolled her eyes. “Can’t he do that on his own?” What’s the point of having an opposable thumb if you don’t use it?

“Yes, but –”

“The kittens need you more,” she hissed. “They can’t milk cows.”

Eve glanced over her shoulder. “I suppose I could stay a little longer.”

* * *

“WHAT IS THIS?”

His voice was thunder and lightning and Eve fell face down on the ground. The kittens started from their nap with a hiss and climbed up the Tree of Life. The Serpent remained calm and stretched her upper body, certain she saw Adam’s ratty face hidden in the bushes at the back.

Amidst a host of angels and seraphim, their Lord God appeared before them.

“What have you done?” He turned his fiery gaze to Eve. “Have you not a mate, woman? Go to him. He has been looking for you everywhere, sick with worry.”

Eve stood up and hurried away.

He turned to the Serpent. “Call them down.”

She snickered. “Even if I do, they won’t obey. I forgot to include obedience when I made them.”

God raised an eyebrow. “Of course you did.” He stroked his beard and then waved at one of the seraphim. “Bring them before me, so I can inspect the full extent of the Serpent’s insubordination.”

The seraph flew to the kittens perched upon a branch. “Follow me to your Lord God.”

Their eyes grew wide, fascinated by the incessant flutter of the seraph’s six wings. The calico outstretched her forepaw to catch one. She licked her whiskers, wagged her behind and lunged at the slowly retreating seraph. A heartbeat later, the ginger kitten followed her.

Amidst hisses and a cloud of torn feathers, the unfortunate seraph flew to its master’s feet. An archangel hurried to its aid and managed to detach the berserk kittens from the torn wings.

The kittens stood at God’s feet, and He leaned over them. The ginger kitten was busy chasing a floating seraph feather, while the calico seemed mesmerized by God’s beard. She attempted to paw one of the long white tendrils, but the feather caught her eye and she went after that instead.

“Insolent,” He said.

“I call it free will.”

The kittens now chased each other around God’s feet, oblivious to the imminent danger.

He frowned. “I gave Man dominion over all creatures. They should obey him.”

“Kittens didn’t exist at that time. They are excluded from the deal.”

“They will only disrupt peace. The fruit is forbidden for a reason.”

“You said not to eat it. You never said anything about other uses.”

His frown deepened. “Semantics.” He waved to His host. “Lucifer, escort the creatures out of Eden.”

“No!” She darted forward, placing herself between kittens and archangel. “They’ll never survive outside.”

“They are not defenseless. You should know that, being their creator.” His voice was firm but not unkind.

She hung her head. “But they are just babies…”

God signaled to Lucifer, who stood shifting his weight from one leg to another. “Well?”

Lucifer bit his lip. “My Lord God, they will not come.”

The kittens cowered at the roots of the Tree, a multicolored bundle of hissing fur. God turned to the Serpent.

“They will listen to you.” The promise of flood and fire now lurked in His tone. “See to their needs, but escort them out.”

Defeated, she nodded. “But will they endure? You’re omniscient. Please, tell me.”

He tilted His head sideways. “So be it. This I tell you: they will be revered as deities and hunted as demons. Often my mortal servants will know them to be not of my making. They will deem them evil, drown them in water and burn them with fire.”

“And you will do nothing to stop them?”

“I do not advocate their actions, and they will not go unpunished.” He smirked. “What happened to your support of free will?”

“It has gone with the kittens.”

* * *

The Serpent escorted the kittens through the wilder lands to a secluded oasis. They’d have fresh water there, and trees to climb on, and unsuspecting frogs and birds to hunt. But they’d be alone, easy prey to all the dangers that lurked outside Eden.

Back in Eden, she could no longer sleep in peace, her dreams now tormented by images of the kittens suffering. She had to find them a guardian, to shelter them in the eons to come. Had He not said, “See to their needs?”

Come morning, she climbed up the Tree of Knowledge and grabbed a fragrant fruit, then headed to the clearing where the humans dwelled.

“Eve! I have something for you.”

 

* * *

Originally published in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine.

About the Author

Christine Lucas lives in Greece with her husband and a horde of spoiled animals. She’s a retired Air Force officer and mostly self-taught in English. Her work appear in several print and online magazines, including Daily Science Fiction, Pseudopod, and Strange Horizons. She was a finalist for the 2017 WSFA award and a collection of her short stories, titled Fates and Furies was published in late 2019 by Candlemark & Gleam.

Visit her at: http://werecat99.wordpress.com/

by Mari Ness

“Humans, as it turned out, did not deal well with foxes trotting into their stores and ordering coffee.”

The fox hires children to bring him coffee every day.

He had discovered the wonders of coffee, and the even greater wonders of handcrafted espresso drinks, quite by accident, when a human woman had left her single sourced Kenyan blend with soy on a bench without a lid, and then, followed this up by leaving a vanilla soy latte on a neighboring bench – again, without a lid. It was quite safe to say that the fox became obsessed, and equally safe to say that it was a difficult obsession to indulge.

Humans, as it turned out, did not deal well with foxes trotting into their stores and ordering coffee. Just entering a café presented difficulties, with doors slamming shut, things flying in his general direction, and – in one particularly awful case that the fox still remembered with a shudder – a gun getting pulled out. And that was when he could manage to open the doors at all.

(Why did humans make their doors so heavy and hard to push and pull? It was one of many mysteries that the fox feared he would never solve.)

Ordering once inside was no easier. Most refused to believe that the voice they heard was indeed coming from the fox, assuming that it had to be some sort of trick. In some cases, they even pulled out those horrible things humans called cell phones to take videos – something virtually designed to get the fox into serious trouble, if and when anyone took those videos seriously. Almost no one would take his order. And then he had the issue of payment – he had no access to those plastic things humans used, of course, but the café staff seemed reluctant to take paper payments from him, even when he was careful to barely lick and chew them.

All before either trying to drink the beverage in the café, in front of numerous eyes and cameras, or attempting to take out his handcrafted beverage without spilling a drop.

And always at the grim risk of being captured and turned into some sort of performing animal. Others had managed to conceal their ability to speak after capture, but he was not naïve about his own character: he would start blabbering away at the mere hint of withholding coffee.

So. Children.

They present their own disadvantages, of course. Some are simply too young to be able to enter a café and order coffee for a fox without extremely awkward questions. Some are simply too old, too adult, to believe that a fox – a fox – could really be asking them to make a coffee run. Increasing numbers do not speak English or Spanish, the only human languages the fox has any mastery of – though he prides himself on his fluency in no less than 50 animal languages. And, of course, the children must be approached when no adult is around – something that also presents a difficulty.

And the children, alas, are just not reliable. One would hope – and the fox has hoped, more than once – that his status, as a talking fox, would keep them fascinated, but this hope – unlike the handcrafted coffees – has so far proven unfilled. Which means he must keep searching for new children, again and again. It is exhausting.

Fortunately, he has coffee.

When he can, the fox pays the children in hard cash, robbed from individuals careless enough to leave their backpacks and other bags unattended in parks. The fox is not particularly good with zippers, but he knows a few crows who owe him various favors – and who are not unwilling to help if it means a chance at a fresh baked scone or banana bread.

Unfortunately, the fox and the crows find fewer and fewer paper bills in backpacks these days. The fox blames the increasing use of cell phones for everything, including buying coffee – really, do humans not realize how dangerous those things are – though the fox could equally blame the ever louder warnings about certain thieving crows.

Whatever the reason, however, it means these bills must be saved to pay for the handcrafted coffees, scones, and slices of banana breads. The fox might – and does – steal from humans, but he would never ask their children to steal for him. He does have some ethical standards. Not many – as he would be the first to admit – but some.

And as a practical matter, the fox highly doubts that any of these children could steal a venti soy hazelnut without getting caught.

And so he pays them in stories.

In advice.

In promises of vengeance.

And if, afterwards, people notice a rise in fox bites, or a few mysterious animal break-ins that happen to shatter some priceless, beloved possessions, or even a corpse or two, necks marked by sharp teeth –

Well. Animals will be animals.

No need to let that deprive the fox of his morning coffee.

 

* * *

About the Author

Other short stories by Mari Ness can be found in Tor.com, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Uncanny, Nightmare, and Diabolical Plots. Her poetry novella, Through Immortal Shadows Singing, is available from Papaveria Press, and an essay collection, Resistance and Transformation: On Fairy Tales, from Aqueduct Press.

For more, visit her website at mariness.wordpress.com, or follow her on Twitter at @mari_ness. She lives in central Florida.

by Slip Wolf

“I can’t love a coffee shop enough to marry one.”

I’m in a small part of heaven.  My delicate feline nose picks apart what my eyes already feast on; inside the glinting glass hull of the French press, the coil-rimmed filter, carrying grounds from the toasted gold above, descends. A caramel head of froth crowns the results.  I pick up the press by its warm stem, pour with care so no drops escape the bone-white mug with its silver-leaf logo reading Kypris on its flank.  Steam rises as I set the press down and stir the cream upward.  I delay the moment with bated breath, then another. In heaven there’s no need but I do this because savoring is no less wondrous than having. Then a Moroccan kiss touches my lips and passes on.  I love this place. I savor my solitude amongst kindred but separate souls and feel the sands of time settle as they always do here. This is a small part of heaven.

A Madeline cake would be wonderful right now. My loving coffee shop dotes on me, the sea-shell confectionary on my plate spongey and fragrant as my coffee. Crossing lanes beneath my nose I can move from baked sweetness to off-bitter bite. The coffee is exquisite. “I love this place.”  I say to the shop. “I love you.”  Is there sugary perfume on the napkin that I dab at my lips?  I finish the next page in my book and set it down. It will be here when I return through the red door frame onto these ebony, ivory tiles. Everything is where you leave it here. I wander the streets, my shoes scuffing the cobbles under a perfect dusk.

Home is an apartment that is a cloud that is a cradle in the sky, glass walls that see for infinity in every direction. Slumber finds me if I want it, but mostly I get to meditate on all the others milling below on their way to and from whatever enclaves of heaven wait for them.  A movie house, a painted cave, a parlour of flattering mirrors, a lush lick of wild jungle.  There’s a slice of heaven carved out for everyone.  Nap time.

I was somewhere else once. The end was irrelevant, as the beginning of what came next was enrapturing. The blue sky became a pale iris, the pink dusk a rose garden under clouds.  I don’t remember the cat I was before I came. To do so would, I suppose, recall some pain or shortcoming. I danced from cradle to rest, bright in my moment, hopeful for the next day, but alone. I remember that much. A solitary creature, my happiness or lack of it was in books and tuna and grooming. I think. These are all inseparable parts of me in some way. I don’t remember what I toiled at or what reason I had for doing so.  I could have walked or I could have loped on all fours. I don’t remember that either. Did I wear these clothes? These off-whites and meditative greys?  My fur is the same color so maybe this is an extension of me. I’m lithely naked whenever I feel like grooming, clothed again when I follow certain paths, seeking the perfect flower to adorn my breast pocket as a corsage. Whatever I need to be to be happy, I am, as I suppose I was where I came from. And what I am now, as I’m sure I was then, is alone.

I pass a braided coyote on the way into the coffee shop, tail swaying, teeth shining above a caftan that looks like a Navajo sand-painting unfinished with itself, winding in an unfelt wind.  Her claws click on the polished tile as she passes me with kind eyes and leaves through the same red door frame through which I enter.  A rabbit, a lion, a dolphin, a horse. In duos or trios they occupy their spaces inside the café.  My space waits for me, single chair drawn back, book open face down. The press and mug wait empty. When I sit, they are ready. My coffee shop has ticked the seconds off till I return. The press descends and the pour is perfect. How well Kypris café knows me.

I sit; I read my Proust. Laughter and talk around me is musical as a brook. There are no distractions in heaven, well, none that aren’t welcome. The draperies framing the window behind me brush my back and cool air breathes a caress into my shoulder, like the coffee shop’s very soul is teasing me in affection.  “I love this place,” I repeat behind closed eyelids, and then, to the walls and windows and tiles and brass and wood collectively, “I love you.”  It feels good to say that, to acknowledge how much a part of me this place is, this oasis of calm in eternity, this space of repose and rejuvenation. This must have been an important part of what came before, wherever that was. It doesn’t matter.

Coffee replenishes. The currents of surrounding chatter wind round one engaging topic after another.  I stay alone. Then I leave.  My return to the cloudy domicile this time is naked, slinking and leaping from high rooftop to rooftop. The ghosts of caffeine have my tail in the air the whole way.  Slumber finds me in perfect peace once again.

Next day the coyote is back, this time in a black kimono, white paint stark against the red on her toothy lips, black lining her wise eyes.  She gazes at me for some time as I seat myself, book and press at ready. There is an empire cookie on the plate, tart and sweet, icing like a wink.

My mind is absconded by the words on the page, but only momentarily. I realize the coyote is talking to me.

“What?” It’s been some time since my voice was used with another here. I squeak, mouse-like.

“I’m saying your proposal has been accepted,” the coyote says in the manner of congratulations.

I fidget a moment, having lost my place on the page.  I look over the black nose on that painted white muzzle and cock my head. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Of course you understand. We all have someone for us here, someone who shares us, completes us. You found yours,” the coyote said as though pointing out the obvious.

I know of course of the trickster dispositions of coyotes, of the way they wind you in wiles. She’s having fun at my expense, obviously.  “I don’t know what you’re speaking of,” I mutter, ears swiveling in confusion.

“Always alone,” the coyote says.  “Or so it seemed.”

“I like the freedom solitude affords,” I answer honestly and she clicks her long tongue.

“But you love,” the coyote grins. “Just like the rest of us. Love brought you here again and again. And that love was accepted. Now it is done.”

“What is done? I’ve accepted nothing.”

The coyote rises gracefully and begins to glide to the door. “Everything is where you leave it here, especially your affection.”

I wrinkle my nose. The other mammals in here regard one another over the waft of java’s team, paying us no mind. She lowers a paw to my shoulder and the bracelets chase each other to her wrist like an abacus adding the universe up.  “You and Kypris are married now.”

“What?”

“I will leave you alone.” The coyote does, sashaying out the door frame which shines its crimson shine.

I am left with my coffee and my questions. My coffee wafts strong. The sun is warm on my shoulder. The drawn drapes tickle my neck.

Soon enough I’m home. I don’t have to sleep. So I don’t, unthinking.

Next day I hurry back, and linger in the open doorway of my coffee shop. The coyote is there again, dressed in a blue cloche and a flapper dress.  She smokes her cigarette through a lacquered stem and stares off into space. So I settle in my seat, resume my book and sip my coffee. There is a sense of peculiarity in the air, as though I’m missing something important. The white frosted cake is exquisite, soon gone to the last spongey crumb.  I read my novel as it spools the woe of a love unrequited, and I wonder with amusement at the needs of creatures to find affection for themselves in others.  Such a strange predilection to thrive in such a way. Whatever wants I was once slave to, such was not it. Chimes sing above the distant cash register which itself rests un-manned and has never rang once in all my time here. The chimes are either in agreement or chiding me. I know this is for me alone.  I am the only creature who listens and I laugh when I remember yesterday. “Can you imagine being married to anyone?”  I ask nobody in particular.  I sip my coffee again and something brushes my lips.  I look into my cup and see a small fragment of something floating in there. By the glint of icing sugar I can see its more cake.

I feel the coyote at my side even though she casts no shadow. “Happiness where you least expect it,” she laughs. “There are still surprises, even here.”

My ears swivel.  “What surprises?”

“I told you. You are married. You and Kypris. This is the first day of a honeymoon that may never end.”

I could laugh, but I can’t. I could sputter, but the sweetest caffeine ambrosia in heaven isn’t for the most startled throat to choke on.  “You can’t be serious.”

“You found its kami. It found your heart. That was enough.”

“I can’t love a coffee shop enough to marry one.”

“Have you never loved a place before?”

“Before here?”  I frown. It’s a strange feeling to frown, no less than feeling confused. “I don’t remember exactly who I loved.”

“Who.  So you believe that true affectionate love is only granted between people like us?” The coyote is even more amused now as she sits across my small table from me in the space that up until a moment ago needed no chair nor had one.

“I don’t know,” I say, feeling consternation that has become alien to me. “I never thought of love that way at all.  This place is important to me.”

“And you love it for that reason. I’ve heard you say it. So did Kypris. What’s to deny? Love brought you here. Love keeps you here. It always does. I’ve got to go.” The coyote rises.

“Who are you?” Different feelings are pulling me from different directions, and everything feels a mess. My throat is dry and the dark potion awaits, but it has become suspect.  “Did I know you before?”

She doesn’t meet my gaze. “Everyone knows someone like me from before. It’s not important.”  She puts her paw on the red door frame as she passes through, patting affectionately as though on the shoulder of a friend. “I’ll leave you two.”

“Where are you going?”

“To play billiards. Or roll in a meadow. There’s quite a few options.”  And she is off.

I frown into my coffee, which hasn’t cooled from the way I like it one bit. Reading my books and drinking my ever-filling mug. Nothing about it needs to be personal. My solitude, in and of itself, is the whole point.

More white cake has appeared, this time with a tiny frosting rosette in red. I regard it for a while before I go back to my book, reading more about a man who sought love where it was not to be found and failed to learn. Fools are so much more interesting to read about than the wise. No interesting surprises ever befall them, do they? I’m having trouble paying attention to the book in front of me, glancing back to the rose-bejeweled cake and back. I’m not hungry. When I leave through the red door, I leave it behind next to my book.

I wander alleys back, tail twitching. Night passes, then a day and I lay in my cloud, thinking on the details of my coffee shop. It wasn’t made for me. Too many others share the space for it to be just mine. They are as real as I am; I know it. Life has a gravity, a warmth that you can sense. None of us here are shades of a life, but the purest essence.  All Kypris café’s other patrons are paired, or trioed, or collected in larger groups. Is that why the shop has given its love to me, the solitary visitor? Or are there others who share it?  I don’t recall there ever being love like this in what came before this place. Is it good that I don’t remember?

Perhaps it is all a lie. Perhaps the coyote has spread this to others and there are several of us, each assuming Kypris café has given its love to us and us alone. What a trick that would be. But the whole idea is senseless, making fools of so many people.  Just me then.

I am seeing a half truth, tying myself in needless knots. It makes no sense for paradise to allow such a thing.

The next day, I am unable to focus on my book at all. I look up and study all of Kypris’ furnishings and decorations collectively and separately, all organs of a whole.  The shop has the aged appearance of something musty and lived in, but conversely spotless and highlighted with bright spots. Stained-glass chandeliers, brass fittings and wood panels, and here and there frames of red, highlighted by the prominent hot-red door frame in which the French-glassed oak door rests, eternally hinged inwards. There is no sense of a closing time. I would imagine there are nocturnal souls who visit when heaven’s lights are low and licks of sodium and neon create beckoning beacons all up and down this street. So strange that I am so rarely nocturnal, and never here.  But then I remember; I can’t read clearly at night.

Nor can I now.  I’m barely another paragraph ahead in my book before I’m drawn up anew by some crackling of presence around me, not just in occupied, warmed chairs all around me filled by cheerful bodies, but in the empty corners, the details of my world drunk in and absorbed and taken for granted.

The treat today is an almond croissant. I take a few bites that tingle my senses, but something doesn’t feel right. There’s a cloying sense of deliberation in the air around me. I’m being crowded with sightless intent, doted on by dextrous hands unseen.  I’m being smothered by an attention that is at once invisible and ever present.

I close my book and leave feeling uneasy, but break from tradition. The croissant receives only a few bites, but the book comes with me.  There’s a distinct cold stirring in my wake as I leave, no words spoken to myself, the other patrons, or anyone in particular.  I’m home soon enough, on my cloud, book open but too tired to read now. Slumber gauzes the eyes and the senses and another day has passed.

The next begins with trepidation. My book is under my arm, poking at a lilac corsage I’ve picked along a garden path, and as the red portal of Kypris café appears, the well-worn fragrance of ground coffee bean and spongey, desert decadence entice me in.

But the uncertainty is still there, that feeling of disturbance deep within. Entering suddenly entails more than I can comfortably fathom.

I move on, avoiding the wet shimmer on the window panes as my passing reflection ripples across them and out of sight. Out in the endless light I walk the thoroughfare of heaven, into the throng of other souls in joy and repose, passing other waystations of their amusement. Jazz and toasted tobacco smoke rolls out of a club with doors wide and no lineup and a snap in my step that urges me to smooth down my lapels.  A bakery tickles my whiskers with scents that dab my tongue with marzipan and sugar icing, and I see cakes filling a frosted window that stands the fur on my shoulders on end, countless exotic offerings sampled by gourmands of every species. All the while the disturbed goods bake themselves back into replenishment with fragrant splendor on their azure cornflower pedestals. I sidle up to the open door, as all doors in heaven necessarily are, and rub my narrow flank along it to gather a bit of its scent. Then, perfumed in sweetness, I’m up a drain-pipe and sneaking past a soft-shoe dance chorus of multiple mammalian species of matched grace at a rooftop garden party, stopping momentarily to drown my confusion in a sip of sweet bubbly from a champagne pyramid at the shindig’s edge. Soon I leap back to heaven’s side-walked earth and come face to face with another open door on an open portico and familiar signs with universal symbols.  A ring-handled cup on a saucer lets off steam in rough gold-leaf filigree. The sign above the door says, rather tacitly, Angel’s Gin and Java.

I check and see that the book I’d lost track of during my flight from Kypris is still under my arm, a part of me in that strange alchemy of paradise, but still something to be set down. I enter the coffee shop, smell unfamiliar smells, and take a seat at an empty booth near a window.  The vibe in here is wholly unfamiliar, not welcome, nor exclusionary. Wallpaper and tryptychs of pastoral landscapes with hedge-leaping horses and parasol bearing foxes glint in oily light.  The clientele is thick, but isolated and among the teapots and mugs I see sporadic beer pints and highballers, along with a martini-glass borne by a lizard who sips away in an opiate torpor.  The coffees are spiked by liqueurs and the teas are paired with mustily strong edibles that overwhelmingly stain the air.  I find a seat and take it, reading my book. Nothing manifests at first as I read, then finally I look up and see a coffee. Angel’s has seen me at least, and read my simplest of desire. I sip. The coffee isn’t bad, I don’t think, a bit over-sweetened. I settle in against the plush cushions, which are soft and lose myself in the sensation of welcome solitude. No mis-requited love from a place that holds any power over me, nor uncertainty at its proximity. I can get my bearings again in this place, just another building in paradise’s endless playground. No bizarre shade of needy affection chases me.

The light is just bright enough to see, then just enough to read comfortably. Stupid coyote. Feed me a line and think I can’t get away from your manipulations, or the manipulations of whatever tried to hold me to Kypris café.  In paradise we are bound by nothing, our memories sifted for the most fleeting joys, made eternal as we desire. This cat walks eternity in the grasp of no love that can bind it. The very idea is treason to all I am.  My dues to mortality are paid. I demand little of the universe and it demands nothing of me. What an absurd imposition of my identity the whole idea is; that one can love any place in the manor of another soul. Especially when you don’t want another one.

It’s hard to concentrate on my book, with its lost subject scattered into the machinations of others’ desires and repulsions. Such a reminder of the world I must have left behind in these pages, such a warning as to the follies that could have beset me had my heart lay unguarded.  Now, having nearly succumbed again, I’ve proven with a simple traipse down heaven’s artery that I will never be tied down by the ensorcellment of any bosom of flesh or wood. I’ve gotten bored; I’ve stepped out. Commitment isn’t for me, sweetie. The décor in my peripheral sight appears slightly lurid in a way I like.

My coffee spills. On its way to my lips I lose my grip on the mug stem and coffee that isn’t quite scalding but not cool either splashes onto my chest and lap.  My clothes, for I need clothes in this moment, absorb the spill and its halo of drops.

Well damn. I sit there in my booth, drops of coffee all over my front, spread across my lap and sprinkled on the underside of my muzzle. A moment passes, then a second, and the café-bar carries on as normal, none of the other raucous creatures noticing my clumsiness.

I blink. The spill cleans itself up from the table and floor. But not from me. I’m wet and dripping. Even my book has been dabbed in liquid, the page bubbling up under the spots of moisture. Well why not? If what I read is a part of me and not of this place, it wouldn’t stay intact.

One never has to change clothes or fur or skin in paradise, for all that affects what we are is with consent and as desired. Like the gravity of other places, this is a rule universally known and everywhere unspoken. I can’t think of why I would desire a soaking. Even a cool rain here is just neutrinos of tingling refreshment that fades with sensation. Most often it is the lullaby of thunder beyond Kypris’ window while I—

No. I won’t ponder her here. I escaped that place for a reason, namely the absence of reason brought on by the coyote, the trickster. My hackles, wet and dry rise and fall. She sowed the discord that chased me away. I decide I hate her.

I am still dripping with coffee and uncomfortable, so I rise and head deeper into Angel’s.  I know what a restroom is though I don’t recall needing more than a mirror in one for all my time here.  I gaze in the mirror, willing the dark stain to dry and recede into memory, but it doesn’t happen.

The thick scents that permeate this whole place have become a miasma, a low hanging smoke like cloudy dread. One should not feel this sensation in heaven. I wrinkle my nose at the stale headiness of it and realize I need to clean myself. I run water under the tap, and from icy cold the water turns to scalding hot. I draw my paw back from the torrent with a yowl and feel the sting throb and then subside.  A bang takes me off my feet as a stall opens and a goat shuffles out, horns crooked, sniffing, foul smoke curling from a mouth without a cigarette. “You don’t know why you’re here either,” he wheezes and holds up an open pack of what looks like tobacco-stuffed finger-bones. “May as well light up and stay awhile. Maybe longer.”

My whiskers twitch as my gaze falls to the pack in his bony hand. The bones in the pack are moving, whispering things I can’t quite hear.

“No. We have to go.”  A paw wraps round my elbow and squeezes my forearm.  The coyote narrows her yellow gaze at the goat, leads me away as the ragged figure backs into the dark of the stall and seals the portal with a click.

I frown as I’m led back to the door, close to the mirrors, far from the other stalls, most open and innocuous. The coyote answers my unasked question, the filigree on her golden sari catching gaslight.  “Wherever you lose yourself, you’ll find one like him. Yes, even here. Keep walking.”

In a moment, we’re back in the café proper, my sense of unease still present if subsided. My book is still on the table where I spilled the coffee, still bubbled on the open page. But I myself am dry now, just like that. I return to the table and the coyote comes with me, takes an uninvited seat. I’d bristle, but I’m not sure if I should be grateful or not.

“You followed me,” I say sourly.

“I was going to ask if you followed me,” the coyote says.  “We don’t all have one place here that’s chosen us.  Some move around.”

“Places don’t choose us.” I fold my arms in defiance and glance longingly down at the wrinkled page of my book. Will it be eternally maimed in the part where Swann laments his time wasted with Odette?  I am thankful the story has so many separate, pristine volumes. Had this happened to Tolstoy’s War and Peace, I would probably weep.  “There are places where we’re comfortable. That’s what I want. Comfort and solitude.”

“And what makes you comfortable?”  The coyote’s paws grasp mine, the shock of warmth on my paws sending a shudder through me as thumbs wrap over my palm. Direct contact has eluded me for so long. Who in heaven even desires such fleshy, foolish things?

“The quiet. The solitude.”

“You can have that anywhere. Go deeper. Details, please.” Her golden eyes look up from her bowed head, ears wide and receptive.  “Please.”

“I love the simple décor. Much nicer than this place.”

A badger knocking back a pint at the bar gives me a glare over his shoulder, more pitying than annoyed.  I ignore him. “I like the way the sun dapples on the tables through the French glass in the transoms. I love the simple elegance of the cloth-covered tables and wicker-backed chairs. I love the coffee, the confectionaries, the way the place always knows what my mood wants before even I do.”  I think back to the rose-encrusted cake. “Well, most of the time anyway.”

In a corner two wolves call out a cheer in a language I don’t recognize and slam their pints together hard enough that one breaks and sloshes suds. The one with his back to me has a battle-ax affixed to his back and is nearly naked. I think I’m glad they didn’t hear me putting this place down.

“Valhalla isn’t the same for everybody,” the coyote says, following my gaze with a shrug before looking back. “It sounds like you love Kypris café. So why are you here instead of there?”

I don’t quite know why, so it takes some time to collect myself.  “Marriage, I mean, whatever game you were playing in there, I didn’t appreciate it.”

The coyote turns her head sideways. “What game?  You’re attached to that place, more than any other here. The café is attached to you, more than any other patron. What about the profession of love disturbed you?”

“Besides it not being possible?” I want another coffee and I have one, black as night and bitter when I steal a sip. This place doesn’t know me, but that’s just fine. Maybe it takes a while. “Kypris is a coffee shop, a place, an inanimate space.”

“No, it’s not.” The coyote wants to frown, I can tell, but smiles with a patience I find unnerving instead. “Here everything has a spirit, a force, an emotional agency. A place called Japan called it kami, while far North in the colder climes of the world before, Araniit, the breath of all things, affected people’s lives. We all came to know the world we exist in now in different ways, just bits of truth, gleaned or guessed while we were still wandering around wherever we were before this. Much of this is a surprise, and that’s part of the fun when you think about it. I mean why would you want to move onto a world where you already know everything, right?”

I don’t know what to say to that. The coyote’s tail wags as she waits for me to agree, then slows and rests out of sight. “You don’t have to understand everything to enjoy paradise.”

“I want to enjoy it by myself. It’s just how I am. Is that bad? I don’t love a coffee shop.”

The coyote swallows, and her enthusiasm slackens as though coming to accept what I’m saying.  “You don’t have to love Kypris back, not in that way. But we all love something, if not someone, in some way.  We couldn’t live otherwise. You could love a mountain top, or a wind-swept plain or a subway stop.  The only difference is that here, it can love you back.”  The coyote shifts in her chair. “Here, everything and everyone can love you back.”

I look into my coffee, take a sip. It’s still bitter and I miss the coffee at Kypris.  Dammit.  “So what do you do with four walls and tables and chairs that love you?  I mean…this whole thing feels absurd.”

The coyote laughs and I sense that its slightly painful.  “You consummate that love with your presence. That’s all it requires.  Understand, cat, everyone is given the gift of knowing, even if just once, what their heart really wants.”

“But it isn’t real.”  I think of the tickle of the drapes, the unceasing warmth of the sun through her windows, the perfected sensation of every bite and every sip in those walls. “I don’t know what love is, but I know this isn’t it.”

“You don’t have to know,” the coyote chides with a smile.  “Love is confusion, and yearning, and often unrequited. Your mistake is to assume it is somehow weaker for all that. Giving it with no expectation of its return is where its strongest.”  She stops and takes a breath, then sips from a cool glass that has manifested in her paw. Maybe it’s gin and tonic, maybe it’s water. I don’t ask. She stares into her glass for a moment. “Kypris loves you even if you decide to avoid her and never see her again.  Her kami, like all spirits, is for you and you are for her. You only need acknowledge that whether in an oasis, or a café, or in another’s arms, you find love for something, if not someone…”  The coyote stops and sets down her glass. “…outside yourself.”

She turns away and scans the crowd of souls congregating in the Angel pub, together, apart, content. As she turns back to me, her fidgeting stops for her to wipe a tear away.  “Just let it happen. You already have.”

“Who are you?”

The coyote lets boisterous celebration and laughter from all corners drift into our small realm of quiet. She holds her muzzle straight and dries her last tear away. “You don’t know me. You never did.  I’m just someone who sees what is.  No tricks. I was never one for tricks.”

I curl my tail around myself, and sigh, my dry chest fur rising and falling as I lean back. The coffee isn’t working. Something is missing.  I stare down at the dried book, pages wavy and rippled from water damage, willing order to return to them. This is what paradise is supposed to be, the order that follows the messy chaos of the outside, the preamble, the intro. Doubts shouldn’t torture anyone here and it’s for that reason that so much is swept from memory, consigned to insignificance. Loneliness never plagued this cat. So what plagues me now?

I look up at the stuccoed ceiling past the slow turning, brass-plated fan, and with just a slight change in focus that alters perception, even past that barrier through to the blue eggshell skin that surrounds the vast heart’s locket of this heaven for all of us. Focus again, and then one can see past it into the nameless dark.

Love put me here, safe from oblivion, and the very same found my tiny crèche in heaven, my place of comfort.  What else would possibly take the one thing that mattered most to me in the mortal coil and put it here for my enjoyment, as part of my sense of self as the tail raised behind me or the whiskers that sample every wondrous sense ahead.

“I’m a fool,”  I say glumly.

The coyote’s soft paw rests upon mine again. “We all are. It’s our most endearing quality, don’t you think?”

“I didn’t ask your name,” I realize as I rise.

“No you didn’t,”  she says as she gets up with me, adjusting her sari. “It’s Cloud. Walk back with me, will you?”

I nod, not needing to ask where.

My walking stick clicks the cobbles and I tilt the bowler I’ve adopted above my pinstriped suit.  Her sari has given way to a satin gown that follows curves from sinewed limb to cobbled ground. In another life, under other circumstances, I’d want to see how her hips sway.  Here and now, I appreciate the warmth of her paw and feel the giddiness of her lively heart as we stop at Kypris’ red arch and part ways with respectful bows.  Cloud’s parting is silent, but reluctant. The coyote fades into the crowd of another cross-thoroughfare of heaven and I rifle the rippled pages of my book as I feel the electric charge of my café, welcoming me in.  I can’t remember if I was gone hours or millennia. As Cloud said, it doesn’t matter.  The cake waiting for me next to my French press is the most delightful, airy slice of culinary sugary joy I think I’ve ever sampled.  The coffee is a lively melange of Moroccan warmth and spice. I know now I can go anywhere, but my joy will reside right here.

It may be that to be happy, even in heaven one mustn’t fully know the self, why we’re at peace with the people or things we were close to or apart from. Love is the most confusing element of any life.  I’ll never fully pierce the fog of the world before this one, where joys and pains brought me to struggle as we all did in some way. I’ll never seek out the reasons for my self-proscribed solitude, never deeply wonder if doubts were insects in my stomach.  The faces that occasionally flash before my mind’s eye with dips of madeleine cake or sips of coffee or glimpses of dusk along heaven’s distant edge will never resolve back to knowledge of family or acquaintance, friend or foe.

And I’ll never turn and see the coyote who called herself Cloud, decked just once, fleetingly, in a smudged coffee shop owners apron with the Kypris silver-leafed logo, looking longingly and lovingly across the sea of content regular patron souls, picking mine out of the throng as she had countless times before in a world all but forgotten. She’ll ache once more with curiosity and affection and a love of the kind that even when fate leaves it unrequited, fills us, grows within us and creates a place in paradise for us all.

 

* * *

Originally published in ROAR, Volume 8

About the Author

Slip Wolf has been writing fiction under a few guises for the past twelve years and has dozens of short stories out in the wild.  Currently he’s trying to finish his first novel while under COVID lockdown in Canada. He is tolerated during this process by a patient mate and two indefatigable dogs. Through it all he’s learned that Heaven can be the peaceful moments we all manage to find in the places we happen to be.

by Emily Randolph-Epstein

“Root of Purity’s bones still mark the cliffs of Ashport, her soul still haunts the harbor. That is not a fate the Red Dragon should share.”

The dragons have a direct line to my mind. Their voices enveloping, filling, as though their warm, scaled bodies are at once wrapping around me and within me.

They pull me now from deep dreams. “The Red Dragon passes. Attend at dawn.”

A check of the weather app warns of snow today and dawn in an hour and ten minutes. There’ll be no lounging in the dark, warm bed this morning, not if I’m to clear the snow from my car and make the half-hour drive to Ashport. If I’m late to the Passage, then the Red Dragon won’t be able to reach the Eternal Sky. I cannot condemn her to that fate.

There’s no time for a shower or breakfast either. I’ve just enough time to brush my hair (finally to my shoulders), shave, and place a new estradiol patch on the skin of my lower belly.

There isn’t really a dress code for attending the death of a dragon. Once upon a time, there were robes. My mother may still have them, but she’d never give them to me. I settle for a heavy fisherman’s sweater that still smells of lanolin, flannel-lined jeans and a knitted cap.

Half an hour after the dragons pulled me from sleep, I’ve cleared my car and driveway enough to pull out onto the road, not yet plowed. But enough early risers have driven past that I can follow the ruts left by their wheels. The snow in my headlights is a constant streak of flakes, like entering hyperspace. Will forty minutes be enough time to make it to Ashport in this weather?

“Hurry!” The dragons’ pleas ring through my mind.

* * *

The house – four times the height of any other two-floor house – is near the village center, across the street from the brick-built library. It perches on a cliff overlooking the harbor – snow-covered to hide the black dragon bones seared to the gray granite. The door looms, the lintel neck-craningly high above me. It opens on a sliding track like a boathouse door, with a smaller, human-sized door inset at the bottom.

The boats, hauled up on land and wrapped up for winter, are visible by the light of the streetlights, and the docks are stacked in the harbor parking lot just as they were the first time I ever glimpsed the Red Dragon. She was flying over the harbor then, swarmed by seagulls, crying their nasty seagull curses. I had gone out to one of the cliffs, barely visible in the gloaming, bent on throwing myself into the sea. My toes were curled around the edge, my stomach lurching with survival instinct, my eyes squeezed shut when she gave me my true name and pulled me away from the cliff.

“Dagny.” The Red Dragon’s voice is weak now, weaker than it’s ever been before, but still, she calls me back from that miserable, miraculous memory.

“I’m here.” Light bleeds across the horizon, weak and watery. Sky and sea the same dark shade of steel. The storm hasn’t reached Ashport yet; it waits on the air, a copper taste in my mouth. Dawn is minutes away.

Mrs. Ash opens the smaller door, hair the same copper as the Red Dragon’s scales with flashes of silver by her temples, eyes red-rimmed and tear-filled. “Thank you for coming.” Her voice is nothing like the clear sweet voice I’ve heard when she takes her guitar out to the shore and sings to the dragons as they wheel above the Summer harbor.

“Of course.” Seeing her tears, hearing her voice chokes my own voice in my throat.

The mournful whines of the other dragons carry from the depths of the house, and there is a shaky womphing sound of air being forced into and out of lungs.

Mr. Ash appears behind his wife, a tall man with black hair and a mostly white beard, his eyes are much the same as hers: tear-filled and reddened.

“You remember Dagny, dear?” says Mrs. Ash. I still feel a thrill whenever someone who knew me before uses my name.

Mr. Ash squints at me, and for a moment I’m afraid he’s going to delve into the past, into the me that wasn’t me yet, but he just purses his lips and nods. “Of course. She’s always liked you.” His frown deepens. “She hasn’t eaten in two days. We’ve had to carry her outside to do her business.” He looks too small a man to carry a dragon, but then he isn’t human, is he?

Somewhere inside a clock chimes, and even the dragons fall silent listening, counting. Seven chimes. Ten minutes to dawn. Ten minutes to sing the Song of Passing or else trap the Red Dragon here forever.

“It’s time.” Mrs. Ash opens the door wider. “Please come in.”

“You’re certain?” I shouldn’t be questioning her. Of course, she knows. Knowing is a part of her business.

“As she was born at dawn, so too will she pass.” A little bit of the clarity of her singing voice returns. “Hurry.” And the dragons echo her, their voices caressing the inside of my skull.

Inside, the dragons greet us. There are three or four others depending on how you count: the twin blacks can meld into a two-headed, two-tailed dragon when they wish, though now they are separated: Daughter of Joy is glossy black; the other, Gift of Sky, is matt, light sinking into his scales, lost. They move as though mirrors of each other.

Shy, champagne-colored Shield of Pearls keeps her distance, amber eyes worried. The hatchling, Army of Peace, holds no such reservations. He has not yet reached his full growth and stands no higher than my knees though no doubt he will tower above me before he’s done. The young dragons mob me, except for Shield of Pearls, rubbing against my legs with their sinewy necks, licking my face with giant tongues, long spiked tails whipping against the reinforced walls. It might have been overwhelming if they weren’t a part of me.

“Away, my loves.” Mrs. Ash pushes through the mob of tails and scales, and the dragons fall away, lining up behind their mother like the world’s most enormous ducklings as she leads me down the cavernous hall through the kitchen, past a walk-in freezer full of hanging pig and cow carcasses, a tithe the local farmers happily pay to the Dragon People, to keep their livestock unmolested.

The air grows hotter as we progress through the kitchen to a door on the far side. Mrs. Ash pauses. “She’s through here.” There’s a weight in her words, dragging them slowly from her tongue.

The Red Dragon’s presence presses on my mind, burning like I’m standing too close to a fire. “Dagny.”

Dragons only talk to girls, my mother’s voice in my mind.

What am I doing here? It shouldn’t be me here, doing this. It should be my mother or my sister, not me. Dragons only talk to girls.

I am a girl. I put my hand on my belly, over the estradiol patch. I imagine the hormones spreading through my body, the magic potion that will allow me to shed my old skin and let my true self shine through.

I glance at my watch. “Five minutes.”

Mrs. Ash nods and pulls in a ragged breath. Her husband has gone on ahead of us, and his deep voice carries through the door. “Dagny’s here, Old Girl. You can rest soon.”

I fight the tears laying siege to my eyes.

* * *

A fire blazes in the sitting room in a hearth large enough for someone twice my height to stand straight without bumping their head. Whole tree trunks burn behind the fire screen. The heat dries my skin and burns the tears from my eyes. And there she lies before the fire: Born of Dawn – the Red Dragon.

She doesn’t lift her head as we enter, but her eyes follow us, mirrored by cataracts. Mr. Ash stands beside her, stroking her head covered in scales that once glistened in the sun, now the dull copper-brown of dried blood. Next to her, the tall man is dwarfed, delicate.

The younger dragons stampede into the room, curling up beside the Red Dragon. The twins merge, Daughter of Joy resting her head on the Red Dragon’s stomach, Gift of Sky licking at her lips. “Come.” The Red Dragon’s voice sounds in my head.

I can’t move. My knees are locked, my feet nailed to the floor. I can’t do this. I shouldn’t be here. I’ll fail. My voice will falter, and dawn will come and go, and in failing, she will be barred entry to the Eternal Sky.

The clock ticks closer to dawn. My fingers brush the patch through the thick knit of my sweater. I breathe, and I go to her.

I kneel at her head, laying my hand against her broad expanse of snout. It’s so cold! Her internal fire has burned down so low that she can’t maintain her own body heat without the inferno burning in the hearth. A wordless shudder wracks my body, spasming across the mind link I share with the dragons.

Army of Peace whines, twining around Mrs. Ash’s legs. “Hush, little one,” she kneels and strokes his head, then turns to me. “It’s his first time. Root of Purity passed nearly five hundred years before he was hatched.”

I nod. My mother used to tell us stories of the great dragons our ancestors had helped to pass. Root of Purity died suddenly of a disease that snuffed out her internal fire four hundred years before her proper time. My many-greats-grandmother had been too late to sing her passing. Root of Purity’s bones still mark the cliffs of Ashport, her soul still haunts the harbor. That is not a fate the Red Dragon should share.

Dragons only speak to girls. My mother’s voice, even imagined, send needles into my skin. What if she’s right? What if I’m not female enough to do this? I shouldn’t be here. My hands freeze as cold as the Red Dragon’s skin. My throat tightens, too narrow to sing. The clock ticks another minute closer to dawn.

“Dagny,” the Red Dragon speaks, voice almost gone, almost faded. “Sing to me, Dagny.”

I lay my head against the Red Dragon’s, close my eyes. I breathe through the lump in my throat.

I open my mouth, but what are the words? I’ve known the Song of Passage all my life, and now it’s gone, evaporated, an ashen shadow on the wall of a bombed-out building.

“Sing to me, Dagny.”

And the words return. I sing. I push down my mother’s voice. The world starts to swerve away from me, and I follow the careen, letting it carry me, and the Red Dragon with me, on my voice. The hearth and the young dragons and Mr. and Mrs. Ash disappear until I’m alone with the Red Dragon, Born of Dawn.

We lie together on a field of stars. No up, no down, a void of dark and light.

The Red Dragon lifts her head. Eyes bright, reflecting starlight. Warmth radiates from her scales, beneath my hand. She stands and shakes out her wings, stirring a wind that blows my hair back from my face. Her copper scales shine and sparkle with stars.

“Goodbye,” I say.

“Thank you, Dagny.” She flaps her great membranous wings and rises away from me, vanishing into the stars. And the Red Dragon passes beyond life into the Eternal Sky where someday, I too will go.

Returning is hard. My body doesn’t want to accept the weight of the world.

I return to tears, and a room that seems smaller, emptier for the Red Dragon is gone, flown into the Eternal Sky. Dawn lightens the cloud-dark sky, and the first flakes of the storm flutter to the ground.

I smile through my tears. Dragons only talk to girls.

 

* * *

About the Author

Emily Randolph-Epstein was raised by a pack of wild poodles in small-town America. She spent her childhood LARPing, reading fantasy novels, and writing Tamora Pierce fan fiction. She’s known since age eleven that she wanted to be a novelist. After failing most enthusiastically to grow up, she is now a writer and musician living in Perth, Australia with her husband. Her short fiction has appeared in Hybrid Fiction and Infinite Worlds Magazine. You can find her on Twitter @emrandep or check out her blog www.emilyrandolphepstein.com.

by Anna Madden

“Ashmoda had attacked any male foolish enough to advance since her hatchling’s death. Her old mate was no exception.”

Ashmoda flew through thirsty air. Her sky-blue scales itched but were impossible to scratch. Sands flowed beneath her wings like a dead sea, the surface broken by scales of sapphire, mossy green, and red like dried blood.

She landed, exchanging scents with dragons she knew, pressing snout against snout. Undersized hatchlings cowered behind weary dams–too lean, with dull, cracked scales.

Pale moon-like eyes found hers. “Taniver,” Ashmoda said, calling out, the name a gentle breeze.

“Water arrives late,” Taniver said, his words weighted. He had quartz-colored scales, and horns crowned his skull, cascading from spine to tail. A fiercer look than the webbed crests of her own clan.

“The wind is impatient,” Ashmoda said.

Taniver stared. It was intimate, stirring old memories. A scar lined his right cheek. The mark was talon-made. Ashmoda had attacked any male foolish enough to advance since her hatchling’s death. Her old mate was no exception.

“We should be hunting Songless filth,” Ashmoda said. “Instead we tremble in this sad excuse of a nest, our talons clenching its sand for fear it will slide out beneath us.”

Taniver pinned his ears. “They outnumber us.”

“Who cares how many ants spill from the hill?” Ashmoda said, hissing back. “They are a prey-born race. They’ve abandoned their dens of stone and wood to chase us.” Her words tumbled, wet and rushed. “Now’s our chance.”

“The Songless are a hive-like herd,” Taniver said. “Cut one down and twenty more appear.” His lips curled back to reveal hunting teeth yellowed with time. “Let the fires die out on their own. The Songless–”

“–murdered our hatchling, the first of our nest!” Ashmoda turned her back. Her feet carried her to an open spot among blue-scaled kin. She circled, then settled down. Nearby, a hatchling peeked out behind his dam’s tail. His eyes spoke of hunger.

If the clans wouldn’t fight, so be it. She would hunt her prey alone.

* * *

Ashmoda woke to precious dew collected atop her scales. She licked them, trying to abate her never-ending itch. Without a word, she stretched her wings and took off.

The desolate sands were replaced by a canyon. Sparse growth turned to a green tide. Trees swelled, filled with the scents of pine needles and cedar and the stench of her enemies.

She met them in a blur of fangs and hate, using the Song of Water to gather clouds before releasing them from her throat. A flood rained down and nipped their heels, herding them. There was a flock of thirty, maybe more. They ran on two legs, their soft flesh covered with dried animal skin.

She forced them to the canyon’s edge where stubborn tree roots clung against sheer, jagged boulders. A headwind tickled Ashmoda’s snout, slowing her, helping her clear the dense tree line. She searched the skies and saw familiar eyes.

Taniver had followed her.

The Song of Wind pinned the Songless to the canyon’s mouth. They bent their knees, rooting themselves. When Taniver took a breath, his song quieted, and sharp-toothed arrows filled the air. Several sunk between her scale rifts. She hissed, then banked, gaining speed. She renewed the Song of Water, eager to wash away the filth. Let their mothers know her emptiness.

Taniver kept close, a roar in his throat. His tail snapped limbs of trees and Songless alike with satisfying cracks.

A deep cut wept across his breastbone, the wet blood glinting black. She led Taniver to higher altitude, through the cloud line. The wind danced to the rise and fall of his wings.

“We must flee,” he said, his wound fresh and terrible.

Ashmoda growled. She was no cowardly prey to bolt like a frightened deer. “Filthy egg-smashers!”

“Come away,” Taniver said, trying to soothe. “Ride the wind with me.” He rested a rough cheek against hers.

How could he talk of defeat? She bared her fangs. “Enough!” Ashmoda lashed out with her talons.

Her old mate flinched, then left.

She remembered their hatchling even if he didn’t, so small it hadn’t been blessed with a name. She closed her eyes as Taniver’s wingbeats grew distant, then silent. Her heart tingled, growing chill, numbing her weariness.

Below, the Songless ignored the skies. They were drunk on victory, yelping with excitement, encircling the leader of their herd. His hatchling stood beside him, almost full-grown, raven-maned like his sire and grandsire. The creature held his shoulders back, and his bare face rested in a permanent smirk. She knew his smell of rancid meat well, for the Songless hatchling had claimed the life of her beloved. A wingless, two-legged filth.

The Songless had stolen the future of the clans. She would do the same to this sole hatchling of an aging sire. A fitting exchange of ends.

Ashmoda dove.

The wind whistled by, faster and faster. There was no need to flap her wings in such a plunge. She counted on that. The Songless still squawked which provided an effective cover. Her talons circled the hatchling’s chest before he realized the danger. Her clan wasn’t the largest in size nor the strongest, but they were swift. It had its uses. She lifted, straining her shoulders and back, forcing compliance from her fatigued wings.

The Songless hollered like injured animals. More sharp-toothed arrows tasted the scales on her underside. Ashmoda cringed at their bite.

Frosted water poured from her snout and gaping jawbone. It turned to ice. The change in her song startled her, at first, but she lost herself to it. Ashmoda cleared the ground with her prize tucked safely against her belly. He would die, but first, she would teach him hunger and pain.

Shouts and fast footfalls and many sharp-toothed arrows warned of pursuit.

“Catch me if you can.”

 

* * *

About the Author

Anna Madden lives in Fort Worth, Texas. Her fiction has appeared in DreamForge Magazine and Upon a Once Time (anthology, Air and Nothingness Press). In free time, she gardens, mountain bikes, and is a first reader for DreamForge Magazine and Dark Matter Magazine. To learn more, follow her on Twitter @anna_madden_ or visit her website at annamadden.com.