Reading Passage Prize vol 1
Part 4
[as always, spoilers]
“Corpus Christi” by Dominated by Dig Dug – 3rd Place Fiction
This may be the pinnacle of RW autistic literature; I’m not sure whether that’s good or bad. “Corpus Christi” is the account of a dinner date between Chad, his description matches his name, and Annika, the kind of women who serially dates Chads. The brief, one-sided conversation consists of Chad reciting an autopsy report of a man identified in the story as “Nigger Jesus”. The recitation culminates in the miraculous punchline: “YOU SEE? NO INJURIES TO HIS NECK.” The final page of the story includes a sketch of George Floyd. I was reminded of the Arrested Development scene in which Gob’s puppet delivers lines from a doctor’s tape recorder.
“Rent-A-Man” by Burt Offering
Another glimpse into the dystopian future, “Rent-A-Man” follows Mark, who is a professional surrogate. One of his clients is Yui, who hires Mark to pretend to be her daughter’s father to avoid the child’s being bullied at school. Other clients include the amusing Jamaica Plain Maoist Third-Worldist Group, who hires Mark to grovel during their afternoon struggle session, and an old man in a run-down retirement home. The final client’s narrative raises the absurdity to new levels as Mark is hired to stand in for an executive in order to fire a man, who in turn has hired someone to ask for a raise. The scenarios range from sad to ludicrous, all while being believable. An enjoyable read.
“How Lady Rosamonde and Lady Cariad Assayed Sir Cymrandon and Sir Marrigan” by Laurence McFunk
This lengthy story is an excerpt from the author’s novel Modern Tales of Chivalry and is written in the style of the old chivalric romance tales lampooned by Cervantes in Don Quixote. It’s a comedy that, along with the titular knights, includes characters such as Sir Borsalhoof, Sir Lisettegeriuteamore, and Sir Flaviugiumludovicia, who search for the Holy Crumb from the Last Supper. I confess I don’t have the temperament to truly appreciate chivalric romances, and that applies to this work as well. However, I am in awe of the author’s ability to mimic that style so well and I doff my cap to him. Impressive and imaginative.
“Does it Make a Sound?” by c Cantor – Editor’s Prize for Fiction
c Cantor brings the vision of a harsh future to the most vulnerable: unborn children. In this world, exowombs are used for artificial gestation for the general public as well as stem-cell-harvesting abortion farms. Narrated by an eloquent investigator, the story mostly revolves around a visit to a cell of biohackers who are attempting to develop an open-source exowomb. During the visit, things go wrong. The story touches on the ethics of experimentation on the unborn and the often-inconvenient reality of their humanity.