Prose Shortlist
RUNNERS UP
HARRIET BURNS
MALONE HANSON
WINNER
ALAYNA HUCUL
CREATURE FEATURE:
so-called ‘monsters’ talk stereotypes, semantics, and the social constructions of identity.
by Harriet Burns
ADAM AND EVA Montblanc have been happily married for almost thirty years. The couple had an unconventional meet-cute: both were created by a former medical student who wishes to remain anonymous. Their creation, and subsequent scandal, became an international sensation. When asked what his biggest issue was with the media’s portrayal of him, Adam says:
“The name thing. I have a name. Even when it’s “X’s monster” or “X’s creature” it still irks me. It’s frustrating to constantly be referred to as a possession of someone else. I’m really trying to move past that era of my life. It’s not something I need reminding of.”
“I kept on being called ‘The Bride’,” says Eva, “and yes, I am a bride, and proud to be. But that’s not who I am.”
Seventeen-year-old Remy Handler is the captain of her hockey team. She is graduating in June and hoping to pursue a bachelor’s degree in anatomy and physiology. Her parents, Mike and Carol, describe her as “an all-Canadian girl”.
She’s also a werewolf. This, she claims, is not detrimental to her daily life.
“Sure, [changing] affects me,” she says, “but, like, in the same way my period does. Really, the worst part is vacuuming up all the fur.”
We asked her what she feels most people get wrong about her condition.
“I don’t really think of it as a condition,” she replies, “I mean, I guess you could call it that, but I don’t think of it as something that happens to me. I guess that’s what I’d like people to understand. There’s this idea people have, like, when I’m a wolf I’m a wolf and when I’m a human I’m a human, but that’s not it at all. I’m always a werewolf. It’s not like how you see in the movies where there’s two sides fighting each other. I stay pretty much the same on the inside. I’ve never really known any other way to be.”
Havelock Atwood is a professor of history at UBC Vancouver. He has been since the university opened its doors in 1909. Dr. Atwood has written six monographs on the subject of Vampire-Human relations.
“It’s interesting,” he says when asked what the most common misconception around Vampirism is, “Sometimes when people try to empathize, we see these errors of translation. For example: Vampires have long been regarded as sexual or at least sensual figures, especially in popular media. As far back as Carmilla, there’s been this conception that there’s something innately sexual about vampiric hunger, when, in reality, there’s simply not. What we’re seeing is the result of an inability to find an adequate parallel to the typical human experience. Most human beings eat other animals, but there’s always been a division between the animal in its living form, and the object of consumption. There’s even a linguistic difference: cow versus beef. Your senses do not signify to your brain that a cow is food. But to a vampire, a human being can look or smell appetizing. We still get those very primal sensory cues. We haven’t developed that animal/food divide yet. The situation is further complicated by the fact that vampires and humans can and do communicate with each other. There is a level of intellectual exchange between predator and prey which is unique, and that we can both recognize. We are both capable of thinking of each other as people. However, even though intellectually human beings can understand vampiric hunger, there is no precedent in the human experience for wanting to eat another intelligent creature in its living form. The closest analogy possible is sexual desire. Both involve an irrepressible want involving another person’s body and using that body for your own satisfaction of this want. It makes sense. It’s similar, but not the same.”
“It’s hard to talk about humans or vampires without it getting misconstrued,” Dr. Atwood claims, “there is something about it, at least in my experience, that feels wrong. I constantly feel like my brain isn’t equipped to cope with my own thoughts and feelings. I don’t want to want to eat people. Some [vampires] think this cognitive dissonance, if that’s what we’re calling it, is because we live amongst people. These individuals think of themselves like a wolf who’s been raised like a dog; they may heel, but it doesn’t come naturally. I don’t necessarily agree with that, but I also know it’s not easy for vampires to perfectly assimilate into human society, or that humans are necessarily wrong to be afraid of us. It’s a complicated situation to be sure. And these words I’ve been using—vampire, human—they’re harder to define than you might think. There’s an ongoing academic debate that essentially boils down to ‘what makes a vampire not a human’? What do these categories really mean? Is ‘vampire’ a term that describes a member of different species under the genus Homo, or a member of the species homo sapiens who has contracted a condition which we can refer to as ‘vampirism’? Neither option really works. As far as we know, no one has ever been born a vampire. It’s something you become, something transmissible, like a disease. The confusing part is once you become one, it’s what you are. There’s an irreversible, physiological change, like from a caterpillar to a butterfly. But that’s only the closest analogy I can think of. Once again, it defies translation.”
“I don’t feel like a human,” says Remy, “because most other human bodies don’t change as much as mine. But I don’t feel like I’m another species either because all of my family are humans so I must be human-ish. My parents took me to the doctor when I first started changing. They didn’t find anything wrong with me. My body is just more versatile than other people’s bodies. I don’t know about my brain; I don’t really have anything to compare it to. Nobody does. I know, because of the tests, that I have a better sense of smell than other people, and that impacts how I see the world. I don’t know if that means I have a wolf brain or something. I don’t think so. But I also can’t imagine not having that part of me, so I guess I don’t have a human brain either.”
“What I think people lose sight of,” says Eva, “is that there’s no part of us that’s not also human. Down to the last cell, we are as human as you are. We were just made a bit differently. At the same time, we’re the only two of our kind, whatever that may be.”
“I prefer ‘creature’ to anything else,” says Adam, “I think it’s more applicable in every sense. It comes from old French— French was my first language, so there’s some sentimentality there— but it means ‘something created’. I can identify with that. I think we all can, really. We are always in the process of creation. We create laws, categories, and precedents based on what we observe of the natural world, and then from there, we create an understanding of each other and an understanding of ourselves. It helps me to think of myself as my own creature and my own creator. [Eva and I] created a life for ourselves out of nothing.”
Harriet Burns is a third-year writing and/or history student (depending on the workshop situation next year!). They specialize in fiction, while also dabbling in playwriting and occasionally thinking about screen. They are currently an editor of the Warren Undergraduate Review as well as a card-carrying member of the United Steelworkers union.
THE MOST DRAMATIC OF STALEMATES
by Malone Hanson
IT IS COMMON COURTESY when walking toward someone on a beaten path, that you move out of their way and let them through. Most times, only one person will make a move to pass. Other times, both people will do so, resulting in an odd tango between them before continuing on their separate journeys. However, when the stars align, there comes an ordeal where neither party will move for the other, resulting in the most dramatic of stalemates.
Evangeline was a headstrong satyr. She spent her days caring for the plants and creatures of The Bewitched Bush, a forest outside of a town called Clarence. She lived in a humble cottage made from a hollowed-out red cedar tree. Once in a blue moon, she would venture to the heavily human-populated town square to gather needed supplies, but she preferred solitude. In part because the townspeople were never shy about their feelings toward outsiders. It was a lonely life, but Evangeline liked it that way.
Andromeda was a travelling musician who had given up the hefty inheritance of their wealthy family to live the life of a wandering nomad. They had played for kings, prisoners, princes and paupers; strumming their guitar in the holiest of temples and the dirtiest of taverns. Sometimes they would sleep on the street if necessary, other nights they were lucky enough to share the bed of a beautiful maiden. It was never the same, for there was no such thing as consistency for a bard such as Andromeda.
Evangeline slowly clopped down the dirt road, her small wicker basket in hand. She hadn’t planned on attending the market that afternoon but needed something that could only be found in Clarence. Begrudgingly, she dawdled down the dirt road, kicking rocks and listening to the birds singing.
While making her way through the woods, she spotted a figure approaching. They were tall and slender, sporting a worn-in brown coat and an instrument on their back. They walked with their shoulders slumped and their hands in their pockets, as if they believed the earth under their feet was a casual possession of theirs.
Evangeline took a breath and puffed out her chest, straightening that so her horned head stood high. Rather than initiating the awkward tango, she continued forward with a stern expression.
Andromeda stopped walking when they saw a blonde satyr walking toward them. Their breath hitched as they noticed the beauty of this woman. How red horns contrasted with fluffy white ears and legs. How her blue eyes transfixed Andromeda’s gaze. Their trance was broken when they realized she was getting closer and closer without any signs of moving out of the way.
“Excuse me,” Evangeline said as she stopped directly in front of them.
“You are… excused,” Andromeda said in an inquisitive tone, unsure of what Evangeline was requesting. Evangeline’s nostrils flared as she took a breath.
“Thank you. Now move out of my way.” She huffed.
Andromeda was taken aback by this brashness before scanning the empty path. There was more than enough room for the two of them, Andromeda would even wager that this road housed many carriage journeys in its time. They looked back to Evangeline, curious.
“Why don’t you move?”
“Oh, so I must move for you?” Evangeline scoffed, “Typical human behaviour.”
“Human?!” Andromeda’s face wrinkled in disgust, “I will have you know–“ they tucked their lengthy brown locks away behind their ears, revealing two long points. “that I am an elf!” They said, before crossing their arms.
Evangeline rolled her eyes, “Oh great, just a more prejudiced human with pointier ears!”
“I’m sorry?” Andromeda demanded, in a cadence that conveyed the phrase ‘Who do you think you’re talking to?’
Andromeda’s shoulders dropped as they stood there, mouth agape and brown eyes staring down at this enigma of a woman in front of them.
“Who are you?” they asked.
“I am… growing impatient with the elf who is wasting my time! Now, please move!”
Andromeda stared in disbelief.
“No.” They finally said, smugly.
Evangeline’s eyes widened with a fiery rage, “No?”
“No, I will not move.”
“Why not?”
“Because I have been struck by curiosity over you, Miss…?” Andromeda’s eyebrows raised as they gestured for Evangeline to answer.
“What are you so curious about?” She asked instead.
“Well firstly, you name, but I’m mostly curious about why you are so hell-bent on not moving. If you have places to be, why don’t you just move around me and get on with it?”
Evangeline sighed, letting go of the tension in her body. “My name is Evangeline.”
Andromeda smiled, “Miss Evangeline,” they said, grabbing the satyr’s delicate hand and bowing to her. “I am pleased to meet you. My name is Andromeda.”
Evangeline stared down at the top of Andromeda’s bowed head, a blush crossing her face.
“Do you bow to everyone you harass, then?” her hand remained gently clasped in Andromeda’s.
The elf looked back up, still bent over and holding the woman’s palm. They smiled, “Well, I am a gentleman.”
“You are not a man at all!” Evangeline snatched her hand back and held it to her chest. Her untainted hand held tightly over the former. “And if you truly were a gentleman, as you say, then you would let a lady pass you by!”
“You are not a man at all!” Evangeline snatched her hand back and held it to her chest. Her untainted hand held tightly over the former. “And if you truly were a gentleman, as you say, then you would let a lady pass you by!”
Andromeda rose back to proper posture, resting their hands on their hips and only widening that toothy grin on their face.
“‘Evangeline’, aye? Evangeline, Evangeline,” they said to, seemingly, the air over the satyr’s head as they looked quizzically toward the sky. They met her confused gaze once more. “That’s a lovely name.”
Evangeline almost smiled but that was cut short by Andromeda’s guitar swinging from their back to their front. She had to duck to avoid what surely would have been a loud, twangy bang to her horns.
“I’ve been looking for a name to use in this song I’m writing,” they said, pulling out a small knife and carving something into the wood on the top of their instrument. “I have to remember it for later; E-V-A- How do you spell it, love?”
Evangeline furrowed her brows and brought her fists to her hips, resting them atop her long green skirt. “So, you will use my name in a song but not move out of the way for me? Clearly, you do not know the meaning of the word ‘gentleman’.”
“Clearly, you have never met a musician before,” Andromeda observed, deciding to sheath their knife and swing their guitar back to its rightful place behind them.
Evangeline held her elbows in her palms and shrunk into herself, looking the other way. “I admit, I don’t get out much.” She looked back to Andromeda, “Tell me, are all musicians as horrible as you?” She said, a venom stirring in her tone.
“Oh, how you wound me, Evangeline.” Andromeda mockingly grabbed their chest, the stake of the satyr’s cruel words being driven deeper and deeper. “You haven’t even heard me play!”
“I don’t need to.”
“Yes, but do you want to?” Andromeda began to reach for their guitar with a sly grin.
“No! Let me through; I do not have time for this!” Evangeline stomped her hoof as she said this, her clenched fists at her side.
“You still haven’t told me why you refuse to go around me.” Andromeda crossed their arms, getting comfortable.
“That is none of your business.”
“Yet it is my responsibility to adhere to your every whim? Without question?”
“Is that not the mark of a gentleman?” Evangeline said, crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow at Andromeda.
Andromeda looked at their boots and fought back the smile creeping onto their lips, “Ah, touché.”
“To what?”
“Tou-” Andromeda quickly paused for a moment before reconsidering, “To what do I owe the pleasure of meeting you today? Where must you be so desperately?”
Evangeline let out a frustrated sigh. “If you must know…” She turned around to show Andromeda the back of her skirt. It had a rather large hole burned into the bottom of it.
Andromeda laughed. “Oh yes, that is quite the scorch.”
“I was cooking stew and my attention slipped and it caught the flame.”
“Well, that much is clear.” Andromeda caught their breath, “Are you headed to see the tailor, then? Have him fix it?”
“No, I can fix it myself. I need the fabric, though.” Evangeline remarked, turning back to face Andromeda again.
“A seamstress. Is that your trade?” Andromeda asked.
“No, I just know how to sew.” She replied in apathy. “Must I have a trade?”
“Must you always deflect?”
Evangeline’s eyes widened in offence; Andromeda quickly spoke, “Well, we all have one, don’t we? Some trades keep food on the table and ones that fuel the heart rather than the purse. Some people have countless trades, others have only one.” they lectured, meaninglessly moving their hands through the air in front of them.
“I take it your trade is your… instrument?” She asked, eyeing the thing on Andromeda’s back.
“My guitar, yes,” Andromeda said, reaching behind themself to give it a good pat. Evangeline’s attention began to drift as the elf continued speaking, “So, what is your trade? Do you write? Bake? Does your trade fuel your-”
“Why don’t you go around me?”
Andromeda paused their rambling, a pink tint dusting their cheeks. “Pardon me?”
“You were going somewhere before this, were you not? Why don’t you just go around me?” Evangeline searched their eyes as she asked this. For once, it seemed they were at a loss for words.
“I can’t go around you… because…” they trailed off, eyes darting back and forth. “Because I am… a noble elf!” they declared after a moment of floundering.
“A noble elf?”
“Yes! And as a noble elf, I should not have to move for anyone!” Andromeda decreed, seemingly satisfied with their great plan.
Evangeline shook her head and chuckled in pure disbelief at the gall of this elf. “Well, now I am certainly not going to move for you!”
“Have it your way, then! I have nowhere to be so quickly. You on the other hand,” they looked towards the sun, “the sun is bound to set soon and the tailor’s shop will not be open much longer.”
“Fine. Do you truly wish to know why I refuse to move for you?” She asked, stepping closer.
“Yes, actually, I would love to!” Andromeda replied, looming over her and bringing their face closer.
“I refuse to move because people like you have been pushing me every way they please my whole life!” Evangeline shouted, her cry echoing through the woods.
Andromeda drew back, shocked by her reply. Andromeda wanted to retort but their eyes flicked above the satyr’s head and grew wide from the sight. “Um-”
“Whether it’s the baker giving me a horrible price on bread or the bookseller refusing my business-”
“Evangeline-”
“Or it’s the village children wandering out to my cottage to throw rocks through my windows, it’s all the same with you humans!” she stepped closer to Andromeda, “And don’t you dare give me that ‘I’m not human’ routine because at least you can hide your ears behind your hair! Some of us don’t have that luxury!” She pointed to her long, fluffy, white ears that protruded from her head of sun-kissed hair.
Andromeda attempted to interject, eyes still focused on the heart-racing scene behind Evangeline, “I-”
“And not once have any of you ever appreciated all that I do! Who do you think takes care of the flowers before you pick them? Who blesses the land that your crops grow from? Me! And I have never heard a simple ‘thank you’! I try to tell them, but no one ever listens!”
“Evangeline, please-”
“Including you! I’m screaming in your face and you’re still not listening! Well, what is it? What is so important?”
Andromeda’s eyes darted between Evangeline and what was quickly approaching behind her. They attempted to get helpful words out, yet remained dumbly stuttering. In what can only be described as a last-ditch effort, Andromeda bent down, wrapped their arms around her corseted waist and dove back-first towards the side of the road.
Evangeline yelped as the two sailed down to the soft long grass the beaten path cut through. Andromeda let out a great “Oof!” as the satyr landed on top of them. Once Andromeda caught their breath, they looked up to see two confused blue eyes staring into theirs.
They both lay there for what surely felt like an eternity, heavily breathing and looking at each other. Their moment of connection was cut short by a footman angrily yelling, “Stay out of the way!” from the speeding, horse-drawn carriage that just whipped past them. They turned their heads to watch the vessel ride off and turn into an obscurity.
Despite the danger being gone, Andromeda kept their hands held tight on the small of Evangeline’s back, the laces of her corset brushing against their fingertips. The path was clear, but Evangeline stayed on top of Andromeda.
She looked down into their eyes, still panting heavily. “I didn’t hear him coming.”
“That much is obvious,” Andromeda replied, voice strained under the weight.
“How did I not hear it?” Evangeline asked, utterly confused.
Andromeda shrugged, or the closest thing to it while still being crushed between a satyr and a hard place, “Too busy screaming at me, I suppose.”
Evangeline looked down to see her hands fanned out flat against Andromeda’s chest. With the shock of the fall gone, she quickly became aware of the position they were both in. How close their faces were, mixed with the feeling of Andromeda tightly gripping her lower back caused a dense heat to crawl up her neck. She rose off of them without hesitation.
Andromeda watched as Evangeline scrambled to her hooves, surprisingly upset by the loss of that crushing weight. They stood up, a dull pain shooting through their back.
Evangeline dusted off her skirt and gasped when she looked at Andromeda, “Your guitar!”
Andromeda pulled the mangled guitar from their back and inspected it. It was definitely beyond fixing. The wooden body was split into several different pieces and was only held together by the strings, now loose and flexible.
“I’m so sorry!” Evangeline said, her clenched hands nervously wringing in front of her chest.
Andromeda shrugged with defeated eyes and a tired smile, “I was due for a new one anyway.” They stepped forward and dusted their trousers before offering their hand and motioning to the path. “After you, Miss Evangeline.”
Evangeline looked at the chivalrous elf as if they had spiders crawling out of their pointed ears. “Are you sure?”
“More than anything.”
Evangeline took their hand and stepped out onto the path. “Thank you…Perhaps you are a gentleman.”
Malone Hanson is a third-year BFA student in the UVIC writing program, with a focus in fiction and playwriting. She plans to publish a novel in the future, with the characters in today’s story being the protagonists of her current project. Malone is a proud queer woman and enjoys writing through that lens in literary fiction while occasionally dipping into the fantasy genre. She’d like to thank the folks at This Side Of West for this opportunity and for the consideration of her work.
OF HEARTS AND MINDS
by Alayna Hucul
CW: Mentions of suicide. Mentions/brief descriptions of medical practices and human anatomy/organs.
Sasha said it wasn’t serious but her white knuckles on the steering wheel implied otherwise. We were halfway through the drive and I’d never heard her so silent. I assumed it was her mother’s condition, the whole reason for our trip – heart problems, problems that Sasha claimed were fictional but I had insisted regardless. “Has she been to the hospital?”
“She doesn’t need a hospital,” Sasha laughed. “My mom is… Flighty. Dramatic. Her heart is fine, she just needs a little attention.”
We’d been dating six months and I had yet to meet Sasha’s mom. A more humble man might be worried, but I had grown up with a gaggle of girls and I was borderline delusional in my confidence in winning over single mothers.
We’d been dating six months and I had yet to meet Sasha’s mom. A more humble man might be worried, but I had grown up with a gaggle of girls and I was borderline delusional in my confidence in winning over single mothers.
“Long drive for a little attention.”
“I like visiting. Plus, now that graduation is coming up, I want to check out the med schools on this coast.”
From the second I met Sasha, I had known she was too good for me. She was only twenty-one and at the end of the same pre-med program I had been busting my ass in for six years.
My stomach quavered, uneasiness that I tried to brush off as car sickness but it lingered, clutching my gut in an iron grip. Sasha was going places. Where I was going was far more questionable.
We crushed New England snow under the tires as we approached Sasha’s childhood home. The neighbourhood was daunting – rows and rows of cookie cutters that gave the whole place a stingy feel. Christmas lights that had yet to be taken down were still twinkling away, heavily diluted by sunlight. The scenery stopped changing, and outside of my window was a tall blonde woman wearing dungarees and a t-shirt in the winter weather.
“Mom!” Sasha called as she opened the door. “You’re going to freeze to death!” She glanced back at me in the passenger seat. “Just don’t let her weird you out, okay?”
We forced Shelley back into the house and under a blanket. When asked about her heart, she spoke of palpitations and pangs, instantly cured once we’d arrived.
“What’s your family like, Toby?” Shelley asked over a sip of wine.
Shelley was a blonde bombshell, like Marilyn Monroe in a caftan. Her eyes gleamed with childlike wonder that I couldn’t help but search for in Sasha, never to find. Sasha was all sharp edges and fine lines. Her only curiosities were to do with the human body. I had never seen a mother and daughter so unalike.
I gave my usual spiel about my older sisters and their accomplishments. Rattling off their various degrees under Sasha’s watchful gaze made me sweat, uncomfortably aware of my inferiority.
“Your parents must be proud.”
“Just my mom, actually.”
“Oh,” she began, the pleased expression on her face melting away to familiar pity. “And your dad?”
“He died when I was four.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Shelley shook her head.
“No, it’s alright,” I offered. “I hardly remember him.”
What ensued was a barrage of questions from Shelley, most of them were innocent enough; she asked how my mother and sisters coped and prodded into the drug problems my oldest sister had faced. It struck me as odd that she asked exactly what kind of drugs she had taken, but I answered every question despite Sasha’s glares at her mother. It was strange, I knew that much, but mostly harmless.
When Shelley asked how I had coped, Sasha chimed in: “Mom, there really is a lot more to Toby than his dead dad.”
“I’m sorry,” Shelley shook her head. “Sometimes I just don’t think. Most times.”
To diffuse the tension, I let the words be dragged from my open mouth. “I tried to kill myself.”
Shelley was leaning in like she might take a bite of me and Sasha was staring as if I was a whole new person. We had never talked about my past. Sasha didn’t like to talk about that stuff.
“I was still a kid and I didn’t know what I was doing, but I drank a bottle of kid’s Tylenol, thinking that would do it.” I paused as I noticed my hands shaking under the table. “I don’t even really know why I did it, just that he was gone and I wasn’t and something about that felt so wrong I had to wash it out with Tylenol.”
Shelley sipped her wine, unphased, and asked, “You-”
“Mom!” Sasha bolted from her seat, fists slamming on the table and rattling the silverware. “Enough! You have done enough!”
“Sasha, please.” Shelley started as Sasha stared daggers at her. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked, Sasha’s right. But now that I know what you’ve been through, we’ve skipped all the awkward niceties. I know you pretty well by now, don’t you think?”
Sasha ushered me into the bedroom and shut the door behind us. The silence was so heavy it threatened to swallow us. We sat wordless on the bed for a long while as she rubbed circles into my sweatshirt. When she spoke, her voice was smaller than I’d ever heard it. “You’ve never told me that before.”
I rolled myself over reluctantly. Sasha was watching me with a distinct pity in her eyes that made me want to claw at my face.
“I’ve told you about my family.”
“Not the other stuff.”
“You never asked.”
She paused.
“I’m not good at that stuff.”
“I know.”
She looked at me and I looked at her but we revealed nothing.
Sasha’s awkwardness was charming in its own way; she was romantically inept and it held a certain juvenile charm. She didn’t know what to do but she wanted to try, and that’s what I cared about. As much as her cluelessness was endearing, at times like these it became tedious.
“I wish you had told me sooner.”
“You didn’t tell me anything about your family until you invited me here.”
There was the undeniable air of things unsaid — the toxic miasma of unspoken feelings.
“We can be better at that, maybe?” She offered.
With a genuine smile, I said, “I like that idea.”
I wondered how mother and daughter could turn out so wildly different. Despite the calamity of cracking myself open over salmon and pinot grigio, I felt surprisingly calm. The idea that it was all worth it to let Shelley know me carried me into a dreamless sleep. When Sasha climbed under the covers at some point in the wee hours, I woke just enough to tangle our limbs together. I laid my head on her chest and listened to the quiet sounds of her chest, her heartbeat indiscernible.
The dissection lab was uncomfortably hot. By all appearances I had expected a sterile, frigid chill like the kind that came over you in a hospital, even if it was scorching. The only chill that crawled up my spine was from staring at the pig fetus, suspended in a jar of formaldehyde, dead in the eyes.
Wandering aimlessly through the lab, I found a station that someone had abandoned, carcass and all. The musculature and veins told me it was a heart but I couldn’t guess what from, surely too large to belong to a human.
Sasha had dragged Shelley and I on an exhaustive tour of her top choice med schools in the area. It was our third of the day, and luckily the last. Sasha was brilliant; she had all the choice in the world where to go after pre-med. I, on the other hand, wasn’t enjoying the constant reminders of the future that had once awaited me, a future I no longer had the grades or the balls for.
Eventually, Shelley found me, having gone looking at Sasha’s behest. When she walked in, I was admiring the dull, dead organ on the table.
“What is it?” She asked.
“A heart,” I said, unsure how she could have mistaken it. I was failing my human anatomy class and even I could recognize it for what it was.
“Pig heart,” she said. Glancing down, I saw her finger underlining the words on a lab report.
I put on a pair of gloves and turned the heart over in my hands. It was soft to the touch, fleshy, as could be expected. I pressed it under my thumb, meeting with a gentle resistance that surprised me. Even after death, there’s so much in a heart.
“You left the tour.”
In another life, I would have made a great doctor. I loved it; it all just made sense. Each body part connects to another and another, an intricate puzzle that reveals the image of a full life. I’d wanted to be a heart surgeon. Now all I could do was hold the dead pig’s heart in my hands and pray I could at least make the cut for veterinary school.
“Just wanted to check out the labs,” I lied. “I’m not going here anyways.”
“Why’s that?”
I turned, half-inclined to give Shelley a piece of my mind over the invasive questions, good impression be damned. When our eyes met, though, I saw the sincerity, paired with the only look I had ever seen her give; complete and utter innocence.
“I’m flunking out.” I admitted to my own surprise. “I don’t know how it happened. I love medicine but my memory’s not so great, I guess.”
“Mine either,” she chuckled, “I’ve got nothing going on up there.”
Shelley playfully tapped two knuckles on her forehead. To my surprise, the sound was
distinctly hollow. I scoured my mind for reasons why and came up with little – a metal plate in her head? A lobotomy performed by a back alley doctor?
She donned a pair of gloves and took the heart out of my hands. “Sasha did a project with a pig heart once. She was only fifteen.”
“Really?” I asked.
“She did a transplant. Sort of. A heart from a live pig into a dead one. It brought it back to life.”
“How’s that possible?”
“It’s Sasha. Anything is possible.”
Sasha didn’t turn when I opened the office door or when I replaced her empty tea mug with a steaming fresh one.
“More tea?” I offered.
Sasha barely slowed her reading, “Thanks.”
I stood a moment, curious if she would say more. She opened a new article.
When we’d returned from the campus tours, it had been apparent that something was off with Sasha. Predictably, she had shut herself up in her mother’s office for the rest of the afternoon, scrolling through medical articles with big words that I couldn’t define. Sasha’s anger was like smoke, it took over a room until everyone was choking on it. It was a quiet killer.
“I’m not mad,” she replied unconvincingly.
“You only read about the cardiovascular system when you’re pissed off.” The rapid scrolling of the mouse ceased. “You like the brain when you’re in a good mood.”
She dared a glance over her shoulder. “I’m surprised you know that.”
I shrugged. “I pay attention.” I hoisted myself onto the desk, shoving stacks of papers and stationary aside. None of it was what you would expect from a grown woman’s office; it was all flowery letter-writing stock or pads of colourful stickers. “Which is also how I know you’re pissed at me. I just don’t know what I did.”
Sasha stared into her monitor another long while and I feared I had wasted my opening. She closed her browser. The background popped on the screen, a photo of Sasha and her mother at a knock-off country fair in Philadelphia. In Sasha’s arms was a lump of pink wrapped in a blanket, with only the curly cue of the tail emerging from the swaddle.
With an exasperated, serious look, she asked, “You don’t like her more than me, do you?”
“Who?” I couldn’t help laughing. “Your mom?” A timid nod confirmed it. “That’s insane, Sasha, no. Why would you even think that?”
“It’s not that big of a stretch. You’ve acted strange since we got here and then ditched the tour to go canoodle with her in a lab.”
“Canoodle? Sash, be serious.”
“I am!”
Her eyes bore into me with the heat I was familiar with, the very heat that had sparked something unknown in me when I met her.
“I love you.”
“But you like her. Do you like me?”
My chest throbbed. “Yes,” I declared, maybe as forceful as I’d ever been. “I ditched the tour because I was intimidated. I still am.”
“By the schools?”
“By you.” Her demeanor shifted, from a woman of steel one moment to a kicked puppy the next. “You’re a wonderkid, Sash. I couldn’t get into those schools.”
“And what? You thought I’d think less of you?”
“I guess… It’s not like you make it easy to talk about.”
Her eyes dropped to her hands. “Is this really how you feel? Intimidated by me?”
“Sometimes… I think that’s why I like talking to your mom. At first I just wanted her to like me for your sake. Now I guess it’s because I don’t need to try so hard.”
“But you do with me?”
I sighed. “I mean, not always. I just know I need to keep up with you or be left in your dust.”
Next thing I knew she was cradling my face, looking at me with all the care and empathy of a lover. It was new. “I’m not leaving you behind. I love you too. And I’m going to fix this.”
I woke up in the morning light to see Sasha had vanished, but her voice wafted through the halls from downstairs along with the intoxicating smell of pancakes.
“You don’t make those decisions young lady. I’m the parent here!”
“I may as well be your mother!” Sasha’s voice made me flinch.
“You’re being unfair. I raised you!”
“Since I was fifteen! You didn’t even need to do anything!”
“Well, I needed to love you, and trust me you didn’t always make that easy. After all that, how could you do this to me?!”
“Oh shut up! I’m doing it to myself!”
A crash. A thud. Nothing.
When I entered the kitchen, it was a warzone. Broken glass glimmered across the floor and I had to dash across it, cutting my feet, to take a smoking pan off the stove. The fridge door hung open, plates ripped from cupboards and half smashed on counters, a painting above the kitchen table slashed through.
And in the centre of the room was Shelley, unconscious on the kitchen island.
Fights between mothers and daughters were brutal, I had learned as a child, but my family never reached these extremes.
“You’re awake!” I whipped around to see Sasha in the doorway, blinding in her white lab coat and bright smile. In socked feet, she walked across the shattered glass towards me.
“Sash, what the hell’s going on?! Your mom-”
Her hands found mine. “Did you mean it?”
“What?”
“What you said last night.”
Glancing at the disheveled kitchen, I couldn’t see how it mattered. “Y-yes.”
“Hear me out,” she begged as she circled her mother, a vulture over a body not yet gone cold. “You know I’m not good with my feelings. I used to be better with them, but I always felt like they got in the way. That’s why I cut them out.”
“You’re not making sense.”
“I cut it out. My heart.”
I blinked. “What?”
Sasha held my gaze as she unbuttoned the lab coat. If her mother wasn’t on the island, I would assume her seductive eyes implied something very different. My heart fluttered in my chest like it was trying to take flight. When the coat was open, she lifted the hem of her t-shirt to expose a pink scar under her left breast. I had seen the scar dozens of times, but it stared at me with something new to say.
“People are just like pigs.”
Everything I had ever learned bashed against the confines of my skull, desperate to prove Sasha wrong. But then again, when had Sasha ever been wrong?
“What does that have to do with her?”
Gently, almost lovingly, Sasha pulled up her mother’s nightgown, revealing a matching keloided scar in the same spot. “I had to put it somewhere. I wanted to keep it safe, in case I ever needed it again. I volunteered at the morgue, it wasn’t hard to get ahold of a corpse.”
I traced a finger along Shelley’s pink scar: dry, bumpy, and horribly real.
I wanted to believe Sasha was crazy, that a person couldn’t live without a heart, but it was hard to see the insanity past her vast genius. I wondered how such a feat had been kept locked away from the hungry scientists – so much like her – who would write dissertations on this crime of nature.
“I think it was a pretty smart move, but there were some flaws. They’d already taken out her brain…”
I thought of Shelley in the lab, the hollow knock of nothingness in her skull.
“I want it back.”
“Your heart?”
She nodded. “Can’t be that bad if it’s what you liked about her.”
Sasha’s medical prowess was far more intimidating than I had thought. A nagging, rational side of me argued blasphemy, but another part of me was a scientist, a doctor in training. Part of me – a part that I couldn’t silence – was impressed.
“Will you help?” She asked, scalpel gleaming in her grasp.
My eyes found Shelley’s still form on the counter. I tried to imagine a person with her heart – Sasha’s heart – as well as Sasha’s mind. It was an image like nothing I had ever experienced. I was desperate to know every version of her.
I took the scalpel.
Alayna Hucul is a queer writer completing her undergrad in English and Creative Writing at UVic. She loves to write about the things that go bump in the night in every way, whether horror, dark fiction, or magical realism. She has previously been published in UVic’s journal of literary criticism, the Albatross.