Welcome to another Words for Thought! This time around, we have a group of stories that explore the notion of identity, self-determination, and what counts as “real”, as seen through the lens of fantasy, science fiction, and horror. A small warning that there are spoilers in this review. While I normally try to avoid giving too much away, it’s hard to talk about the common themes and the questions these stories ask without revealing certain plot points, so proceed with caution!
“The Grit Born” by Frances Ogamba, published in The Dark, is a story evocative of myth and fairy tale, in particular stories where parents wish for a child, or changeling stories. Egoabia wants a child but doesn’t want to deal with a man trying to run her life, and IFV and adoption are too expensive. When she learns of a company called Rebrith offering people children, it seems like the perfect solution. She puts in her order and receives a kit to mix her very own child from clay.
It was still November. The world was dusty. The heat hexed the city like a spell. The first rain would come only in March. She bought two silicon fake pregnant bellies. The small-sized belly would fit the first three months. She’d wear the medium-sized silicon at the tail end of her wait for rain.
Once she has her child, who she names Ude, Egoabia begins to have doubts. At first, he has no mouth; he’s uncannily quiet; and rather than growing like a normal child, he crumbles and reforms himself constantly like a snake shedding its skin. She visits a message board where she finds both encouragement and judgment, and eventually she and Ude settle into a rhythm. Until one day, Egoabia catches Ude making himself a brother from clay, and becomes convinced that both children are out to harm her.
It's a subtly eerie story, and Ogamba does a wonderful job capturing the uncertainty and the strangeness of the situation. Are the children a threat to Egoabia, or does she merely allow herself to see them that way after the reality of Ude fails to match up to her idealized vision of having a child? “The Grit Born” does a wonderful job of exploring identity and the concept of personhood in multiple ways.
Many of the messages Egoabia encounters in her search for advice classify the parents of Rebirth children as sinful. There are uncomfortable echoes here of what makes someone a “real” parent, or the refrain that one isn’t a “real” woman until they’ve given birth, as well as echoes of unsolicited advice lobbed at parents, in particular single parents, implying they are doing things wrong or aren’t enough. The story also explores the idea of how “real” Ude is, as well as the relationship between parent and child, or creator and created. Where does the line fall between raising and being responsible for the life created, and letting the created live their own life even if it isn’t the life the parent or creator would choose for them? Overall, this is a dark story that’s very nicely done.
“Woke Up New” by Erica L. Satifka, published in Kaleidotrope, takes a more science fictional approach to the question of identity. As a child, Sandra caught a virus that caused her to develop a second self. Most people who caught the virus bonded with their other self, but Sandra is one of the few non-bonded, creating an uneasy relationship between her and the “other her”, Mandy.
During a storm, a man named Dalton shows up at Sandra’s door, claiming to be an astronaut who is about to go on a one-way solo mission. He will be deliberately infected with the virus to avoid having a breakdown from loneliness, and he wants to know about her experiences.
But right now, Sandy is awake, which means Mandy’s sight is severed, her ability to create inner worlds weakened to nearly nothing. Her killer’s stupid old-lady voice drones on and on, and Mandy can only hear what she’s saying by tuning in really good. The other person’s voice is completely garbled, except for the timber that tells Mandy he’s a man.
Over the course of the story, it comes to light that Mandy is actually the original. Sandra considers herself Mandy’s killer, a product of the virus who has spent the last thirty years living in the body of her victim. Even though she had no control over the situation, Sandra still carries guilt, while also not wanting to give up control and asserting her right to her own existence. The situation is further complicated by an accident that leads to the revelation that Dalton is not who he claims to be, though the question of whether he believes the story he told Sandra remains.
Like Ogamba’s story, Satifka’s explores the idea of who counts as “real” when it comes to personhood. Is a child made of clay real? Is a virus-born personality who has spent thirty years living her own life real? The question of belief and self-perception comes into play here as well. If Dalton truly believes himself to be an astronaut, then he didn’t lie to Sandra. Sandra perceives herself as a killer and not the original personality, but is she still a full person when she had no control over the situation and has technically lived a longer life than Mandy ever did? The story poses interesting questions, without enforcing a particular answer, and the open-endedness makes it all the more effective.
“Nothing of Value” by Aimee Ogden, published in Clarkesworld, is another story that takes a science fictional approach to the question of self and identity. The story delves into the Ship of Theseus thought experiment that essentially asks “if every part of a ship is replaced over the course of the ship’s life, can it still be said to be the same ship?”
In the world of the story, Skip technology allows people to travel long distances by sending all the information about a person—memories, thoughts, personality—to their destination where a new body is constituted for them, with the old one destroyed. This technology is one of the points of contention between the narrator and their former friend and lover, who they’ve traveled back to Mars to visit. The narrator left to avoid indenture, and their lover stayed behind, not trusting the Skip technology.
Your public messaging is unlocked. Maybe I should have put more effort into figuring out what to say. I don’t have a funny story to share; I don’t even have a way to glibly say: hey, remember that pact we made when we were young and stupid and in love?Meet me at our spot, I message, and regret it as soon as I’ve hit send. But it’s too late to take it back now, and sometimes simple and straightforward is the best choice.
The story works beautifully on multiple levels, not only exploring the question of whether the narrator is the same person on a literal level after being destroyed and rebuilt by Skip technology, but also looking at the way people change and grow apart over time. When the narrator returns to Mars, not only do they find their old neighborhood changed, they find their former lover married and with children. The lover isn’t the same person the narrator knew when they were young, whereas the narrator remains stuck in the past, expecting to pick up the relationship despite the time that’s passed.
When the narrator leaves, disappointed, it is implied that the time elapsed during the Skip journey was short enough that they are able to erase what happened to them on Mars and not retain any of those memories. The question is left open whether they’ve done this before, how many times they may have chosen to forget their heartbreak, remaining stunted emotionally and not moving on while their ex-lover continues to grow and change with time. Which of them is more like the Ship of Theseus—the one who has literally replaced every part of themself, or the one who has only replaced themself with time and the simple act of living? It's a lovely and poignant story that puts a fresh spin on an old philosophical debate.
“Ivy, Angelica, Bay” by C.L. Polk published at Tor.com, which is now known as Reactor, like “The Grit Born”, also features a constructed child and questions the idea of what counts as “real”.
The story is set in the same world as the author’s “St. Valentine, St. Abigail, St. Brigid”, and follows Miss l’Abielle, a witch tasked with protecting her neighborhood of Hurston Hill, a role that used to belong to her mother. A woman comes to her seeking a boon, and Miss l’Abielle tries to turn her away, telling her the price will be too high. When pushed, she specifies the price would be the woman’s firstborn, thinking to drive her away. However, the next day, Miss l’Abielle finds a girl abandoned on her doorstep, the desperate mother’s payment. She takes Jael in, and when she discovers the girl has a talent for magic, begins training her as an apprentice.
She’s ten, perhaps. Little and skinny and trying not to look behind her, because if she does, the monster will be there. No little girl should ever look like that.
I bend and put my hand on her shoulder. Bones poke at the hollow of my palm. But the touch makes a magic clamp around my wrist. The air shivers with a bargain sealing itself shut. It vibrates like a drum skin, like thunder.
Having an apprentice turns out to be a valuable thing, as Miss l’Abielle soon discovers an unknown magician encroaching on her territory. As she and her apprentice work to strengthen the wards and protect the neighborhood, Miss l’Abielle learns that Jael is actually a construct, sent to kill her. The desperate mother was the invading magician in disguise. Like Ogamba’s story, Polk’s also evokes myths of changelings, and the behavior of cuckoo birds who hide eggs in other birds’ nests, forcing them to raise babies that then turn on them. However, Jael wants to be more than a made thing whose only purpose is to kill. Jael’s belief that she can be more, and a bit of borrowed magic, allows her to define reality for herself and become “real”, with the understanding that she was always more than a constructed thing in the first place—capable of feeling and making choices. The story is absolutely gorgeously written and it carries real emotional weight in its exploration of selfhood, coming into one’s own, and the cost of magic.
