Michael J. Wyant Jr.'s Blog

Concept Art for my upcoming book: “Fallen Gods.”I’d like to introduce you all to Dervy, the 4,000 year old immortal who is absolutely sick of living.

The post “Fallen Gods” Reveal: Dervy appeared first on Mike Wyant Jr..

Background: Perfecting Humanity is a story that popped into my head years ago when perusing some “everything is a simulation” fiction. The concept of us living in a simulation has always bugged me. If humanity is simply a simulated existence, then why don’t we see the rollbacks, the retcons? The solution, it turned out, was in git.

Git is a version manager tool primarily used for coding and such. I’m not going to dig in too deep here, but suffice to say, it makes it easy for versions of code to be spun off while maintaining a pristine “main” branch of the code.

Once I thought of it that way, Perfecting Humanity came into being. After all, why run a simulation unless you’re trying to figure out how to perfect something? Why would humanity be any different? Each step, each iteration, should ideally bring us closer to that perfection.

The only issue is humans are not perfect. And we never will be.

Featured Image Source can be found here.

February 8, 2008

The first time I died I was eighteen.

It’s strange to write that out, diary. To acknowledge that truth.

Dressed for graduation and trying to tame my blonde braids, a deer ran in front of my Chevy. I slammed into it. It’s frozen in my mind: my thick hair tangled around the fingers of my right hand, causing me to jerk the steering wheel to the left. Squealing tires and a harsh thud, punctuated by screaming metal. The flash of light and bright, searing pain as I blew through the windshield.I still feel the glass in my skin sometimes.

The blood on my arms. Blistering, burning asphalt sizzled against my skin as I lay, a tumbled, inert mess, shocked and still. Then the world twisted, the crimson stream of my lifeblood swirling against the backdrop of fading sirens and tall spears of new pine across the street. It spun, colors blending like used paints poured down a drain. A rainbow fading into a gray smear of lifelessness.

Everything blacked out; a dead, flat darkness…

And then I parked my car, breath short and braids askew; milling parents and siblings of friends and associates looked askance at me as I sobbed.

The first time it happened, though, I was seven. Father took me to see a soccer game in the park. I distinctly remember the way the fresh cut grass felt against my young fingers as I pulled at it by the handful. Its scent, the cloying aroma of life and earth, connected me to the broad emerald field and sapphire skies. Light wind tugged playfully at those same blonde braids. One team wore jerseys the color of the grass in the noonday sun, the other, blood red with blinding white bars down the sides.

Beyond the field, perhaps thirty feet on, cars honked as they passed. When I think back, I picture a streaming rainbow just beyond the soccer players. Cars were more colorful in those days, I suppose.

I don’t remember the names of the teams or what type of game it was, whether collegiate, high school, or something more professional. What I do remember is it grew competitive near the half and number thirteen–a tall, brown haired man with thick, tree trunk thighs, and a waist tinier than Mother’s–tried to slide tackle, his bright-green jersey flashing in the sun as he dropped to the ground.

I vividly remember the moment his outstretched foot slammed into the tall Indian man’s ankle. Number eight. His jersey was red.

I’d loved red.

A sound like the sudden crunch of branches hidden beneath autumn leaves tore into me. I ripped into the soft earth beneath my childish fingertips.  His scream, a high shattered falsetto, destroyed me.  When Father pried my earth-covered fingers from my face, a dozen confused men and women stared. At me.

Number thirteen chatted with number eight and they jogged back to the benches taking advantage of the reprieve my outburst had bought. I told Father about the sounds and what it looked like. As he soothed me, he said: “Nobody ever breaks bones, Sara. Quiet now. Shh…”

“But it did!”

He seemed so large back then. Indestructible. Then, brown eyes earnest, his salt and pepper moustache bouncing on his upper lip, he said: “I’ve been around a long time, dear, and I’ve never heard of an injury like that.”

He hugged me again. Tightly. As if he could push away the memory.

They came more frequently in college.

My first boyfriend there, Edgar Jenkins, killed me in a jealous rage when he found I fancied Genevieve, a close friend of his, sophomore year.  He used his hands.

The next night, he told me we were better off apart and offered to introduce me to his friend, Genny. He thought we’d hit it off.

Genny jumped from the top of the Swiss building senior year and broke her neck. She graduated Summa Cum Laude the next month and is currently a professor of law at Harvard. She ended up marrying Edgar and they have three beautiful children, one of which died at birth and is starting kindergarten on Thursday.

I can’t keep events straight anymore. I see people I know have died or done horrible things every day, but I also know they haven’t. They die or are horribly disfigured and then they’re fine.

I… I don’t know how to reconcile what I’ve seen with what I know. People don’t die. Not like that.

What’s wrong with me?

August 29, 2012

Well, it’s been awhile, diary. The last time I touched this journal I was in the midst of an identity crisis. It’s better now. Everything is better now.

Everything is perfect.

I don’t even see anything anymore. It must have been the stress of college and my Biochemistry postgraduate work. That must be why it kept happening. Why my memories were so… problematic.

Since we last spoke, I met Derek Watson. He’s a fantastic man, if a little heavier and balder than I imagined my perfect man would be when I was younger. He has the most striking blue eyes you can imagine, like two cerulean pools that stare straight into my soul. When he laughs, it makes me feel like everything is okay. Now if I could get him to wear something other than humorous t-shirts and jeans, he’d be downright sexy.

We’ve been married for a little over six months now and it’s been fantastic, though the recent morning sickness has put a bit of a damper on that. He still thinks I must have food poisoning from our jaunt down Route One last month. Silly man. I’ll tell him tonight. I hope he’s happy. I know I am, even if I’m a little nervous.

Wish me luck.

Good night, diary.

March 12, 2019

We’re in bad shape, diary. I’m loathe to even press a pen against your brittle, yellowed pages, but I find that now, more than ever, I need your comforting embrace. I can barely keep my hands from shaking.

Dammit, a stray tear smudged some ink.

Okay.

Derek died a few hours ago. The girls were fast asleep in their rooms and we’d split a couple bottles of wine while watching some silly documentary on the Native American Alliance of 1830. It’s been warm this week, so the windows were open, the crisp night scents and sounds of spring dancing through our little Dutch colonial home.

We were making love, the wind caressing our bare bodies, the last bottle of Merlot in the window, casting a graying purple splash of color across our skin from the streetlight outside. Derek’s face clenched in pleasure, hands digging into my thighs… then he grabbed his chest and died.

Dead.

And then it happened again.

I haven’t spoken to him today and he’s still trying to “make it up to me.” God, he thinks I’m mad because he finished first.

When the light left his eyes… I can’t do this. No one should have to live like this.

My God, what’s wrong with me?

Please tell me. Please tell me what I can do.

Please?

April 26, 2019

Derek read you last night, diary. Why did he do that?

Why won’t he talk to me? Why is this happening?

Why?

April 28, 2019

I said some horrible things last night, diary. Derek tried to console me, I guess, and I shrank at his touch. He bought me red roses, the stupid man.

Instead of the comfort of his smile, I saw only his dead eyes and clenching body. Nausea almost took me, then, but I managed to hide in the bathroom before I lost my stomach.

He beat on the door. Harder and harder until I thought it would break.

I told him I never loved him and he made me sick. I told him we were only together because of Jamie and Tara. I said I didn’t know if I loved them.

I think I said those things because I hoped the horror of it would make the world flicker and maybe, maybe, I would go back to a point where I couldn’t feel my husband’s dead body with my hands or see his soulless eyes staring at the ceiling, face discolored by the bruise of light from that wine.

But it didn’t happen. It didn’t happen and I don’t know why. It should have. I hurt him so badly… it should have!

Why didn’t it reset? Why?

He’s been gone for hours. I don’t know where he went.

Why didn’t it work?

Whywhywhywhywhy…

May 28, 2019

Hello again, diary. Derek went to stay at his parents’ house with our children. I can’t say I blame him. I’m not okay. I… I can’t stop picturing him…

I may be drinking too much. I have an appointment with some physicians tomorrow since Doctor Harrison isn’t sure if he can help me. It’s a small cadre of weirdos. They wish to inspect my thoughts and feelings. They’re psycho-something doctors. Honestly, I’ve never heard of such a thing–a doctor of the mind–but if they can help, I’ll take what I can get.

Until then, diary.

July 30, 2019

Well that was a waste of time. They’re as stumped as Harrison. The idea people can die at the slightest thing flies in the face of everything we’ve seen in nature and what we believe in. That’s not how our world works. People die at home, in bed, of old age. They don’t die of heart failure.

I know, I must be unwell, but these medicines aren’t helping at all. If I’m being honest, and I’m always honest with you, diary, the pills might be making it worse. My brain feels… foggy. Like someone is trying to stifle my mind instead of fix it.

That’s probably what’s happening.

Doctor Harrison and his coven of brain monkeys are little more than glorified babysitters. They alleviate general aches and pains of physical labor. They wouldn’t know how to fix something like this if it killed them.

I’m… getting worried about what these medications are doing to my body, let alone my mind. I feel like a damned guinea pig.  

Then again… if they want to experiment on me, then turnabout is fair play. It’s only right.

Right?

Dark thoughts.

Dark thoughts, indeed.

November 21, 2019

I stabbed Doctor Harrison with a knife today. He bled out over me, more shocked than pained. More confused than hurt.

The world warped as his eyes darkened at my feet and then he was handing me a glass of water to take the new, higher dose of medication he prescribed, my knife forgotten in my back pocket.

These God-forsaken pills coat my tongue with their sickly-sweet coating and no amount of water or wine washes it away.

I stabbed Doctor Harrison today. I killed him.

Why isn’t he dead? Is it because people don’t die like that? Or is it because it was, and always has been, in my head?

What’s wrong with me?

God. What’s happening?

September 21, 2020

They let me have you back, diary. It’s been a long year. A very long year. They took you from me when I asked to be restrained last year. They kept you from me. Such a long time with nothing but my thoughts and the numbing oneness of those new pills. But I’m out now.

“There’s nothing to find,” Doctor Harrison said. “Nothing to fix.”

Nothing to fix.

I’ve killed fourteen people. It turns out people are surprisingly fragile, much like number eight’s ankle back on that verdant field. Enough pressure in the right place and SNAP.

It’s funny. I look back at how easily I used that word–killed–in October and shake my head in amazement. I’d never seen it used in relation to another human before, but there it is.

Killed.

There is connectivity between negative actions and the subsequent reversal, or time slip. When I kill someone in a rage, the world slips and slides back to the hour or minute before, depending on how intense the event is. When it’s a quick strike of passion or, as with the August incident, drunken carelessness, the flicker flies me back to before it would’ve happened.

I’ve concluded I’m either a god or God’s biggest mistake. The more data I collect, the more I lean toward the latter.

It makes me wonder… what would it take to see God? He’s obviously made an error.

What would it take to fix this mistake?

Can I fix myself?

Will it get me my family back?

Do I dare?

September 29, 2020

Something happened, diary. Something new.

On my way home from my follow up meeting with those quacks, I found myself running calculations on impact velocity as I passed Jones Park. My fingers dug into the leather wrapping around the steering wheel as happy laughter met my ears. Dozens of joyful families walked the trail next to the road, taking in the failing foliage of the maples and elms in the cooling fall weather.

I’m not sure what took over then, but–

That’s a lie. I won’t lie to you, diary.

It made me angry. So very, very angry. Why should they be allowed happiness when I’m deprived it by my very nature? And so, with a perverse excitement, I put my foot to the floor and ran my Expedition through their flimsy bodies.

The screams and blood and sheer adrenaline almost overtook me, but then, then, the world spun. And oh, it was glorious!

Colors faded and swirled like before, but it was so expansive it drew the corners of the world together like an elaborate origami creation.

I caught a glimpse, diary. I swear I saw something look through the infinitely deep pinprick at the center of it all. But just as I know I saw something, I’m certain it didn’t notice me.

As I finished my drive home, I was distracted by possibility. Is it God? Or is it something else; perhaps a reflection of my own psyche?

I’ve been unable to think of anything else since I opened the green door to my empty home.

Scale must have something to do with it.

Scale.

October 13, 2021

It’s done, diary.

Beyond the glass of this window, the sky is lightening over the rooftops of my neighbors’ homes which sit crouched, gray trolls in pre-dawn darkness. Crimson flame sets the clouds to burning as the sun rises.

Today I will see God, either in the mirror or in judgement.

My hands are shaking quite badly. These words are barely legible, though I’m confident they won’t be needed to explain my mind as I originally planned. Regardless, I’ll write until the end.

I know I’m right. I have to be.

The alarm just went off.

It’s time. My hands are clammy; my heart in my throat.

The television is flashing an alert.

The docile news anchor is crying, images of blasted bodies and torn buildings live streaming over her shoulder.

I must stay strong. No time for tears or regret.

Where is it?

It’s taking too long.

What if I’m wrong?

My God, those people. All those people…

Diary, what have I–

I was right! It’s much bigger than the last time. The sky is twisting in on itself, a cyclone of strained magenta and stolen aquamarine. Color bleeds away. Everything is gray.

I can almost see into the eye of the tempest, like a gateway opening…

Oh my God.

It sees me.

And it’s showing me…

This… none of this is real.  No one is.  I’m not, you’re not.  Just a figment of its imagination.  A phantom thought flown from roost.

This perfection, it’s manufactured.  It’s a test.  A hope.  Can we be perfect?  Like fruit flies in a 4th grader’s science class.  Do we grow wings or die?

It’s not right.  Not true.

None of it.

Humanity is flawed and feeble.

This reality you made?  This search for perfection?  It’s a lie… fake. 

Reset as much as you want.  Pretend this doesn’t exist; pretend I don’t exist and you can control me…

But fuck you if you think you can.

I’ll never be what you want.

You might as well kill me now.

The world is rippling as it pulls back… it’s writhing and twisting and heaving and tearing! 

This one is for me. 

So be it.

The post Perfecting Humanity appeared first on Mike Wyant Jr..

Darin is a good guy.

At least, that’s what he thinks.

He’s a telekinetic contract killer for the government. They point, he shoots.

When a successful job gets complicated, he finds himself on the run from his former employers and in possession of a secret that changes history and the face of the world.

Can Darin expose this terrible plot before they kill him?

More importantly… does he even want to?

You’ll love this dystopian novella because everyone needs to feel hope in the face of overwhelming odds, especially now.

The post “Soundless” Available Now! appeared first on Mike Wyant Jr..

Originally Posted at Tangent Online, May 9, 2020

“Byzantine” by Holly Messinger
“Stepsister” by Leah Cypess
“Birds Without Wings” by Rebecca Zahabi
“Who Carries the World” by Robert Reed
“Hornet and Butterfly” by Tom Cool and Bruce Sterling
“Eyes of the Forest” by Ray Nayler
“Warm Math” by Rich Larson
“An Indian Love Call” by Joseph Bruchac
“In the Eyes of Jack Saul” by Richard Bowes
“Another F*cken Fairy Tale” by M. Rickert

“Byzantine” by Holly Messinger is fascinating. The story itself is told from the point of view of a spirit that encounters a slave with special powers in the months before the fall of Constantinople. The two develop a relationship that grows and twists in parallel with the city’s assault, siege, and ultimate fall.

Messinger does a great job in illustrating the fall off Constantinople. It’s like watching a train crash in slow motion, each day, week, month, and season carefully sculpted in such a way as to affirm the inevitability of it all, but still highlighting the attempts of the Byzantines in saving their city. Tying the main plot to an event of this stature could have gone sideways, but it doesn’t here. Despite some jarring colloquialisms from the narrator—a spirit that doesn’t perceive time the same as humans—there is little to dislike and a lot to love, even if the events are abrasive at times. Overall, a great read with a really interesting—if somewhat predictable—ending.

Leah Cypess’s “Stepsister” is a rather terrifying telling of what happens in Cinderella after the wedding, told from the point of view of the Handsome Prince’s bastard brother as the new King and Queen struggle to conceive an heir.

The narrative style is definitely that of a fairy tale and carries all the beats and tempo of one, though the darkness embedded within hearkens to the Grimm version rather than any Disney adaptation. Each twist, while relatively straightforward, is engaging and interesting. However, with those twists, the narrator gently pulls your eyes away from the dark truth buried inside the story until you’re left at the end wondering how you could’ve missed this hook. Overall, it’s a great story and a really interesting read.

“Birds Without Wings” by Rebecca Zahabi is a story about an Earth where some kind of creature or alien exists that can replace humans like a sort of doppelganger. These things are called “Fakes.” The real terrifying bit is that in doing so, they immediately kill the person they’re replacing. The story itself follows two hitchhikers, Zoe and Alex, as they make their way across Spain in this world.

At first, I felt like I knew where the story was going as soon as the Fakes were mentioned early in the story, but as the ending comes near Zahabi layers in twists that made what seemed like a predictable tale quite interesting and with a satisfying ending. The place where this story really shines though, is in the depiction of Zoe’s social anxiety. Every beat, every concern hits home in a way I don’t often see done well. At the very least, “Birds Without Wings” is worth a read for that depiction alone.

“Who Carries the World” by Robert Reed is a deep dive into humans as alien to me as if the story were told from the point of view of a tapeworm. The story itself roughly follows an immortal man named Perri who is “killed” during the collapse of a huge glass structure. A woman pulls him free and proceeds to feed himself parts of his own body as the body itself regenerates. This then connects to a very grisly story about abduction, indoctrination, and everything that entails.

I’ll be honest, this story didn’t work well for me. In order to establish the setting, so much backstory and world-building needed to be thrown in that I found it distracting to the point of dislike. Add to that the extremely gruesome body horror and disconnected minds of the protagonist and the pseudo-antagonist, and I could not connect with this. That said, there’s a good story here… just go in with both eyes open and read very carefully.

“Hornet and Butterfly” by Tom Cool and Bruce Sterling follows a character named the Hornet who lives on a city-sized raft that has just been destroyed by a typhoon. In the wake of that, he’s attacked by some cyborg-cops and, being a former genetically altered soldier, kills them all. The story itself starts in earnest when the Hornet goes to a human named the Ozzman and finds a heavily genetically engineered human called the Butterfly, which then disappears into the sky on some untold secret plan.

From there, the story gets weird.

Much like the preceding story, I couldn’t quite get into this. The opening pages were engaging enough, if sparse on detail at first, but once we get to the Butterfly, the plot spirals in a way I could only just keep track of. When the ending comes up and the point-of-view changes, I was simply confused. That’s not to say I didn’t understand how we got there; I just did not get why we were there to begin with. Overall, while the world-building is equal parts interesting and terrifying, the last half of the story fell noticeably short for me.

“Eyes of the Forest” by Ray Nayler was a breath of fresh air after the last two stories. Sedef is a way finder in training on a new world where everything alive is lit by an inner fire and the only things that are dark have died. When that happens, the scavengers come out and consume the drab things. When Sedef’s suit goes out, casting her in mundane darkness, a scavenger vine attacks, cutting open her wrist. It’s only the quick action of her mentor, the strangely named Mauled by Mistake, that saves her life, but soon after, Sedef realizes it’s her turn to save Mauled as she was injured in the attack as well. Alone in this new wilderness for the first time, Sedef takes off, hoping she can get supplies to save Mauled before she bleeds out.

Nayler’s descriptions throughout are absolutely breathtaking. The way every scene pops with color and raw, unfiltered life drives home both the strangeness and beauty of this new world. Combined with the tight plot and dark humor layered within it was an absolute pleasure to read.

Rich Larson really nailed the psychology in “Warm Math.” In this story, Rozier has just been ejected off the ship he’s spent the last three years working on into the void of space with a man dressed as a colonel. It soon becomes clear that in order to survive, they’ll need to dump a significant amount of weight, more than the escape pod has to offer, leading Rozier to eye this colonel and prepare for an attack.

The story itself isn’t complicated at first. It’s about survival, of recognizing the odds and making a choice. However, it doesn’t take long for that basic premise to morph and twist into a psychological horror show that leaves you surprised and filled with dread by the last sentence. Definitely worth a read.

“An Indian Love Call” by Joseph Bruchac is a meandering tale of a man, Billy, who has a ridiculously intelligent friend, Arlin, who does crazy stuff all the time, like accidentally summoning a female member of the Big People—or Sasquatch—who is looking for a mate in a big way.

Plot-wise, there isn’t much here. The story is very linear and when it comes to twists and tension, there’s not much there, either. However, Bruchac’s writing style is entertaining and the way he layers in native stories in the midst of the insane adventures two of his characters have been in makes for an enjoyable, if not very deep, read.

“In the Eyes of Jack Saul” by Richard Bowes is a retelling of the Dorian Gray story from the point of view of Jack Saul, a real-life male prostitute. In this story, Saul becomes at times both infatuated and angered by Dorian Gray leading to a final scene that alters the original story.

Primarily, this is a deep dive into male prostitution in late 19th century England, with a focus on fleshing out Dorian Gray’s world. While this was interesting and the point of view refreshing as it comes to Gothic literature, there doesn’t seem to be a lot going on here. I’m not entirely sure what the purpose of the story is beyond showcasing this part of Victorian England. As such, while an interesting read with solid Gothic-inspired writing, don’t expect too much here.

“Another F*cken Fairy Tale” by M. Rickert was a pleasure to read. 98-year-old Lucy wakes up one morning and decides to go down to the beach to make a sandcastle. She’s alone—her husband and daughter long deceased—so, with no one to stop her, she goes down, starts making a castle, and shenanigans ensue.

This story doesn’t try to be more than it is. It’s a pleasant tale ending on a line that would make the hardest heart smile. Simple, short, but amazingly effective.

The post Review: Fantasy & Science Fiction, May/June 2020 appeared first on Mike Wyant Jr..

It’s finally happened… SOUNDLESS is up and available for pre-order!  If you’re into dystopias, telekinetic assassins, and government eugenics conspiracies, this is right up your alley.  

It’s also a whopping $0.99 so…

*gestures wildly at the pre-order button*

The post SOUNDLESS is available for Pre-Order! appeared first on Mike Wyant Jr..

Originally Posted at Tangent Online, April 9, 2020

“Pork Belly” by Jack Heath
“Father’s House” by Grace Chan
“Prime Mover” by Robert DeLeskie

“Pork Belly” by Jack Heath is a trippy ride. In a near future world, female pigs (sows) are being used as surrogates to avoid the death of human women. The story primarily follows Claudia, the would-be mother, as their sow goes in for the birth process.

Overall, it’s an interesting way to treat birth and, I think, pretty accurate. The dialog and inner monologue reads similarly to conversations I’ve had with expectant parents (sans pigs, obviously), but the real kicker comes with the final line of the story. In that moment, the full reality of this situation becomes clear and it doesn’t reflect well on humanity.

Grace Chan‘s “Father’s House” is an emotional wallop. Henry returns home to pack up his father, Tsz-Kan’s, things. It’s an emotional time, with Henry recounting old stories of his childhood with his father who helps him dig through their history; even trying to dig into Tsz-Kan’s life and learn something about his parent.

I can’t say too much more about the story without spoiling it, so I’ll stop there, but the depth of feeling and fondness with which each story is told builds upon itself until, like Henry at the end, you can’t help but cry. Beautiful story.

“Prime Mover” by Robert DeLeskie is interesting. It follows a trucker, Arlene, who is going through the motions of living after her husband dies of cancer. As a final Hail Mary before offing herself, to keep the tone of the story, Arlene takes an overnight job that leads her to an old haunt, a truck stop that served the best pecan pie. When she arrives, everyone she knows is gone, the pecan pie is store bought, and people are going missing. The night just gets weirder from there, resulting in Arlene finding a new purpose in life through her abuse of a sports relic.

The tone throughout is really spot on for a trucker, I think. Having grown up with a diesel mechanic father, I had a lot of exposure to that specific group. Every bit of the story, from the anger at rain to the climactic fight at the end, is told with the same “well, this is happening” tone I recognize from my conversations with truckers and it works really well. A fun, yet emotional romp through the life of a trucker (thrown into an 80s movie plot).

The post Review: Aurealis #129, April 2020 appeared first on Mike Wyant Jr..

Originally Posted at Tangent Online, March 24, 2020

“Reformed” by Caias Ward

“Reformed” by Caias Ward is aptly titled. The story follows a criminal with Superman-level superpowers named Declan Samuels who is recently out of eight years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.

The story itself is really the story of an ex-con coming out of prison and trying to reintegrate into society. The addition of superpowers highlights those difficulties in a deep, visceral way.

It’s not often a superhero story makes me cry, but this one did. It’s a story that’s more than worth the time to read.

The post Review: Mysterion, March 2020 appeared first on Mike Wyant Jr..

But I’m going to try anyway.

Folks who’ve never been assume there’s always “something” you can do to keep yourself from being there.

Poverty is the absence of that.

The reality that there’s NOTHING else you can do. It’s hopeless.

Imagine losing your job.

Imagine you then can’t get unemployment because of some paperwork mistake.

Six months goes by.

Your savings is gone. You’ve sold everything of value, including the car you need to get to work if you find a job (which isn’t happening)

Bills are three months overdue. Your power *will* be shut off. Your landlord/the bank is calling daily. You send it to a voicemail you’ll only have for another ten days.

You’ve only eaten peanut butter and ramen in two weeks.

You finally get a job. It pays $10/hour.

It won’t bring you out of it, but at least you’re working and working is better than whatever the hell these past six months have been.

This is it. This is poverty.

This is your life now, never moving forward. Always locked in this place.

Now you’re working full time and never, ever moving forward no after how much you try. You’re always exhausted, but you’re bank balance is always negative at the end of the month.

You only buy food and pay rent. “Extra” money goes to emergency room visits or replacing your work clothes because, besides the polos your job gives you, everything else is paid for out of pocket.

No matter what you do, it’ll only get slowly worse until you die.

THIS is poverty.

There’s no generational wealth here. No “grandma’s” house to fight over. No wills because, let’s be honest, there’s nothing to leave besides a frying pan, old spoons, and debt. Just constant, perpetual poverty.

So, you work until you die. Then so do your kids.

This is poverty.

And then there’s those of us that get out of it.

Once you leave poverty, once you see how bad it actually was, you vow to NEVER go there again.

You make up myths about how you got out. Pump your own ego because, obviously, something about you was special. It helps.

You put that barrier up; start critiquing other people in poverty. Friends. Family.

You tell them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps with sincerity.

“If I did it, so can you,” comes out of your fool mouth all the time.

It’s easier to forget how lucky you got. To ignore the helping hands that got you out.

Because if you did it yourself, you don’t owe anyone anything.

They’re just all welfare queens and leeches because you’d NEVER do that… ignoring that you HAVE.

It’s easier. Wrong, but easier because owing people sucks, especially when you come from a place of scarcity.

But helping everyone, whether personally or by paying taxes that fund programs that give those in poverty that extra step up helps everyone, including yourself.

So, at some point in your life after you realize what an asshole you’ve become, you decide to help. You get vocal.

Maybe you even get in loud arguments about the definition of poverty and how the experience impacts a person. Maybe you write the world’s longest stream of consciousness tweet thread and turn it into a Medium article to showcase the problem.

But at least you’re trying to pay it forward now.

Why? Because after this long journey, through the hurt and the selfishness, past the pain of realization and self awareness, you realize it’s the right thing to do.

Support fellow humans.

Do what’s right.

After all, almost everyone in the US is six bad months from poverty.

Originally posted on Medium on February 7, 2020

The post I Don’t Know How to Explain Poverty To You appeared first on Michael J. Wyant Jr..

Originally Posted at Tangent Online, December 18, 2019

“Flags Flying Before a Fall” by Osahon Ize-Iyamu

“Flags Flying Before a Fall” by Osahon Ize-Iyamu is a strange tale. Roughly, it follows a nearly unidentified main character living in a world where they die constantly, only to be resurrected by a tree that their brother won from professionally rolling down a hill. (I wish I could have that make more sense, but I can’t.) After this sport is outlawed, the protagonist is forced by their family to pretend at success to hide the money the brother sends back. Later, when the brother comes back at an inopportune time, he learns the truth and leaves, which ultimately sends the protagonist on a quest to find their lost sibling.

The story itself was hard for me to follow. I feel like there’s some sort of backstory or mythology I’m missing out on to make the detached external narration easier to handle, which is a shame.

That said, the language and the poetry of the prose is beautifully done. The story spends so much time stuck in the emotion and inner workings of the protagonist, despite their mother’s constant reinforcement that they need to avoid emotion, that a lesser writer would’ve fumbled and failed at the attempt. Ize-Iyamu, however, really manages to keep those hooks in despite it all.

In the end, despite my disconnect with background of this story, the raw emotion delivered through accurate, beautiful prose makes this a story worth reading.

The post Review: Strange Horizons, December 16, 2019 appeared first on Michael J. Wyant Jr..

Originally Posted at Tangent Online, December 11, 2019

“Into the Eye” by SL Harris

“Into the Eye” by SL Harris is a stunning depiction of our reality after the Old Gods rise. Set in the far future, Earth is now flooded and filled with chattering madmen and ruled over by these horrific beings. The only ones to escape this fate are those who were either off-world or maintained the psychological fortitude in the face of Cthulhu and its brethren to keep going. The main character, Sal, is the latter. A pilot during humanity’s last stand against madness, Sal watched the world die, but managed to steer away, the only surviving ship in the human fleet.

The story revolves around a man, Captain Moore, who has been to the center of the universe and found Azathoth—Lovecraft’s creator god—sleeping. Waiting. Like Sal, Moore is the only survivor of his failed mission and comes back, having spent ten years alone, working through a plan to get away from the madness. With that in mind, Moore assembles a crew and together they head to Azathoth to escape this damned universe for another seen only in fevered images during Moore’s time near the sleeping god.

Overall, the story is incredibly well written, the integration of the Lovecraftian mythos with a far future setting works seamlessly, and Harris develops very interesting, empathetic characters that you root for by the end.

My only real gripe with the story is the end. It sort of stops and leaves us wondering at the conclusion, a nagging feeling of hope warring with the blatant horrors of this universe. In another story, without the weight of the Cthulhu mythos driving it forward, I think this would’ve worked quite well, but I can’t help but feel like it reads as the end of a chapter in a book than the end of a short story.

That said, it’s a pleasure to read and I’d recommend folks give it a shot, especially if you like new takes on Lovecraft’s madness.

The post Review: Strange Horizons, December 9, 2019 appeared first on Michael J. Wyant Jr..