Best Vegan Science Fiction & Fantasy 2017

Best

Vegan

Science Fiction & Fantasy

2017

edited by

B. Morris Allen

ISBN:978-1-64076-001-1 (e-book)

ISBN: 978-1-64076-002-8 (paperback)

from

Metaphorosis Publishing

Neskowin

Table of Contents

Best Vegan Science Fiction & Fantasy

Bluebird

Ligeia is waiting

Oven Game

Cold Comforts

Lake Oreyd

A Nightingale’s Map of the City

Angels at the Border

Sharpington Coffers – Current Score: 49.8

Sundown on the Hill

Business As Usual

Bad News from the Future

The Cure for Cancer

The Lost Languages of Exiles

Copyright

Metaphorosis Publishing

Metaphorosis Magazine

Metaphorosis Books

Plant Based Press

From the Editor

I’m writing this in Belgrade, Serbia, hardly a bastion of progressive animal rights philosophy. Yet even here, cute pro-vegan pictures of pigs, chickens, cows, and foxes are strewn across the city. In the few years since I lived here full time, vegan and vegan-friendly restaurants have exploded – from essentially one to half a dozen or more. It’s always been possible to eat posno (Lenten – largely vegan) in Belgrade. But now it’s not just a religious label but a recognized life choice.

That’s not to say there’s not a backlash. Inevitably, as with any suddenly popular issue, there is. Already, restaurants are shifting from ‘vegan’ to ‘plant-based’. The food is the same, but the philosophy is different.

As someone who’s been vegan for quite a long time, I’ve watched the changes with some bemusement. Overall, though, it’s a good thing. At the very least, more people have an idea what veganism is about, even if they dismiss it as a silly fad.

All that is to say that, despite its ups and downs, the world is, in many ways, getting better. It’s a meandering process, but there’s still a chance we’ll survive ourselves, and some other species may too.

The stories in this anthology give cause for optimism. They’re not all happy stories; some are frightening, some grim, some melancholy. But they’re all vegan – in the sense that they don’t include use of animals for human benefit. They weren’t mostly written by vegans, or even intended to be vegan. But they are. Reading them, you’ll spend some time in vegan worlds – worlds where we’ve resolved at least one major problem. Relax in those worlds; enjoy them. Then come out fortified to face the real world and make better futures possible.

B. Morris Allen

Editor

Bluebird

Benjamin Cort

Nelson Towers spent most of his time oiling the feathers. When he had taken the job he had been enticed by the prestige, the travel, and the pay. He quickly came to realize that his work was to be reviled, not celebrated, that everyplace he traveled was more depressing than the last, and that he was mostly paid to oil the feathers. But at least the pay was good.

In the early days he had worked with a small penlight, its thin beam shaking nervously in a sweaty palm. He tried to use it sparingly, but the shape of the wings was foreign to him, and he often found himself flicking it on and marveling at their rough form. He worked when it slept, which was often. He dreaded being in its presence.

Now he worked in total darkness. He knew how it lay as it slept and where to step as he moved around it. It hungrily lapped up oil and soaked it deep into its plumage. For a thing that spent most of its time sleeping in dark, quiet places, it needed to be constantly fed.

He hadn’t looked at it in weeks. He had never seen the whole thing at once, nor did he want to. When he worked, it slept. When it worked, he turned away.

#

Saying that Lexington had let itself go would have been an overstatement. Towers had always considered the town to be a dump. It now just had the outward appearance to reflect that.

He had tracked it here from Harper’s Ferry over the course of two long days, and each mile North turned his mood darker. The sky too, darkened with his countenance. Fall this far North was never pleasant, and the road was full of packed cars trundling South. Sleepy children ogled his truck as it drove carelessly over the dotted white lines. His whole side of the highway was barren. It seemed as if the entire North had packed its bags and moved out. Towers was used to this by now. He tried not to take it personally.

When he finally pulled into Lexington Center, it was night. His digital watch read 11:04 in garish green numbers. The buildings hung low with muted colors. The store windows were dark. Some had been smashed in, revealing emptied shelves. This strip was dominated by banks, boutiques, and frozen yogurt stores. Towers slowed his truck down at the intersection. It would be around here somewhere. He switched off the engine and hopped out, leaving the truck in the middle of the road.

In the back, wedged between large drums of oil, his little printer whirred and spat out a sheet of paper. He tore it from the machine. St. Cuthbert, it read, simply. The smartest, richest, and most powerful people in the entire world had gathered in the City and built an array of satellites that could track both its and his position every second of every day to the meter. He had been given a printer with a radio duct-taped to the side. The City loved to cut costs for people who didn’t matter. Towers crumpled up the paper and tossed it into the street.

Leaves crunched under his feet as he plodded over to the sidewalk. Three days ago the square would have been bustling. The restaurants would have rolled out their patios to soak in the last few days of warmth left in the season and the air would have filled been with warm light, idle chatter, and wisps of cigarette smoke. There would be a line out the movie theater door for the eight o’clock showing of whatever was on. Kids would be lounging around the large green lawn in front of the church, waiting for some interesting trouble to spring to their minds.

The church’s facade had always made him nervous. But Allison had loved the lawn, so he had pretended to love it too. When they were younger, they would chase each other around it in endless loops. When they were older, they would sit against the trunks of the trees, talking for hours in the shade.

The lawn was filled with leaves now. Towers walked across it, his hands jammed deep into the pockets of his brown jacket. The stained glass face of Mr. Christ stared down at him. Towers lingered outside and met his eyes defiantly. Now it was Towers who had the upper hand. When the bird was done with this town there would be nothing left. He turned off his glowing watch and tried the door. It opened inward to his touch, and he slipped inside quickly, closing it behind him.

The Church of Saint Cuthbert was dark. He could see high above him hints of starry sky through the colored glass. And he could hear it breathing. He hadn’t been able to detect its soft, fluttering breaths, at first. He hadn’t even thought that it needed to breathe. Now, like it or not, the sound of its breath was the sound of his home.

Towers approached it, ducking under a sharp wing. He moved slowly, feeling his way through the darkness. It had moved the pews aside to fit its bulk into the space just below the pulpit. He sat gingerly on the edge of one of the pews and reached out a soft hand. He stroked the side of its face, feeling its feathers prick him as he did. It was thirsty. He stuck his index finger into his mouth and sucked the blood away. He walked back to his truck, pulled an oil barrel onto his little cart, and wheeled it back to the church. He worked till just before sunrise, then returned to his truck. He smoked a cigarette and threw the butt into the street. It smoldered on the asphalt, the square’s single spot of light. He watched it burn out slowly.

#

Towers slept deeply, and woke at eight as his watch alarm beeped. It was dark. He had a cot in the back of his truck, but he often slept in the front seat, as he had last night. It was probably the hunger that had woken him, or perhaps just the loud rumbling of his stomach. There was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in his glove compartment, but when he opened it it was all squashed and malformed. He slammed the compartment shut. There was always other food somewhere.

He rolled out onto the street and immediately felt his legs go wobbly. He leaned against the side of his truck and gave himself a moment to fully reenter to world of the waking. His neck was killing him, and he rolled it back and forth a few times. When he was young, he had been told never to do a full rotation, or he’d hurt himself. How or why that would happen had never been explained, but he was still careful.

When his legs were behaving again, he made his creaking way down the strip, past the church, and into the wooded streets of Lexington. He hadn’t set out with a specific goal in mind, just that of getting some food from somewhere, but he quickly realized where his legs had begun to take him. He had had a lot of firsts in this town. Why not say one last goodbye to the house of his first love? Besides, they had always fed him well. They might have left something good behind.

He took a break at the top of Weeks Street, perched at the peak of the small hill there. These streets felt the same as they always did. Quiet. He flicked his penlight on. Even back when he lived here, he had needed light to navigate. The streetlights were few and far in between, the streets badly paved and lined with ditches and trees, and when the sun set it did so completely.

He used to sneak out late at night, and scurry across this exact route. There was a tree in Allison’s yard he could scurry up to reach her bedroom. Or sometimes she’d meet him in the woods, and they’d spend the night wandering. Of course his starting point had been different, back then, but that house had been knocked down and paved over a long time ago. Time had changed the shape of the route. Trees had fallen and slopes eroded. Feet stamped down new paths. He cut from street to yard to forest and back to street, his feet unsteadily but automatically moving dutifully below him.

He was so carefully looking down that it took him until he stepped from the sidewalk to the short trimmed green grass of the front lawn to notice what was wrong. He could see the grass. How green it was. He looked up in bewilderment. The front windows of the house were awash with light, a latticed shadow scattered across the yard. There was never light. Why would there be light? The electric companies should have turned off the power a long time ago. Mr. Song had always had a backup generator; he was always very proud when the power went out but the house stayed lit. But it couldn’t have run for this long without being refueled.

Who is it! A voice called out, more accusation than question.

Towers’s head pounded. He hadn’t heard another voice in so long. He opened his mouth to respond but found his mouth dry and his tongue fuzzy. He coughed, unable to form coherent vocals. He hadn’t spoken in longer.

I warn you, I’m armed, the voice threatened.

Towers stood rooted in place. His cough was really working its way through him now, heaving out big wracking lungfuls of air. He put a hand up in a placating manner, vaguely in the direction of the house’s second story.

I’m coming out! The voice warned, and Towers heard the front door slamming open. He looked up, but the bright windows were ruining his night vision and all he could make out was a large black shape barreling towards him. The shape skidded to a halt a few yards away, brandishing an implement in a threatening manner. Jesus, is that you, Nel?

Towers seemed to have regained some control of his breath and managed to squeeze out a raspy yes,