This one seems a little longer than usual, but that says more about the month’s reading than it does my self-control.
Detained by D. Esperanza and Gerardo Iván Morales
Ever since this morning, I’ve been thinking a lot about a story in the Biblia that Padre Juan talked about at church once in Naranjito. It’s about a man who gets beat up and thrown in a ditch by a gang, just like what happened to Damian. He’s hurt and lying in this ditch, and a priest walks past without helping him, because it’d be too much work or he’s afraid it’s a trap or he doesn’t want to get his clothes bloody or whatever. The man only gets saved when a buen Samaritano stops to help him. In a way, even though the priest didn’t do anything, he was just as bad, or almost as bad, as the gang that beat the man up. Padre Juan says the priest in the story was bad because he didn’t do anything. I thought it was interesting that Padre Juan told us about it, even though the bad person is a priest like him.
The point is, there are two ways you can hurt people. You can hurt a person actively, like by punching them or stealing from them or whatever. But you can also hurt a person passively, by refusing to give them help when they need it, or by pretending you don’t see them, or by acting like they don’t exist.
Since leaving Naranjito, there have been a few adults who have tried to hurt me actively—like the hombres del cartel who shot at us while we were riding La Bestia, or the pissed-off Migra guys who put me and my cousins in a refrigerator to freeze half to death. And all that was horrible, obviously. But in a way, when someone hurts you actively, the damage is mostly just physical. Back home, gangs are a fact of life, and even though I was always lucky—I was never directly targeted until the cartel chased me off La Bestia—there’s always a risk that someone will hurt you in an active way. But that doesn’t give me this horrible, whole-body feeling of worthlessness. In Naranjito, I never saw anyone get passively hurt. I’m sure some kids had parents and family who were bad to them, but in some ways, anyone’s kids were like everyone’s kids. If a kid was hungry, obviously it was their parents’ job to feed them, but if their parents were missing for some reason, the rest of the pueblo wouldn’t just let the kid starve to death.
Since crossing the border though, until breakfast this morning, I don’t think a single adult in los Estados Unidos would have cared if I’d starved. In los Estados Unidos, the passive pain has been the worst feeling of all. Passive pain is a little harder to explain than active pain, but I’ll try;
It hurts in a different way. The adults who have tried to actively hurt me aren’t as bad as all the adults who stand around, seeing what’s happening doing nothing. Looking bored. This has been everywhere since I got to el Norte. There have been a million examples: the woman behind the desk at oficina de la Migra who called Papa and filled out my registration on her computer before her buddies in green uniforms stuck me in a refrigerator. The bus drivers who shuttled me and a vehicle full of innocent kids from one kind of jail to another and never stopped to ask what we did to deserve this, why we weren’t in school, why we weren’t with our parents, why we were crying, why we were dirty, why my foot was oozing blood and pus and stinking up the entire bus like roadkill. The servers in the cafeteria who see this food is making us sick but won’t do anything about it, who won’t let us grab another box of Frosted Flakes. The worst of all are the tichers, these useless tichers who call us by our bed numbers, these grown-ups who speak fluent English and could really do something to help us, but who just stand around looking tired and annoyed while kids like me are kept from our parents for no reason, tichers who don’t sound any alarms when nine and ten-year-olds are passing out on the campo de futbol because they’re afraid to drink water, because they’re afraid to use the bathroom.
Sometimes it makes me want to grab a piece of cardboard and write I’m a kid, do something on it. It makes me want to grab a megaphone and scream “I’m a person! I’m supposed to matter!” But more often, it makes me wonder if maybe I don’t matter, it makes me want to collapse, it makes me want to give up, it makes me want to melt into my bunk, it makes me want to climb down the porta-potty pit and dissolve in the chemicals. Ir makes me never want to look anyone in the eye again.
Me, Myself & Bob by Phil Vischer
We were a very religious family–did I say that already? Well, it’s true. My mother was not allowed to work, or even swim on Sundays, and could not play cards at any time–with the exception of Rook, because as far as I can tell, it’s the card game that Jesus’ disciples played while waiting for the Holy Spirit to descend on Pentecost.
When I was about twelve years old, I took my grandfather to see the first movie he had seen since his rebellious college years, The Jesus Film. He fell asleep about halfway through, though, because he’d already read the book and he knew how it ended. To this day, my grandfather will not step foot into a movie theater, although he did make an exception, when our Veggie Tales movie, Jonah came out in theaters in 2002. I’m pretty sure he fell asleep halfway through that one, too–he’s exceptionally good at falling asleep.
Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton
…he laughed and said, “You Arabs always wish to have reasons for everything. Your hearts are a great bursting bag of reasons.”
I said, “And you do not care for reasons?”
“It avails you nothing. We say: A man should be moderately wise but not overwise, lest he know his fate in advance, he man whose mind is most free of care does not know his fate in advance.”
…there is no fear greater than that of a man when he does not know the cause.
Herger rode alongside me and said in a soft voice, “How do you fare?”
Not being capable of concealing my emotion, I said to him, “I am afraid.”
Herger replied to me: “That is because you think upon what is to come, and imagine fearsome things that would stop the blood of any man. Do not think ahead, and be cheerful by knowing that no man lives forever.”
I saw the truth of his words. “In my society,” I said, “we have a saying which is: ‘Thank Allah, for in his wisdom he put death at the end of life, and not at the beginning.’”
The Wednesday Witches Book Club by Sarah Beth Durst
Genevieve Durand was one of those put-together people who looked as if she’d never, ever dripped marinara sauce on her shirt.
She’d thought his youthful enthusiasm was endearing for a bunch of years, until she finally realized it had cured into immaturity.
“I think it makes us less alone. That’s what stories do, after all. They connect us. And that’s what magic does. It brings us together.”
Cursed Cocktails by S.L. Rowland
“I’d say your situation has never been better. Avoiding the constant threat of death and dismemberment will do wonders for one’s lifespan.”
“Endings are a reward in themselves. Only then can you look back on the journey.”
“There may be a beer for every occasion, but there is a wine for every mood.”
Deadly Does It by Abbi Waxman
“Mason needs gentle handling, and I don’t know if he has the finesse.”
“She’s a delicate flower?” Julia’s tone was incredulous.
“No,” said Will, “she’s a hand grenade.”
“Prison’s very dull, apart from the all-pervading fear of violence and the occasional bug in the food. Trust me, you’d hate it, not because it’s scary, but because it’s skull-crushingly boring.”
“I have no intention of going to jail.”
Julia laughed. “No one intends to go to jail, Mason, yet there they are.”
“I think I can still write by hand, but on the few occasions I have to, it looks like a centipede has done two lines of coke, stepped in a tiny pot of ink and scrambled across the page in a hurry to get to somewhere else. Not exactly legible.”
There was a pause.
“Thanks for the colorful image, Mason,” said Julia, “no sure who would sell a centipede the minuscule amount o¢ drugs they could take, but your rich and vivid imagination will eventually come in handy, I expect.”
The Wizard Who Kept Himself Suspicious by Scott Lynch
He knew himself to be disheveled. Had no notion of what it must be like to be sheveled in the first place.
Wizards as a group loved many things, but a conspicuous waste of expensive resources was near the top of the list.
“If I am wrong about this, then there is no sense in listening to anything else I might say, because it would reflect a misunderstanding so profound as to necessitate my retirement from sharing my thoughts with other people.”
Crownfall by Michael Vadney
“Why help me?”
“Because you needed help, and I could give it,” Jelert said.
“That’s it?” Kyndel pressed. “No one gives something ‘or nothing,”
Jelert met his gaze. “When the world is hells-bent on tearing itself apart, I’d rather spend my efforts trying to hold it together, even if it’s just for one person at a time.”
Kyndel snorted, the sound ragged and bitter, “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” he muttered.
“Maybe it is.” A faint, sad smile crossed Jelert’s face. “But it’s better than standing by, or worse, joining in.”
“Heroes die young and leave messes. You are something better—you’re a survivor. You’re protecting your people. You’re giving them hope. That’s what leaders do.”
Battle of the Round House by Tananarive Due
This long journey felt more like reaching the gingerbread house in “Hansel and Gretel,” meant to be a treat but full of danger instead.
The Cairndale Orphan by J. M. Miro
The human heart contains rooms within rooms, none of them empty. Knowing this had made him good at his job. That job was murder, and he’d been in the business of it at Scotland Yard for twenty-five years, and if anyone asked, he’d tell them he’d seen most anything there was to see.
She was true the way a well-cut board was true, straight and direct and strong. He admired that about her.
She had a kindness for the broken things of this world, maybe because she was one of them too.
Like he was.
Hell, like everyone was, really.
“Mr. Bromley, it’s not a good idea to bring the dead and the living together. Not on purpose. We’re supposed to be apart.”
Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto
Now we know, when it comes to fight or flight, I am neither. I am: freeze like a hamster and then melt into a useless shivery puddle.
Big Aunt sends a string of emojis that seem completely unrelated to each other instead of an actual response.
Whoever introduced my mom and aunts to emojis needs to be thrown off a tall building. Ever since they found out about emojis, my mom and her sisters think they’re a perfectly acceptable way of communicating. Except everyone has a slightly different interpretation of emojis, and it takes me about three times as long to figure out exactly what they’re trying to say. Like now, for example, the thumbs-up emoji means everything is okay, which is good, but then why is there an angry face emoji right next to it?
“Easy,” Big Aunt sniffs, shaking her head. “I don’t think it’l be that easy.”
“Why not?” Second Aunt says, raising her chin,
Big Aunt shrugs. “Because it’s never easy. Otherwise people would get away with murder all the time.”
I wince at the word “murder,” even though she said it in Mandarin. And even though I want to have faith in Second Aunt’s simple plan of “get there, find cooler, bring cooler back,” I have a feeling that Big Aunt is right. When it comes to hiding a dead body, it’s never simple—a lesson I’m quickly learning from the previous night.
“Meddy is probably cautious because last time when you tried to set her up with Wang Zhixiang’s son, he turned out to be, you know,” Fourth Aunt says.
Ma waves an irritated hand. “Why do you keep bringing up Zhixiang’s son? So he turned out to be some maniac. How was I supposed to know?”
“Kleptomaniac,” I mumble. By the time our date was over, he’d stolen my makeup bag from my purse and, somehow, one of my shoes. I mean, the guy’s an asshole, but you’ve gotta give it to him. Or let him steal it.
Cold Iron Task by James J. Butcher
Finally, he unfurled himself from the vehicle, standing to his looming height. Even more than usual, he looked like the most grim of reapers. Albeit one that had exchanged its robes and scythe for an out-of-fashion suit and less-than-moderate alcoholism.
Something about this place was almost familiar—like an artistic rendering of an old nightmare he had forgotten and had worked hard not to remember.
Wudge looked past Grimsby to the fortress stairs and shuddered. “Half-witch going to get killed trying to help people. Trying to help Wudge.”
Grimsby shrugged. “Maybe. But maybe that’s not the worst way to go.”
“They’re all the worst way.”
“I hope so,” Grimsby said.
“I know you do. Your hope is surprisingly resilient.”
“Thanks.” He smiled. “I made it myself.”
“I need a witch’s help to make sure I don’t get my head torn off by an arachne or some such.”
“Are—are those real?” Grimsby asked hesitantly.
Mayflower looked over out of the corner of his eye. “Hell if I know; just don’t let one take my head off. Deal?”
“No arachne-ing from the neck up. Got it.”
“The neck down would be nice, too.”
“I’m only one man, Les.”
“Fair enough.”
“Hey,” Mayflower said, stopping and locking down Grimsby’s eyes with his own. “You good?”
“Fine.”
“No. No ‘fines’ between us, boy. That good-for-nothing answer could get one of us killed.” His mossy granite eyes didn’t move, but he tilted down his shaded glasses. “Are you good?”
“Honestly?” he asked.
“Always,” Mayflower said.
“Well, seeing as how we’re sort of at the intersection of two of my most prevalent traumas, no. I’m not good. I want to run away screaming. I want to go home, and on my way home, stop by the mattress store and order a bed with the fastest shipping possible so that, by the time I get back, I’ll have something to hide under.”
The Last Rift Dragon by Shami Stovall
“Excited for the egg assignment today?” Zilvio coaxed the first sparks into flame.
“Excited,” I said. “Or nervous. I haven’t decided yet.”
Zilvio met my gaze. “The two are often the same thing at your age, Master Richter. It is how one carries them that makes the difference.”
Once we left the light, the darkness swallowed us whole. It was difficult to see anything. More than once, we tripped over the vegetation. Branches found their way to our face as though this forest had a sense of humor.
When I looked over my shoulder, I spotted four archers on the bone wall, firing at me. They used simple bows, and their aim was atrocious. They compensated for their poor skill with extremely fast shots, though.
The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook by Matt Dinniman
Kids aren’t always a product of their parents. But sometimes that doesn’t matter. Sometimes parents can cast a shadow so thick, you can drown in it.
I thought of what the late [redacted] had said to me, about being responsible for someone else. You don’t understand what that responsibility means, what a weight that is on your shoulders. And when you fail, it’s like being crushed, constantly crushed, only you don’t die. And the pain never stops. It just keeps coming and coming.
None of this made sense, but we were alive, for now at least, and we had each other, and that was something.
“What’s a prime number?” Donut asked, speaking for the first time. “It’s a math thing,” I said. “You learn about them in fourth or fifth grade, and then you don’t need to know about it ever again unless you become a mathematician. Or a math teacher.”
“I wasn’t just going to abandon you, Carl,” Donut said. “Who do you think I am? Miss Beatrice?”
“No,” I agreed. “You most definitely are not.”
Ms. Mebel Goes Back to the Chopping Bloc by Jesse Q. Sutanto
For a while, the only sounds in the room are Mebel’s sniffles. They don’t last long–they never do–Mebel doesn’t have the kind of attention span a good, long crying session quires.
Mebel has always thought of Paris with two exclamation marks following it. It’s never just Paris. It’s Paris!! Land of beauty and romance and dreams. When she thinks of London, she takes away one of the exclamation marks. London! Not as magical as Paris, but exciting in its own way.
It happens on a Thursday. Which feels doubly offensive, because all bad news should arrive on a Monday–everyone knows that.
But no, this piece of bad news not only has the audacity to swoop in on a Thursday, but also has the cheek to come in parading as good news.
Wool by Hugh Howey
Deputy Marnes would have liked to have seen this, she decided. He was an easy man to figure, one of those who had grown old everywhere but in his heart, that one organ he had never worn out because he’d never dared to use it.
The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett
“My dad always said a person needs three things to be happy: something to do; someone to love; and something to look forward to.”
“They’re not, Dad. Kids aren’t resilient. That’s something adults like to say to make themselves feel better. To pretend that kids don’t feel as deeply as adults do. But kids are everything that happens to them. They’re sponges. Everything bad, everything good. Every hurtful thing you say. Every loving one.”
The cat was amused at these two idiot humans talking about how unfair death is, when it’s one of the few things everyone gets. Death is a magnificent invention, the cat knew, because it’s the impermanence of life that makes it beautiful.
The Killer’s Mark by M.W. Craven
Cowie House was the weirdest building he’d ever worked in. It was a four-storey townhouse on the cobbled part of Fisher Street in Carlisle’s historic quarter, equidistant between the Kings Head — which Poe liked — and the Quaker Meeting House, which he wasn’t yet sure about (they seemed nice enough, but they got really upset if you used their car park without permission). It was a rickety old building, hotter than a jalapeño’s armpit in summer, colder than a polar bear’s toilet seat in winter. An eddy-like wind whistled through it at a whim, hurling into the air any paper that wasn’t weighted down. The floors were so uneven you got weird muscles in your lower legs keeping your chair still, and the staircase was so wonky it could only have been designed by a drunk.
Poe loved it.
If Cumbria was a week-old slice of bread, Carlisle would be the big green splat of mould in the middle. The kind that made you question the whole loaf. The antibiotic breakthrough waiting to happen. Surrounding the big green stinky splat would be the lesser moulds. The spores, the bluey-green spots with white edges. Some the size of pinheads, others the size of mouse turds. You wouldn’t throw away the loaf because of the mouse-turd spores, but you’d definitely pick them off. You might sniff the slice and say, ‘Maybe we should toast this?’
Even for Carlisle, Esmerée Blue stood out. She was fifteen years old and she had a nose ring, an eyebrow ring and a lip ring. Her ear had so many holes she could have used it as a sieve. Her make-up was French-clown white; her hair was black and purple and styled like she was in a Japanese cartoon. She wore scuffed DMs, ripped jeans and a Green Day hoodie. She looked like a cross between Siouxsie Sioux and Lisbeth Salander. And she didn’t give a rat’s ass.
Bradshaw reached over and patted Esmerée on the head. ‘Don’t worry, Esmerée; Poe will find out [redacted].’
‘How? [redacted].’
‘By doing what he usually does — upsetting people until they try to kill him.’
Poe nodded. He’d never intended it to work out that way, but he seemed to have a knack for provoking extreme responses.
Everyone Wants to Rule the World Except Me by Django Wexler by Django Wexler
I’ve always wondered where all the dragons were at. It seems like there should be dragons, dragons go with the whole post-Tolkien/Arthuriana/D&D fantasy zeitgeist like orca and Dark Lords and knights in shining armor. The Kingdom has legends about dragons, but they always take place in Olden Times, and in the modern days, giant flying reptiles are nowhere to be found. In the thousand years I’ve been kicking around, I’ve never seen a dragon. I might have even, from time to time, expressed the sentiment that I wanted to see one, or that getting eaten by a dragon would be a good death to add to my extensive catalog.
Right about now, I profoundly wish I could take those thoughts back.
“I know what I’m doing.”
Tsav rolls her eyes. “What in the course of our relationship could possibly give me that impression?”
I snort. “You know what, fair.”
(Image by DaModernDaVinci from Pixabay)
