Apparition Lit, Issue 7: Retribution (July 2019)

By ApparitionLit

Welcome to the seventh issue of Apparition Lit! This quarter’s theme was Retribution. These aren't your usual stories about retaliation! This issue is loaded with tales of fantastical beasts, spiritual awakenings, and green revenge in space.

EDITORIAL
*A Word from Our Editor by Clarke Doty

SHORT FICTION
*Our Roots Devour by Lora Gray
*Dead Meat by Maria Haskins
*His Heart is the Haunted House by Aimee Ogden
*The Wolf of Pendarvis by Genevieve Sinha

POETRY
*Sea Witch from the Deep by Ellen Huang
*Abeona, Goddess of Outward Journeys, pilots the interstellar ark by Nisa Malli

INTERVIEW
*Artist Interview with buboplague

ESSAY
*Planting the Seed: From Now and Then to Beneath a Sugar Sky by Rebecca Bennett

Apparition Lit is a quarterly speculative fiction magazine that features short stories and poetry. We publish original content with enough emotional heft to break a heart, with prose that’s as clear and delicious as broth.

New issues will be published each January, April, July, October.

• Language: English
• Publisher: ApparitionLit
• Release date: Jul 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463919460

ApparitionLit

Apparition Lit is a quarterly speculative fiction magazine that features short stories and poetry. We publish original content with enough emotional heft to break a heart, with prose that’s as clear and delicious as broth. Every issue of Apparition Lit includes:*Editorial from the staff*Four short stories that meet the quarterly theme*Two poems that meet the quarterly theme*Interview with the Cover Artist*Nonfiction EssayNew issues will be published each January, April, July, October.

Book preview

Table of Contents

Editorial

A Word from our Editor by Clarke Doty

Short Fiction and Poetry

Our Roots Devour by Lora Gray

Dead Meat by Maria Haskins

Sea Witch from the Deep by Ellen Huang

His Heart is the Haunted House by Aimee Ogden

The Wolf of Pendarvis by Genevieve Sinha

Abeona, Goddess of Outward Journeys, pilots the interstellar ark by Nisa Malli

Interview

Artist Interview with buboplague

Essay

Planting the Seed: From Now and Then to Beneath a Sugar Sky by Rebecca Bennett

Thank You to Our Sponsors

Past Issues

A Word from our Editor

by Clarke Doty

Inigo is the best character in The Princess Bride (and if you disagree, you’re wrong). His long-pursued retribution is so satisfying. He never gives up, never lets go of that anger. He earns that revenge moment. And I’ve never related to him more than I have in the past two months. On May 17, my mom died. Like many mother-daughter relationships, ours had its share of conflict. But there was also a lot of love there, and her death was too fast, and I’m still angry. Those Kubler-Ross stages of grief don’t always come in any particular order. I could bounce around all five of them in one day, which is exhausting, but anger seems to be the stage where I spend the most time.

If Grief is the concept album I dropped two months ago and Anger is my hit single, Retribution is that weird track a lot of people skip, that the radio won’t play, but is super relatable to a handful of similarly angry listeners. These past few weeks have been filled with revenge-themed daydreams, nightmares, and intrusive thoughts. And these thoughts get pretty dark. 

A little backstory: My mom had a wonderful oncologist who retired. His replacement was a smug prick who would come into the exam room talking about the wrong patient and leave the room while my mother was still trying to ask questions. She told me she felt ignored and didn’t trust him. I encouraged her to get a new oncologist. But due to her habit of often putting others’ feelings before her own (she didn’t want to be rude) with a bit of Keeping Up Appearances and a touch of Don’t Question the Doctor, my mother did not fire his ass. This guy also ignored my requests to scan her belly. She was diagnosed with carcinoid cancer in her GI tract years ago, they couldn’t get it all with surgery and radiation, so they monitored her and focused on managing her symptoms. The new oncologist treated her recent breast cancer but ignored all the symptoms that screamed progression of carcinoid cancer—severe abdominal pain, diarrhea and dehydration, vomiting and malnutrition, can’t-get-out-of-bed-today weakness, dizziness and falls, edema… This picture’s caption would read, Hey, your cancer has spread, and now your liver and kidneys aren’t working so good, nor is the rest of your body. Had the oncologist listened to us, I don’t think there would have been anything they could do treatment-wise to change the progression of disease. But she didn’t have to suffer like she did. She could have had hospice more than just the four days before she died. She could have had pain relief and end-of-life support and maybe even a fucking bucket list. We could have prepared her grandchildren. We could have…

And here I go again down the anger spiral. See why? At my angriest, I want to ruin his life. I hope he gets cancer and has an oncologist who doesn’t listen to him and dies a horrible, painful, lonely death. At my pettiest, I still want to ruin his life, just in a different way. I hope he loses his medical license in an embarrassing scandal and his income plummets and his wife leaves him and his children have to go to public school with the rest of us commoners. And his doctor golf club kicks him out, which is probably the worst thing he can imagine, since he clearly has no empathy for people with cancer. I want to pursue him across land and sea, suffer and persevere, stay angry, and earn my retribution. And when he begs for mercy, I’ll say, I want my mother back, you son of a bitch just like Inigo. In a weird way, that anger is comforting. It’s something to hold onto that makes me feel righteous rather than powerless. I would never actually do any of these things. I spend plenty of time with those other stages of grief, even moments of Acceptance. I’ll eventually be less angry and vengeful, and I’m doing the work, as my shrink says. But for now, I think wishing for retribution is probably part of the healing. 

Retribution can take many forms. The stories and poems of this issue are all different approaches to the theme and all equally powerful and moving. 

Our Roots Devour by Lora Gray (@LoraJGray): This young protagonist had my heart from page one, and I could read a trilogy of novels about these two sisters. I may have teared up at the end.

Dead Meat by Maria Haskins (@mariahaskins): If Rhea and Gaby were real people, I would convince them to be my friends and I’d listen to their banter all day everyday. The imagery in this story is so wonderfully creepy, and the story’s retribution is [spoilers redacted]. I wish I could read this for the first time again!