Volume three of our Far, Far Away series brings seven authors together to put a spotlight on stories of marginalized love.
Step across the galaxy to a world where love defies gender, race, and the outbreak of war. Fight for love of all kinds when the well-being of family and friends are threatened by magic power-tools. Witness an unlikely and dangerous affair between a god and his human handler. Then learn the meaning of self-love through the lived experience of a sentient Sapphire.
Through these powerful, unique tales, love is revealed to be the ultimate risk, it gives you purpose when the world turns dark and strange, and it proves time and again that it crosses all barriers, whether they are those of culture, time, distance, or strife. In this collection, love really does conquer all.
Do It Yourself
by Titania Blesh
To my best friend
Dad keeps telling me I need to think
positive, even when everything is going to hell.
So here you go: the PowerTool
about to pierce my jugular is an electro-titanium drill worth more than my
life. And it’s being wielded by none other than Loris Bae, my first crush when
I was still a teenage girl stressed out by puberty hormones.
Yeah, Dad would be so proud of my
positivity, if only he wasn’t about to be devoured. And if only my plan to save
him hadn’t just gone to hell thanks to this jerk with the coolest drill on the
construction site.
Outside my makeshift shelter of
paint cloths and overturned bricks serving as chairs, the drizzle drums against
the abandoned buildings of the city. Trying to appear as non-threatening as
possible, I prop myself up with my elbows on the bags of mortar previously
serving as my lookout just a moment ago. Yeah, lying on my stomach. Not the
best position to be found in, in a world gone to hell so spectacularly.
“Only a noob gets caught with
their back turned, you know, Aurora?” The tip of the drill caresses my trachea.
Noob. This moron still thinks
he’s in the middle of a LOL II match, but the only thing at stake this time are
our lives. And the lives of the people I was trying to save, a moment before I
was caught off guard like a chicken.
I can sense two people shifting
behind me, the zooming of two energy Orbs powering their Tools right above
their heads.
I have to play smart.
“I must admit it…you and your
team have managed to equip yourselves surprisingly well.” I only move my eyes
and rest them on Dremel’s circular saw, pointed too close to my kneecaps for my
liking. I’m sure the rest of the gang is lurking nearby, the sadistic guy with
the welder and that creepy woman with the pneumatic sandblaster.
“Do you think flattery will
soften me up?” Loris leans over me and the piercings on his eyebrow glisten in
the light of his floating Orb. “Where do you and the other noobs of your team
keep your supplies?”
I try to crack a smile, even from
my prone and undeniably disadvantaged position. Because ‘a smile solves all
problems’, Dad would say. Damn optimistic guru.
But hell, do I miss him.
“Listen, can we put our rivalries
on hold?” I point to the crumbling square in front of us. Beyond a concrete
mixer frozen in time, under a crane crumpled like an old dying man… there is
the cistern.
A cylinder so rusty it weeps
tears of blood with every drop of rain rolling down its surface.
Loris lets out a laugh that is
somewhere between nervous and sardonic. “If you get close, you’re dead. It’s
one of their lairs.”
As if I didn’t know that.
Positive vibes. Positive vibes.
“Listen, Loris.” I stare at the
dried paint on the sleeve of his overalls. “We can share the supplies. Let me
put in a good word with Siria, and once we get our folks out of—”
“My folks are already dead, like
most of them.” He points to the cistern with his head and his jaw hardens.
“They already spat them out, little more than bones.”
A nasty chill grips my stomach,
but I have to be optimistic. I have to. Dad would never forgive me otherwise.
“I know, Loris, it sucks, and Siria has lived through this same tragedy, too.
And that’s why I believe that—”
“Your bitch of a leader would eat
her own Orb rather than share a crumb with us.”
I open my mouth to object, but
he’s fuming and his Orb crackles in response to his mood.
“And then, collaborate with your
band of losers?” He turns to Dremel as if to seek support, but he remains
silent and apathetic as always, dull-grey eyes under heavy eyelids. “Come on,
what about that noob with the weed whacker?”
Hey, Hermes’s weed whacker is a
top-notch PowerTool. Even though there are no more lawns to weed. Even though
he’s probably waiting for me to attack the cistern as we planned, but instead
I’m here with a high-end PowerTool tickling the back of my neck.
But there’s no time for this
kindergarten bickering.
They’re coming back. The
inarticulate cries echo among the buildings under construction, growls of
voracity threatening to tear away the little composure I have left since they
took all the adults. Uncles, grandparents, teachers. Everyone who had enough Orb
energy to drain.
We should be fighting for our
folks, for the ones who are left alive, but Loris seems stuck in perpetual primary school recess. Or in a
state of loss too violent to really process. I wonder if it will happen to me too,
if—or when—they devour Dad.
I stare back at the cistern. The
urgency makes my hands tremble, and my Orb crackles with electricity. It hovers
near my ear, a buzzing sphere discharging yellow-white bolts. Loris shoos it
away with his elbow, but a moment later the Orb drifts back to my head.
“And anyway, what do you think
you’re gonna do against them, without a PowerTool?” He grabs me by the back of
my overalls and lifts me up, placing the drill between my shoulder blades. I
stumble over a pile of broken tiles, my ears burning with shame. Dremel takes a
step back, points the miter saw down, and with a gesture of his chin he shoos
away the Orb glowing brightly at the side of his cheek.
Loris gives me a shove. “Either
your Tool sucks like your team’s, or you’re an idiot. Only an idiot would go
places without the most important thing they own.”
“And yet you go about without a
brain, Loris Bae,” a voice rings out from behind some rotten plywood panels,
“but I don’t hear anyone making a fuss about it.”
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