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  THE SUM OF US

  TALES OF THE BONDED AND BOUND

  LAKSA ANTHOLOGY SERIES: SPECULATIVE FICTION

  Edited by Susan Forest & Lucas K. Law

  LAKSA MEDIA GROUPS INC.

  www.laksamedia.com

  Laksa Anthology Series: Speculative Fiction

  EDITED BY SUSAN FOREST AND LUCAS K. LAW

  Strangers Among Us: Tales of the Underdogs and Outcasts

  The Sum of Us: Tales of the Bonded and Bound

  Shades Within Us: Tales of Global Migration and Fractured Borders (forthcoming)

  Seasons In Us: Tales of Identities and Memories (forthcoming)

  EDITED BY LUCAS K. LAW AND DERWIN MAK

  Where the Stars Rise: Asian Science Fiction & Fantasy

  The Sum of Us: Tales of the Bonded and Bound

  Laksa Anthology Series: Speculative Fiction

  Copyright © 2017 by Susan Forest and Lucas K. Law

  All rights reserved

  This book is a work of fiction. Characters, names, organizations, places and incidents portrayed in these stories are either products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual situations, events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Laksa Media Groups supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Laksa Media Groups to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  The sum of us : tales of the bonded and bound / edited

  by Susan Forest and Lucas K. Law.

  (Laksa anthology series: speculative fiction)

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-0-9939696-9-0 (softcover).—ISBN 978-1-988140-03-2

  (hardcover).—ISBN 978-1-988140-00-1 (EPUB).—ISBN 978-1-988140-01-8

  (PDF).—ISBN 978-1-988140-02-5 (Kindle)

  1. Science fiction, Canadian (English). 2. Fantasy fiction,

  Canadian (English). 3. Speculative fiction, Canadian (English).

  4. Caregivers—Fiction. 5. Mental health—Fiction. 6. Mental

  illness—Fiction. I. Forest, Susan, editor II. Law, Lucas K., editor

  PS8323.S3S86 2017 C813’.0876208353 C2016-907781-0

  C2016-907782-9

  LAKSA MEDIA GROUPS INC.

  Calgary, Alberta, Canada

  www.laksamedia.com

  [email protected]

  Edited by Susan Forest and Lucas K. Law

  Cover and Interior Design by Samantha M. Beiko

  Susan Forest

  To my husband,

  Don Totten,

  My steadfast and lifelong partner, without whom I would be lost;

  To my children and their partners and offspring,

  Heather Osborne, Alec Osborne, Holly Totten, and Amy Totten,

  Who continue to inspire me with their love and passion for life. And they promise to get me a very nice long term care facility on Mars, when the time comes (its true!).

  Lucas K. Law

  To my siblings,

  Adrian Law and Bibiana Law,

  and

  their families,

  Who I think of often and don’t spend enough time with;

  To my extended families,

  Feist, Keller, Scott, Tipton, and Yochim,

  For their generosity and kindness.

  They embody the true meaning of caring and sharing;

  To my good friend,

  Julie Laviolette,

  For the joy that Westhill brings all these years.

  Table of Contents

  FOREWORD - Lucas K. Law

  INTRODUCTION - Dominik Parisien

  The Dunschemin Retirement Home for Repentant Supervillains - Ian Creasey

  Bottleneck - A.M. Dellamonica

  Mother Azalea’s Sad Home for Forgotten Adults - James Van Pelt

  Things that Creep and Bind - Christie Yant

  The Gift - Bev Geddes

  The Gatekeeper - Juliet Marillier

  The Healer’s Touch - Colleen Anderson

  The Crystal Harvester - Brenda Cooper

  The Burdens We Bear - Hayden Trenholm

  A Mother’s Milk - Heather Osborne

  The Mother’s Keepers - Edward Willett

  The Oracle and the Warlord - Karina Sumner-Smith

  The Beautiful Gears of Dying - Sandra Kasturi

  The Gardener - Amanda Sun

  Number One Draft Pick - Claire Humphrey

  Orang Tua Adventure Home Academy - Charlotte Ashley

  Sunshine of Your Love - Nisi Shawl

  Good-bye Is That Time Between Now and Forever - Matt Moore

  Ambassador to the Meek - Alex Shvartsman

  Gone Flying - Liz Westbrook-Trenholm

  Am I Not A Proud Outlier? - Kate Story

  Blinders - Tyler Keevil

  Dreams As Fragile As Glass - Caroline M. Yoachim

  AFTERWORD - Susan Forest

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

  ABOUT THE EDITORS

  COPYRIGHT ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  APPENDIX

  foreword

  Lucas K. Law

  This summer, a pair of swallows built a nest in our cottage’s air vent. I had the pleasure of watching their family dynamic: Papa and Mama Swallow hunting insects—one remained behind with the little ones while the other searched for food. Swallows are equal partners when raising a family—nest building, incubating, feeding, caring. Wit wit calls of the chicks started around 7 a.m. and stopped just after sunset. This daily routine continued until the chicks left the nest. Papa and Mama Swallow didn’t push them out or leave them; it’s a full-package parenting from building a home to leaving the nest together.

  Caregivers are all around us. Some, like the swallows, seem to be part of the natural order. Others are stories of quiet heroism.

  My mother lost her mother when she was ten. At eleven, she had to leave her home to live in a boarding school since schooling was not available in her fishing kampong (about a day’s journey over the waters). Two years later, she moved into a rented shack to take care of her three younger brothers who came for schooling too (later, a fourth brother joined them). My grandfather, the village shopkeeper, could not join them because he had to earn a living. To be independent at such a young age was amazing and heartbreaking. Imagine the piles of laundry she had to do for the four boys—hand washing, line drying, ironing, folding—a constant chore. Difficult to keep them dry during the monsoon season. Life was tough; there were countless tears, but there was a lot of love bounded in that small shack.

  Caregiving can be a bonding. It can also test us, take us to our limits, and beyond.

  In the last few years, several of my relatives and friends have begun to suffer from various major impairments, most notably due to old age, diseases, and mental illness. They struggle, but through kindness and support from their families, friends, and strangers, they continue to fight valiantly—sometimes, they win; sometimes they lose. Sometimes, their carers fail to get support for themselves, limping along, trying to make the best of each day, their own health suffering. Sometimes, their journeys are solitary and lonely; sometimes they are ashamed of their own situations, not willing, or not having anyone, with whom to talk to or share the burdens. Either the caregiver or his charge—or both—may feel alone on this journey; not truly understood.

  These vignettes are important. We are all caregivers
, whether we recognize it or not. Of the infinite ways to show our commitment, which we choose is up to our imagination. The mental, emotional and spiritual impacts these choices bring often linger for the rest of our lives, shaping who we become.

  In the living room of my childhood home in Malaysia was an inspirational poster of a giant tree, as relevant today as it was forty years ago: Even the greatest tree on earth starts from a small seed.

  The genesis of this anthology comes from my mother’s girlhood experiences and from the continuation of the first anthology in this ‘social causes’ series, Strangers Among Us: Tales of the Underdogs and Outcasts—the amalgamation between caregiving and mental health. In The Sum of Us, Dominik Parisien and twenty-three authors give us a glimpse of caregiving, showing its importance in our lives, our families, our communities, our environment, and our world in their Tales of the Bonded and Bound. The authors take the sum of us, the best and the worst and everything in-between, and explore the world of the caregiver, bound with invisible bonds.

  We often forget this unsung hero in our society—who gives energy, time, and tears with no thought of thanks, invisible in the background or relegated to a footnote, quietly making a difference to those whom he or she touches. We want them, request them, look for them, expect them when we are tired, ill, or injured, seeking the comfort they bring, relying on them for support. But what if the caregiver needs caregiving too?

  So.

  Put this book down for a moment and give thanks to the caregivers in our lives; send a note or better yet, call that person and say hello. Sometimes a friendly word makes all the difference.

  Please support your local charitable organizations and take care of your own mental health. Be kind to yourself and to others. Be ready to give back and pay forward. A portion of this anthology’s net revenue goes to support Canadian Mental Health Association.

  —Lucas K. Law, Calgary and Qualicum Beach, 2017

  introduction

  Dominik Parisien

  Caregiving can feel like the province of ghosts.

  It is an ever-shifting world, a regular interplay of light and shadow, of long, sleepless nights and anxious days. It is a world of need.

  A great need—emotional, physical, psychological—may sum-mon a caregiver. It is often in those moments of illness, hurt, pain, that caregivers seem to manifest from amongst friends, family, or even strangers. They were there all along—caregivers surround us—but it is mainly in those moments of terrible need that we notice them.

  In a way, this is not surprising. Many of us think of caregivers as individuals on the periphery. We are the protagonists of our lives, and they assist us, they help us. We think of caregiving as a sort of existential Limbo, a role someone plays for a time—sometimes short, sometimes long—in our narrative. The matter is simple: caregivers are connected to our needs, and if those needs are resolved then the caregiver’s role and importance often shift. They become less of a focus. In addition, many of us do not like caregivers to linger, to remain in that mode, because caregiving involves what can be an uncomfortable truth: that we need help. It is often difficult admitting that.

  As a result, it is easy to let caregivers fade.

  It is not necessarily that we do not appreciate their support, though this is certainly the case for some. Rather, in our focus on ourselves we often fail to recognize the needs of the person fulfilling our needs. In missing some aspects of their humanity, we make caregivers a little ghost-like.

  The Sum of Us asks us to look beyond. It chronicles across multiple genres the lives of caregivers, their strengths and weaknesses, their dreams and personal doubts, their compassion and even their frustration. It lets us explore the worlds of those who navigate pain and healing, hope and despair, attachment and separation, recovery and death. It traces different modes and trajectories of caring, moments of caring or even lifetimes.

  The Sum of Us asks, “Who cares for the caregivers?” One part of the answer is—other caregivers. Another is you—the reader. By picking up this anthology you demonstrate that you care about caregivers, that you recognize their personhood, their inner lives, matter beyond the myriad of ways they can help you. Perhaps you are even a caregiver yourself; most of us are at some point in our lives, in some fashion.

  As an individual with a disability who has been surrounded by caregivers his entire life, and as someone who has done volunteer work with the elderly for years, I thank you for your attention to the caregivers in The Sum of Us.

  They matter, because their stories are yours, and mine, and all of ours.

  —Dominik Parisien, Wendover, 2017

  Co-editor of The Starlit Wood: New Fairy Tales(Saga Press)

  the dunschemin retirement home for repentant supervillains

  Ian Creasey

  Here we go again. Mornings in the Home always began the same way. No matter what time Stafford reached Anarcho’s room, Anarcho was invariably awake, waiting for Stafford to open the chintz curtains. But he never reprimanded Stafford for being late or wasting time. In the old days, Anarcho had been as impatient as all supervillains, ever eager to pursue some cunning scheme. Now there was no rushing and shouting and clanking; no messy experiments left bubbling overnight; no lairs to build or dungeons to dust.

  Today’s tasks were more homely. Stafford pulled back the duvet to reveal Anarcho’s shrunken frame, tinged green from over-exposure to tachyons. First came the bathroom routine: toilet, sponge wipe, shave, and so forth. Then the mechanical maintenance: eye lube, claw sharpen and polish, exobrain defrag and reboot. These prosthetics were all obsolete. Anarcho was the Home’s oldest resident, his life convoluted by time travel.

  “Attention all residents,” the intercom blared. “Please report for roll call in the lounge. This is not a drill; the perimeter alarm has sounded. Urgent roll call!”

  “Sounds like mischief,” Stafford said. “I presume it’s not yours.”

  He didn’t expect an answer. For form’s sake, he checked the control panel on Anarcho’s wheelchair but saw nothing. It had been years since Anarcho’s last caper.

  Stafford couldn’t decide whether he missed the old days. Back then, life had felt too frenetic, with a never-ending list of chores; every new plot always needed its own elaborate control room, destruct mechanism, and escape tunnel. Yet he’d enjoyed the craftsmanship of building vast laboratories and sinister machines. Now the chores were mundane: the new enemy was incontinence. Had all those intrigues been for naught?

  “Let’s get you down there,” he said.

  He settled Anarcho into the motorized wheelchair and draped a tartan blanket over his knees. The blanket lacked even the most basic hidden enhancements: no blast-proof shielding, no explosive tassels, not even a hypnotic fractal pattern on the reverse. It was merely 100% wool, soft and warm.

  The Home bustled with activity as the residents and their carers converged on the lounge. Stafford ducked aside as Madame Mayhem and Miss Rule zoomed past on their hoverchairs, racing each other along the corridors. Proceeding more sedately, Stafford and Anarcho were the last to arrive.

  “Hurry up!” roared Betty Beast. “I’m missing breakfast for this.”

  “Oh, I’ll get us some breakfast,” said Doctor Havoc. With a well-practiced dramatic gesture, he conjured puffs of blue smoke from his hand. The clouds of nanites drifted through the kitchen doorway, returning with toast and mushrooms. One blue globule collided with a hoverchair and tried to drag it back, to Madame Mayhem’s furious protests. She retaliated by stealing slices of toast before the smoke took them to Doctor Havoc. In the tussle, stray mushrooms fell to the floor, where three of Legion’s tiny scuttling avatars scooped them up.

  “Hush!” cried Matron. “Stop playing with your food.”

  A tall, spindly woman dressed in an old-style black-and-white nurse’s uniform, Matron seemed to glare at everyone simultaneously. “Please answer the roll call, and I’d better not hear any cackling. Phipps will physically check that everyone’s her
e. No decoy holograms!”

  Stafford said, “What do you reckon, Anarcho—is it an escape or a kidnap?” Some supervillains couldn’t bear retirement and returned to the metropolis like grizzled rock stars craving one last comeback.

  Matron called out, “Narinder Atwal.”

  “Here,” said Doctor Havoc. “And hungry!”

  Phipps, Matron’s diminutive assistant, touched Doctor Havoc’s shoulder to verify his existence. Coincidentally—or not—a blue puff of smoke swirled into Phipps’ face and made him sneeze.

  “Sophie Béranger.” Matron only ever used civilian names; she insisted that every retired supervillain must abandon their alias along with their antics. While no-one openly defied her, many surreptitiously clung onto their monikers and misbehaviour.

  “Here,” replied Madame Mayhem, her fingers idly stroking a memorial necklace of fangs from Fidosaurus, her deceased pet dinosaur.

  The roll call continued until it reached, “Russell Fletcher.”

  Stafford waited a few seconds, then pinged Anarcho’s exobrain.

  “I’m here, wherever this is,” Anarcho said, his voice low and hoarse.

  “It ain’t heaven, that’s for sure,” said Doctor Havoc.

  “Come sit on my hoverchair, and I’ll show you heaven,” Madame Mayhem purred.

  The supervillains dissolved into giggles until Matron raised her voice to resume the roll call, which ended with no absentees—or none detected.

  “That’s reassuring,” said Matron, addressing the group. “But what set off the alarm? I’ve checked the video, and most of the outside cameras are obscured. It’s remarkable how fast the ivy grows in our grounds. Quite remarkable indeed.” She stared at the motley reprobates. “If anyone knows anything, please enlighten us.”