This week we’re focusing on stories that are difficult to label. What makes a piece genre, literary, science-fiction, or fantasy? Sometimes it can be difficult to pinpoint and often, it doesn’t even matter. We encountered Logan Murphy’s “Unabomber for President” during submissions for our printed anthology, and are pleased to be publishing his work here, as it serves our genre examination well. Dungeons and Dragons fans, you have met your author.
Image credit: BoiseBoneDaddy
Unabomber for President
by Logan Murphy
An icosahedron is a type of polyhedron made up of twenty identical equilateral triangular faces, forming thirty edges and twelve vertices along their paths of intersection. The particular icosahedron in my hand was fabricated from a process of plastic injection molding, with green swirling resin patterns in its subsurface and golden numbers indented just into the top layer.
It falls on the floor when the door to the house swings open and hits the leg of the card table. Jas stands up from the table wiping spilled drink off her shirt and throwing swears, and Duck and Rab and Travis just sit there motionless looking at Mr. Kilgore in his sweatpants and plastic sandals fuming in the doorway, and Mr. Kilgore looks at the dice scattered all over the garage floor, and the stack of old paperbacks keeping the table straight, and he takes another drink of his beer, narrows his eyes, and yells, “I thought it was Monday!” at a socially unacceptable volume.
During the event, a piece of paper titled “Jariel Frostborn, Mistress of the High Hand” falls into my lap. Mr. Kilgore is for sure drunk; I’m looking him right in the eye but it’s like he isn’t registering my presence. Like there’s something just behind my brain stem that he’s intensely in love with and can’t look away from, but I just happen to be in his way, so I say, “Mr. Kilgore.”
“You here on a Monday?” he asks.
“No, Mr. Kilgore,” I say.
To read the rest of the story, click here.
If you missed last week’s Short Story Month content, all is not lost. Check out original fiction by Blake Kimzey, an interview on flash fiction with Ashley Farmer, and an editorial discussion about short forms, all on the blog!