Josh Roseman - The Clockwork Russian and Other Stories

She turned to him. “I did it.”

He always said that to her, and she always said that to him. When they’d first met, Wen had been fiercely shy, especially under his attentive stare — “I was there when they brought you aboard,” he’d said; “I helped save you.” — but now they’d become friends and Salzman spent at least half his off-shifts with Wen, playing games or just talking.

And on those moments when the guilt came, when Wen broke down in sobs and asked him why she’d been the only one to survive, Salzman — his first name was Shael — held her hand and passed her tissue after tissue.

Today, though, was a good day. Today, Wen smiled at Shael. Today, Shael smiled back.

Today, Wen was alive.

When Crossed Genresput out their call for stories about overweight women as protagonists, I knew immediately that I wanted to submit to the anthology, which was called Fat Girl in a Strange Land . While I am not a girl, I do know intimately what it’s like to be overweight, and I felt confident I could parlay that into a realistic female character. What I ended up with was a story that had some similarities to the escape from Crematoria in The Chronicles of Riddick , although given that our own sun’s heat and solar radiation could kill us if we got too close to it, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to suggest that there are other planets in the galaxy that would do the same.

I had a wonderful experience working with editor Kay Holt on the story; she pointed out several places where I could tighten, clarify, expand, and improve, and she was willing to listen and discuss when I said I wanted to keep something a certain way. It’s one of the many reasons why I still submit stories to Crossed Genres magazine.

I often have difficulty coming up with names for characters. Sometimes I’ll mine my Facebook feed, but for Shael Salzman, I mashed up two musicians who remix video game music. I’ve also used the name Shael in other works, which hopefully you’ll get to read someday. If I ever finish them.

Rex sat quietly in the middle of the clubhouse, swinging his head from side to side. His brown eyes were large and uncomprehending. The only reason he’d come in the first place was because his human, Sam, had told him to. Rex would follow Sam anywhere, no leash required. And right now, Sam was sitting beside Rex, petting his back gently.

“Okay,” Sam said. “We’re ready. Do it.”

Rex didn’t like how nervous his human sounded. He made a small noise and laid his head on Sam’s leg.

A couple of the other humans lit candles with smelly matches, and a girl human who sometimes made Sam’s heart beat faster — Rex could hear it — opened a big, old, musty book.

“It’s not going to work.” One of the humans, Steven, whispered that to Sam’s friend Ricky, one of the most interesting-smelling humans Rex had ever met. Ricky also belonged to Rex’s friend Bull, and Rex and Bull liked to play together at the park. “She’s just BS-ing us.”

“I am not!” Rex’s ears fluttered; he didn’t like the girl human’s voice when she got loud. “If you don’t think I can do it, why don’t you just… just leave!” Rex smelled the girl starting to sweat and he thumped his tail on the clubhouse floor. He couldn’t help it; when someone yelled, he wanted them to be happy, and maybe if he was happy, they would be happy too.

The girl didn’t get any happier. She just cleared her throat and started saying words Rex had never heard before.

The words made Rex’s fur itch. He stirred, but Sam put his hand on Rex’s shoulders and shushed him. “It’s okay, boy. It’s okay.”

Rex knew those words, but he didn’t feel “okay”. He started barking, loud as he could, trying to make the girl stop talking.

She wasn’t stopping.

Rex rolled onto his back, exposing his throat and his belly, hoping the girl would realize he was giving up, that she could stop what she was doing.

It didn’t work. She just kept saying those strange words, over and over.

When the wind blew out the candles, Rex bolted, shoving his way past the humans in front of the clubhouse door and running for the woods. He barked the whole time, trying to get someone’s attention — maybe Bull could hear him, or the big humans who told Sam what to do.

Suddenly, Rex’s legs didn’t want to work right; he tripped over his paws and went face-first into the dirt. He barked once more, then kicked out, trying to get up.

He felt strange. He felt uncomfortable — his back was bent in a new way, and his legs, too. He couldn’t hear right, and nothing smelled the same. But he could see now, much better than before.

Rex was so stunned by the changes that he didn’t notice the humans until they’d caught up to him and were standing over him. One of the boys laughed and pointed. “You can see his thing!”

The girl punched the boy’s shoulder. “Shut up, Terry!”

“You shut up…” He paused, then narrowed his eyes. “Beverly.”

The girl’s fist slammed into Terry’s nose. Terry fell on his backside, clutching his face. “You bitch!”

“My name,” she snarled, standing over him, “is Lee! Get it through your stupid head!” She kicked Terry’s leg, then turned to Rex and draped an old blanket over him. “Sorry about that.”

Rex tried to lick Lee’s hand and she jerked away. Rex cocked his head and looked up at her, confused: she’d never minded before. “Lee!” he barked, then pawed at his muzzle. His voice sounded strange.

And his nose felt even stranger! Rex scrambled backward, leaving the blanket behind. Terry laughed, but Lee ignored him as she came closer. “Rex, it’s okay,” she cooed. “Calm down. It’s okay, I promise.”

“No!” he barked. Why did he sound like this? Why was he barking like the humans? “No!” He got up on his haunches. “Bad Terry. Bad Lee.” He sniffed. “Sam?”

“Sam’s in the clubhouse,” Lee said. She’d snatched up the blanket and was holding it up. “Come with me. I’ll take you to Sam.”

“Sam!” Rex jumped to his feet and trotted over to Lee, who wrapped the blanket around his waist. “No,” he whined. “No.”

“Yes, Rex.” She tucked the blanket together like Sam when he put bandannas around Rex’s neck. It wasn’t so bad, but he wanted to cover himself with his tail. The blanket felt rough on parts that had only known fur before. “Come.”

Rex came. He quickly figured out how to walk on only two legs, a trick Sam had tried to teach him but he’d never been able to do until now. He kept sniffing, but his nose only made out grass and the dirt on his face. He could plainly see the clubhouse as they got closer, but he couldn’t smell the wood, or the candles, or the glossy pages of the magazines Ricky hid in a box in one corner. “Confused,” he barked softly.

He was even more confused when he saw himself sitting in the clubhouse, a leash hooked to his collar and tied around the leg of an ancient wooden table. “Me!”

He — that is, the other dog who was Rex — barked loudly and strained to reach Rex, but was brought up short by the leash and tumbled to the floor with a choked-off whine. Rex sniffed the dog, who licked his face. He looked up at Lee. “Me?”

“That’s Sam,” Lee said. She squatted on her haunches and stroked the black-and-white fur of the dog’s head. The dog — and it didn’t smell at all like Sam; it smelled, to Rex, like himself — squirmed as far out of reach as it could, belly to the floor, tail flat. “I’m sorry,” she said to them both. “I really didn’t think it would work. I thought I was just going to scare everyone!”