Amber Sparks: May We Shed These Human Bodies

IV. Head out the door and stop for a moment; notice the copse of trees to your left and the town on your right. Remember how far you've never been before, notice the dead trees among the living and hope this is not a bad omen. Shudder slightly. Turn right. Find the dark magician in his foreclosed exurban home, anddo battle. If you survive, leave the house and take the second left. Drive twenty miles to the nearest gas station and while you are filling up, find a tearful old lady who begs you to catch the thief who stole her purse. Explain that you are not the police, and that you are on a quest, but feel so sorry for the old woman, who reminds you of your grandmother back home, that you give chase anyway. Catch the thief, who turns out to be a servant of the dark magician. Find out from him where his boss’s lair is now located. Turn left. Drive ten miles through darkening, dense air and roll up your windows when the smog starts to push in. Continue to drive, seeking the lair but lost, mapless, blind, unsure of what to do or where to go and positive you've made all the wrong choices. Blame the old lady, blame the thief, blame your father for not stopping you, and your girlfriend for urging you on. Cry like a girl. Be glad no one can see you, but of course this is a quest and so everything is public. Everyone is watching. Everyone is waiting for you to get on with it. Get on with it.

III. Wizards use many weapons with varying degrees of proficiency, but do not use armor or shields. A wizard casts spells, which must be chosen and prepared ahead of time. A wizard need not be strong, but a wizard must possess intelligence, and rest well before casting spells. A wizard may purchase a familiar, to assist him with magical tasks and provide companionship. A wizard may also present magical boons and tokens to help the hero on his journey, if the wizard so chooses. The wizard may not interfere with the hero's quest in any other way, though out of love and loyalty the wizard may choose to say the hell with it, and join the hero in saving the world or doing his best to try.

II. It starts with a stranger, or a close friend, but never a casual acquaintance. There must be something impassioned about the relationship, a love or a danger or both. There must be something to prove to this messenger, this strange herald who is unable to take up the task and must pass it on to another. Fate must choose, or judgment must choose, or love must choose, or all three in conjunction with the right or wrong planets. The new hero must be very lucky, or very unlucky, or perhaps he does not believe in luck at all. Perhaps he has already decided, long ago, that if such an offer were made he would grab at the chance. Perhaps he has sought such an offer. Perhaps he has fastened his hopes tight to this day, has kept watch for the moment when his best friend's eyes, or a stranger's eyes, or his father’s or uncle’s or brother's eyes move heavenward, just slightly, before coming to rest on the hero’s ready shoulders at last.

I. The hero who is not yet the hero sits on a hill near a pasture, thinking of brighter things than cows and corn. He fills his dreams with sports cars, with travel, with books that look different than the books here, and women who look different from the women here. He flicks his lighter, tips his cigarette with fire. He sighs to see his father approaching. The day will be ordinary, he supposes, like every day. The day will be chores, one big chore to forget and resume tomorrow.

The hero who is not yet the hero watches his father and worries he is starting to resemble him. He worries his life will be tedium, corn and cows, bills, endless mouths to feed, worry lines etched deep into a sun-spotted brow. But he doesn't worry too much; he changes the channel in his head and thinks of his girlfriend's hair, bright gold in the sun and sparkling like champagne. Of her eyes, blue and round as marbles. Of her breasts, downy and small. He thinks he could stick around for breasts like those.

He smiles and takes a last drag, grinds the cigarette butt into the soft dirt, watches the sun creep up into the sky, little by little. He thinks, yes, it would be worth it, to stick around here for his girl, for his father, for sunrises like these. For the beginnings of days to cycle back around and renew themselves, warm as embers, familiar already as home on the day he came into this world.

This book owes its existence to many human bodies. Please keep in mind that since I am an imperfect human body, I will almost certainly leave people off this imperfect list. If I’ve left you off, please know that I am almost certainly still overflowing with gratitude toward you.

Thank you first and foremost to the editors and staff at the following publications where these stories first appeared: Unsaid, elimae, Bust Down the Door and Eat all the Chickens, New Dead Families, Annalemma, Necessary Fiction, trnsfr, Bluestem, matchbook, Buffalo’s Art Voice, A Capella Zoo, Splinter Generation, Wigleaf, Corium, Everyday Genius, Tiny Hardcore Press, decomP, Storyglossia, Smokelong Quarterly, The Collagist, Titular, Gargoyle and Paycock Press, Dark Sky, and Barrelhouse . (David, Brandon, Bradley, Zack, Christopher, Steve, Alban, Roxane, Edward, Greg, Colin, Alan, Scott, Lauren, Adam and Alec, Jason, Anne and Steven, Tara, Matt, Reynard, Richard, Brian and Kevin and Christy and Gabe, and Dave, I hold you responsible for this book starting to be a thing.)

Thank you to Greg Gerke, Michael Kimball, Jen Michalski, Kirsty Logan, Michelle Reale, Paula Bomer, Christopher Newgent, Scott Garson, JA Tyler, Molly Gaudry, Mark Cugini, Amelia Gray, Ben Loory, Jason Jordan, xTx, Sal Pane, Mel Bosworth, John Madera, Tom Williams, and all the writers and editors and readers and blurbers and reading series organizers and all-round terrific human beings who made me feel welcome right away in what for me has been a brave new world.

Thank you to Dave Housley and Roxane Gay for more or less introducing me to that world and helping me find my footing there so many times.

Thank you to my wonderful editors and all the staff at Curbside Splendor. You’ve made this the best, most positive experience I could imagine and I couldn’t ask for a more supportive or hard-working team.

Thank you to Alban Fischer for making my book gorgeous and perfect and exactly what I’d somehow wanted it to be without knowing what that was.

Thank you to Robert Kloss, Matt Bell, Lauren Becker, Steve Himmer, and Erin Fitzgerald for being such fine readers and editors and writers and teachers and collaborators and cheerleaders and mentors and truth-tellers and most of all, friends. I owe you guys more beers than we will ever have time to drink.

Thank you to Loki, Neela, Vesta, and Ilsa, the non-humans who hung out in all the highest places of my life while I was writing this book.

Thank you and so much love to my mom and dad, who wish that I wrote happier stories, but who have always been unendingly supportive and proud of my melancholy madness just the same.

And thank you most of all to Chris, who’s had to put up with me for nine years now and has somehow managed to be nothing but encouraging and steadfast and awesome. He is, and always has been, my better half.

AMBER SPARKS’s fiction has been widely published in journals and anthologies, including New York Tyrant, Unsaid, Gargoyle, Barrelhouse , and The Collagist . This is her first full-length short story collection. She lives in Washington, D.C. Find her at

www.ambernoellesparks.com and on Twitter @ambernoelle