Borderlands 5 (2 page)

Okay, onward: we’d been planning get back to the editing business for a while now, and when we announced we were reading for
Borderlands 5
, we didn’t realize what that would
really
mean.

For one thing, we’d been told there was a whole new generation of readers out there who’d been chewing through
Goosebumps
when last we published an anthology, and we’d be as foreign and unknown to them as The Alan Parson Project. We honestly wondered what kind of response we’d get to our initial calls for submissions.

What kind indeed …

The last time we were reading, we may have received a handful of stories in digital format (i.e. on a floppy disk), but
none
by e-mail. However, earlier this year, within a week of our first announcement, we received more than
two hundred
stories to the borderlandspress.com inbox. Now, that was impressive on one level, but disappointing on another—one, we were surprised how many people wanted to be part of this project, but two, we were fairly certain all those stories hadn’t been written especially for
Borderlands
in just a week’s time.

We were right.

A large majority of the earliest stories we received proved to be inferior work that had been making the rounds, or worse, had been retired to a subdirectory for stories-rejected-by-just-about-everybody. Many of these submissions were from writers who most likely had never read any previous
Borderlands
anthologies, or hadn’t bothered to read the guidelines closely enough to discern what we were
not
looking for. It’s mind-numbing to see so many writers stuck in such a creative rut that they can think of nothing more challenging than
another
serial killer, or (even worse) a lowlife who goes around hurting people just so the writer can describe all the victims’ gaping wounds.

We also received far too many stories, which were obvious rejects from other “theme” anthologies looking for material around the same time as we. Hence the preponderance of stories where cockroaches made odd and sometimes totally nonsensical appearances. But our personal favorites were all the stories featuring that ethereal libation, absinthe—these tales usually followed a relentless plot that went something like this:
drank some absinthe, had some sex, killed somebody
. Can you say stunted imagination? We thought you could.

But as the weeks became months, and we worked our way through all the hastily-sent “trunk” stories, we began to see better fiction. Most of it arrived by e-mail, with a very small percentage through regular mail, and practically
no one
requiring the entire manuscript be returned. It seemed like we would sit down every evening to read ten or twelve stories, and every morning, there would be twenty
new
ones taking their place. It was incredible. We believed we were keeping up by reading submissions
every day,
but in reality, we began to get buried.

When we were approaching seven hundred submissions, we still had more than two hundred to read, and we had maybe room for five more stories. We had to push up the submission deadline … or we would
never
finish close to our original schedule. The plain fact was we’d been overwhelmed by the response. We were reading
nothing
in our lives other than stories for
Borderlands 5
, and we were holding up as well as a thatched roof in a monsoon.

The major reason this became an increasingly more challenging problem? We’d made a commitment to give every submission a fair reading, and make an attempt to provide honest criticism and real reasons why we were rejecting or accepting the story. In case you didn’t realize it, that takes a lot more time than just saying: “sorry, not quite right for us.” (Actually, we
did
say that in a very small percentage of the cases—only when a story was so completely not right, and we had
nothing
constructive to say.) Most of the time, we provided our writers with personalized responses, which is more feedback than they usually get.

Most writers seemed to recognize and appreciate our effort; we received lots of e-mails telling us our rejection notes were some of the most informative and helpful they’d ever received. Of course, we also got some snide responses (usually from veteran writers who assumed all they needed to do was send us
anything
and we’d accept it [we didn’t]), expressing their disagreement with our editorial opinion. Hey, that’s why America’s a great country .…

And while we’re doing such a bang-up job of complimenting ourselves, we should also tell you we made it a policy to not read when we were too tired or too distracted; every story deserved our best because we believed every writer had sent us
their
best. The quality of the writing was, in general, very high. It was the content which usually sank them. We had no idea how many writers would insist on sending us ghost stories … so many we could have easily gathered together a great anthology of nothing but apparitional tales. Maybe we will someday (no, just kidding about that one).

That’s about it. It’s almost time for the enclosed stories to start speaking for themselves. The essence of all this is pretty simple: the stories in this volume are stories
we
liked—for whatever reason. We’d like to think we’ve picked up and ran with the rallying cry of earlier volumes that
Borderlands
is pushing the boundaries of imaginative fiction.

It’s glad to be back. We hope you feel the same way.

—Elizabeth Monteleone

—Tom Monteleone

Grantham, New Hampshire

October 31, 2003

Rami Temporalis

GARY A. BRAUNBECK

During the Nineties, Gary A. Braunbeck had quietly become one of the field’s finest writers. His previous appearance in the Borderlands series, “Union Dues,” was a showcase for his talent—especially his ability to capture the range of human emotions so perfectly. In the story which follows, he offers us a gentle tale of wonder and originality.

“When I face myself I’m surprised to see

That the man I knew don’t look nothing like me …”

—
John Nitzinger
, “Motherlode”

I
t started with the woman in the restaurant and her hysterectomy story.

I was alone in my favorite booth at the Sparta, enjoying the last of my cheeseburger, when I happened to glance up.

“… and like I said before, she never listens to me—hell, she never listens to
anyone
when they try to tell her something for her own good. She’s been that way all her life and look what it’s got her.”

She was at a booth toward the back of the restaurant, while mine was up front on the same side; I sat facing the rear, she facing the front, so she was looking right at me and there was no place to hide.

“I kept telling her, ‘Sandy, your frame is too small to chance having another baby. You almost didn’t squeeze out little Tyler the first time, there’s no way you can have another one.’ I think she knew I was right but she wasn’t about to have an abortion, not with her Ronnie being the way he is—you know, all manly and pro-life: ‘No wife of mine is going to kill our baby. I’ll not have people gossiping about me like that.’”

Her tone suggested that the two of us had just resumed a previously-interrupted conversation. For a moment I thought she might be talking to someone seated across from her in the booth, a short person, or even a child—though why anyone would want to speak to a child about abortion was beyond me. I then thought she might be wearing one of those new cell phones, the type which you hang off your ear and have a small fiber-optic microphone, but, no: she was looking at and talking to me.

“I know she thinks I’m a dip-shit, but that girl has no idea how
terrible
he treats her. Or maybe she does and figures she ain’t gonna find a better man so she puts up with it for the kids.” She was on the verge of tears. “I mean, Ronnie
forced
her to have that second baby, even though he knew there was a chance it was going to … y’know,
mess up
her insides. She almost
died
. They had to do an emergency Caesarian, and by then she was so tore up there wasn’t no choice but to do a hysterectomy. She’s only twenty-three and now she’ll never be able to have more children—and Sandy
loves
children. She spoils that Tyler rotten, and she’ll do the same for little Katherine. But she …” The woman leaned forward; secret time. I found myself leaning toward her, as well.

“… she
bleeds
a lot sometimes,” she whispered. “Not her period—she don’t have those no more. It’s on account of her still being raw in there from everything. And
sex
—forget that. She don’t even want to
look
at Ronnie, let alone share her bed and body with him. But that doesn’t stop him, no sir. If
he
wants it, he takes it, and who cares if she’s doubled over with cramps and bleeding for two days after. She ain’t a wife to him, she’s just a possession, so to him it ain’t rape. Them kids don’t hardly exist for him at home—oh, if there’s an office party or picnic or something like that, he’s Robert Young on
Father Knows Best
, but the rest of the time …” She shook her head. “You know, I seen him just today. Walking into the Natoma restaurant with a woman from his office. Had his hand on her ass. ‘Working late on the new contract proposals’ my ass! And after all he’s done to her.”

“He …” I couldn’t believe I was asking this. “…
forces
her to … ?”

“All the time.”

“My God.” The whole of Sandy’s life suddenly played out in my mind and I felt soul-sick and ineffectual as I witnessed it; Sandy: underto uneducated (as so many young women in this city are), no dreams left, working nine hours a day in some bakery or laundry or grocery store, then coming home to a husband who didn’t much like her and children who—though she might love them and spoil them rotten now—would grow up following Daddy’s example to not much respect her, and before twenty-five she’d be wearing a scarf around her head to cover the prematurely gray hair, read only the saddest stories in the newspaper, and spend any free time she might have watching primetime soap operas and getting twelve pounds heavier with each passing year. I think I’d’ve known her on-sight, no introductions necessary.

“That poor girl,” I said.

“Sometimes,” the woman said, “I got half a nerve to just go over there with my truck and tell her to pack herself and the kids up and come stay with me. Maybe I should.”

“That sounds like a splendid idea.”

“
Does
it?” Look at how alive her eyes became when she heard this; goodness me, somebody actually thinks
I
had a splendid idea.

She finished her coffee, took the last bite of her apple pie, then gathered up her purse and resolve and walked up to me, her hand extended. “Thank you for listening to me.”

“You’re welcome.”

Still there were tears trying to sneak up on her. “I just feel so
bad
for her, y’know?”

“But she isn’t alone. She has you.”

Her grip tightened. “That’s the nicest thing anybody’s said to me in a while—and you’re right. She
does
have me. And I got a truck and she’s got the day off.”

“Ronnie’s working late, I take it?”

“Bastard’s
always
working late.” She smiled at me, then released my hand, leaned down, and kissed my cheek. “Thanks, mister. I really appreciate you lettin’ me go on about this. I hope it wasn’t no bother, it’s just, well … you just got one of those faces, y’know?”

One of those faces.

How many times in my life have I heard that?

I don’t avoid contact with strangers. It would do no good. They always come up to me.
Always.
Take any street in this city at a busy hour, fill it with people rushing to or from work or shopping or a doctor’s appointment, add the fumes and noises of traffic, make it as hectic and confusing as you wish—I am inevitably the one people will stop and ask for directions, or for the time, or if I know a good restaurant. “You got of those faces,” they’ll say. I have had homeless people politely make their way through dozens of other potential benefactors to get to me and ask for change. I always give what I can spare, and they always tell me they knew I’d help them out because—say it with me …