Size / / /

I am the prologue, a symptom. See:
aliens turn sympathetic when moonstruck;
the villain is redeemed via softened heart
or a flashback to before loss broke it;
grouches get coaxed into caring then dating;
brutal monsters are people too, if they love
properly, since friendship is just a stopgap;
the frigid bitch, proven flawed, is thawed;
and of course even robots inevitably learn
what is this thing as they are humanised.

I thought my prologue was the confused teen,
the years wasted waiting to catch up, pretending,
wondering if she could ever become human,
her heart a stone unfeeling uncaring unflinching
despite her love for family, friends and life,
just because she could not feel attraction.
Thinking it past, now a numbered chapter,
confident and comfortable, I introduced myself.

No, not aromatic. No, just single, not single-cell.

They asked me what planet was I from
because all strangenesses are the same:
The one where they have neither women nor men
but aliens who are both and neither?
Because romance's opposite is sociopathy:
When will the police catch you?
Because I guess they never saw that interview:
But you don't have a brilliant scientific mind?

Because I was an inner conflict to resolve they
hit me with well-meaning, well-aimed insults,
got under my skin with tropes and diagnoses,
opened me up to see what scenes I was missing,
what had gone wrong in mother's womb.
I wasn't human, I wasn't human yet,
but they could fix me, they'd conclude
the prologue I didn't know I still was.

Even robots learn to be human.
That's the story they like best.

So they put metal in my head,
filling all the holes they said
they saw with wires clipped
to neurons receiving their scripts
and programs from transmitting
terminals permitting
manual override lest
malfunction means I regress
to that repressed, truncated state
and choose to leave my soul mate.

I was the prologue, a plight. See:
the circuitry installed to allow humanity;
requited love the reward for surviving my story;
and their happily-ever-after overwriting me.




Penny Stirling edits and embroiders in Western Australia. Their speculative fiction and poetry can be found in Lackington's, Interfictions, Heiresses of Russ, and other venues. For more of Penny's aromantic nonfiction visit their website or follow them on Twitter.
Current Issue
31 Mar 2025

We are delighted to present to you our second special issue of the year. This one is devoted to ageing and SFF, a theme that is ever-present (including in its absence) in the genre.
Gladys was approaching her first heat when she shed her fur and lost her tail. The transformation was unintentional, and unwanted. When she awoke in her new form, smelling of skin and sweat, she wailed for her pack in a voice that scraped her throat raw.
does the comb understand the vocabulary of hair. Or the not-so-close-pixels of desires even unjoined shape up to become a boat
The birds have flown long ago. But the body, the body is like this: it has swallowed the smaller moon and now it wants to keep it.
now, be-barked / I am finally enough
how you gazed on our red land beside me / then how you traveled it, your eyes gone silver
Here, I examine the roles of the crones of the Expanse space in Persepolis Rising, Tiamat’s Wrath, and Leviathan Falls as leaders and combatants in a fight for freedom that is always to some extent mediated by their reduced physical and mental capacity as older people. I consider how the Expanse foregrounds the value of their long lives and experience as they configure the resistance for their own and future generations’ freedom, as well as their mentorship of younger generations whose inexperience often puts the whole mission in danger.
In the second audio episode of Writing While Disabled, hosts Kristy Anne Cox and Kate Johnston welcome Farah Mendlesohn, acclaimed SFF scholar and conrunner, to talk all things hearing, dyslexia, and more ADHD adjustments, as well as what fandom could and should be doing better for accessibility at conventions, for both volunteers and attendees.
Issue 24 Mar 2025
Issue 17 Mar 2025
Issue 10 Mar 2025
By: Holli Mintzer
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
Issue 3 Mar 2025
Issue 24 Feb 2025
Issue 17 Feb 2025
Issue 10 Feb 2025
By: Alexandra Munck
Podcast read by: Claire McNerney
Issue 27 Jan 2025
By: River
Issue 20 Jan 2025
Strange Horizons
By: Michelle Kulwicki
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
Issue 13 Jan 2025
Load More