TRIPPING
THE TALE
FANTASTIC
***
ALSO BY THE EDITOR
Bug: Deaf Identity and Internal Revolution
All Your Parts Intact: Poems
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TRIPPING
THE TALE
FANTASTIC
weird fiction by deaf and
hard of hearing writers
CHRISTOPHER JON HEUER
EDITOR
Handtype Press
Minneapolis, MN
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Michael R. Collings’s “In the Haunted Darkness” first appeared in World Horror Convention 2012—Souvenir Book (March 2012).
Willy Conley’s “The Ear” first appeared in Kristen Harmon and Jennifer Nelson’s anthology Deaf American Prose — 1980-2010 (Gallaudet University Press, 2012).
David Langford’s “Hearing Aid” first appeared in SF in Practical Computing (London, October 1982 in a badly mutilated form; reprinted in full in Phoenix magazine, Wantage, August 1983).
Kristen Ringman’s story “The Meaning, Not the Words” comes from her book I Stole You: Stories from the Fae (Handtype Press, 2017).
DISCLAIMER
Each story contained within is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner.
COPYRIGHT
Tripping the Tale Fantastic: Weird Fiction by Deaf and Hard of Hearing Writers.
Copyright © 2017 by Christopher Jon Heuer.
Cover Artwork and Design: Mona Z. Kraculdy
Editor Photograph: Michelle McAuliffe
SMASHWORDS LICENSE STATEMENT
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
All rights reserved. No part of this book can be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission. Please address inquiries to the publisher:
Handtype Press
PO Box 3941
Minneapolis, MN 55403-0941
E-mail: [email protected]
Online: handtype.com
Printed in the United States of America.
A Handtype Press First Edition
***
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
Christopher Jon Heuer
HEARING AID
David Langford
THE MEANING, NOT THE WORDS
Kristen Ringman
THE EAR
Willy Conley
TAKING CARE OF THE CHILDREN
Lilah Katcher
THE TALE OF TWO PRODIGIES
Jacob Waring
STARTING FROM SCRATCH
Kris Ashton
RUI’S STORY
Bobby Cox & Joanne Yee
FAMILY DOG
Raymond Luczak
DREADED SILENCE
A. M. Matte
THE VIBRATING MOUTH
John Lee Clark
GHOSTLY DEMANDS
Marsha Graham
THE JOB
Maverick Smith
THE CLIMAX
Tonya Marie Stremlau
THURISAZ
Brighid Meredith
IN THE HAUNTED DARK
Michael R. Collings
SPIRIT BOX
Kristen Harmon
UNDERSTANDING
Kelsey M. Young
ONLINE DATING
Daniel Crosby
TOMMY GOES TO COLLEGE
Christopher Jon Heuer
BIOS
***
This anthology is dedicated to my son
Jack Christopher Heuer
May giant Martian tripods invade Earth forever
so we can blow them up
with our grenades and rocket launchers
***
INTRODUCTION
Christopher Jon Heuer
If you watch the original 1953 version of War of the Worlds, you’ll find a statement on deafness. Well, not deafness, exactly—there are no deaf characters in the film whatsoever—but on American Sign Language (ASL). Well, actually, no. “American” isn’t mentioned, I don’t think. But sign language. That shows up. This is worth a brief recap; bear with me.
A house-sized meteorite crashes into Earth. It’s pulsating and glowing. The people from a nearby town are understandably freaked out. The Pacific Technical Institute sends its best man, the darkly handsome and dashing Dr. Clayton Forester, to investigate. He of course figures out the best way to do this is to leave three hapless locals behind to keep watch on it (a good move, since it’s radioactive as well as very hot). Which frees him up to pursue the movie’s starlet at the town’s square dance.
The three guys left on watch see the mechanical alien tripod “eye” rise up out of the crater and instantly assume they’re dealing with Men from Mars. How to communicate? One guy gets the bright idea that they’ll use sign language, because hey, it’s universal!
Of course they were incinerated.
This happened within seconds of their timid, white flag-waving approach. They were the first human beings, in fact, to fall before the Martian Heat Rays. And while this was all completely awesome—the special effects killed for a movie released in 1953—it was also a little bit insulting. Because of course sign language isn’t universal. It can vary from state to state, and does vary from country to country. If we’re talking planet to planet? Well, I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure it’s safe to assume: duh. And if the director, or at the very least the script writer had shared my thinking on this matter, someone might of come up with a less stupid game plan for setting off an interplanetary war.
Now please don’t think my argument here is that scene is insulting only because of the “universal” remark. Initially that’s why, but there’s more to it. You see, absolutely nobody knows or cares that an ignorant and incorrect assumption was made about the signed languages that millions of deaf and hard of hearing people rely on worldwide.
And that, Dear Reader, is the proverbial photon torpedo that blows up my Death Star.
Why doesn’t anyone know or care? Is it because we’re a minority? So? Black people are a minority. Is “blackface” still a thing in Hollywood? Maybe it’s true the movie industry is still shoving as many white actors as it can possibly find into roles that should be going to people of color (the Ancient One in Dr. Strange, etc.), but at least nobody is rubbing black shoe polish (or red or yellow) all over some white guy anymore before plunking him in front of a camera. Then again you never know. Donald Trump is our President now, and Steve Bannon is running the world. We might be back there in a few years.
That is to say, unless we do something about it. We as deaf and hard of hearing people. If we don’t write our own stuff, if we don’t represent ourselves accurately, if we don’t express our own dreams, if we don’t step up to take our rightful place in genres outside of “disability fiction,” then what happened in 1953 is going to keep happening in 2017 and beyond. Absolutely nobody is going to care. And because nobody cares, nobody will get it right. Maybe that isn’t entirely true—there’s a deaf character in S. M. Stirling’s Dies the Fire series. I’m sure there’s a smattering of deaf characters elsewhere in science fiction and horror and fantasy.
But what are the odds these characters were created by hearing authors? I�
�d say pretty high, because how many deaf authors are out there? And so where is that going to lead? Sooner or later, what’s going to happen? We’re going to be lip reading what passes for alien lips—a different set at each end of twenty alien tentacles, no less—from a thousand yards away through binoculars or something. And that’s not even going to be the “science fiction” part of the story. That’s going to be what’s supposed to pass for the “real” part. Or else we’ll suddenly all be too simple-minded to drive a car, or we’re all going to be Rob Lowe in Stephen King’s The Stand (irony: Rob Lowe is actually deaf in one ear), a character supposedly completely deaf, possibly born deaf—I’m not sure—who runs around putting his hands over his ears and then his mouth every time he meets someone new, to indicate he’s deaf and can’t talk. Even though once he gets sucked into Mother Abigail’s dreams he ends up speaking perfectly. I’m not saying this is a bad movie or a bad book. I’m saying that if you’ve been deaf all your life, you eventually learn to make yourself look just a little bit cooler than that.
So let’s get some breadth going here. Just a tad more depth. Let’s show deaf and hard of hearing people as we really are. OR. Let’s have deaf and hard of hearing writers write science fiction or horror or fantasy stories that have nothing whatsoever to do with deafness (or being hard of hearing). Because do we spend 100% of our waking lives writhing in the existential agony of our identities? At least a few of us think about global warming. And porn. Whether or not we can afford that post-8 p.m. cupcake.
Thus this book. Roughly, here were my instructions in the call for submissions: “Go.” Stay in the above-listed genres. But do whatever you want. Deaf characters, no deaf characters. Sign language, no sign language. Deafness as topic, Deafness as culture, deafness as disability, deafness not there at all. Whatever. Shake things up. Think Harlan Ellison’s Dangerous Visions. Give people something to chew on. Have some fun. Push the boundaries. Bring the field along.
The result is the stories you are now about to read. I’ll get out of your way in a second. I want to thank the authors first, and our publisher. I hope they’re all out there taking a bow, knowing full well how totally ass-kicking this all is, how huge it is. They’re the pioneers that got us to other worlds, guided us through the ether of ghostly realms, took us through time. Without them, where would we be? Let me tell you.
We’d be here and now. With absolutely nobody knowing or caring. Not a world I want to be stuck in.
If you disagree, by all means stay.
***
HEARING AID
David Langford
It was one of those parties where the decor was very expensive and very sparse, and the drinks likewise. Anderson studied his thimbleful of terrifyingly high-class sherry, and had a wistful vision of a large tumbler of Algerian plonk—a large tumbler of practically anything, for that matter. Of course one should not be dwelling on the alcohol famine, one should be making witty conversation: only Anderson found himself cut off from conversation by the probably musical noises coming from speakers in each corner of the room. He’d heard of the “cocktail party effect” whereby you could unerringly pick a single voice from amid twenty-seven others (he’d counted, three times), but for him it never seemed to work. Perhaps it was something you hired people to teach you when you had the necessary style, flair or connections to be invited to parties like this more often than a token once a year.
The host was doing things at an intricate console which seemed wasted on a mere music system. It was so obviously capable of running vast automated factories, with possibly a sideline in tax avoidance. A different and louder sound of probable music drifted over the chattering crowd. Anderson made a face, knocked back his homeopathic dose of sherry, and realized this had been a tactical error since there would be nowhere to put down the glass until another tray of drinks came by—if one ever did. Worse, Nigel had abandoned the console and was moving toward him with the manner of a snake converging on a rabbit.
“Hel-lo, Colin ... what do you think of the music?”
Anderson didn’t think anything at all of the music. Music was simply music, a kind of sonic fog which made conversation difficult or even dangerous. Audibility now down to eighteen inches ... speak only along the central lane of the motorway and make lots of hand signals. Music, bloody music.
“Technically interesting,” he said cautiously.
Nigel Winter moved a little closer and twinkled at Anderson with the confidence of one whose shirt would never become limp and vaguely humid like that of his audience. “So tuneful, isn’t it,” he said with a smile.
“Oh yes. It makes me want to take all my clothes off and do the rumba,” said Anderson without conviction.
“Ah, but seriously, don’t you think there’s a Mozartian flavor there?”
“Pretty damn Mozartian, yes ...” He knew it was a mistake before he’d finished saying it.
“Caught you there! You weren’t listening—hear it now? It’s what they call stochastic music, random notes ... very experimental. The composer simply conceptualizes his starting figures for the random-number generators. Intellectually it’s all tremendously absorbing; but I’m afraid I was pulling your leg a teensy bit about Mozart. You just weren’t trying to listen, were you?”
Anderson thought fleetingly of his university days at Oxford, when people like Nigel could with a certain legitimacy be divested of their trousers and placed in some convenient river. “Ha ha,” he said. “Music’s not really my thing,” he said. “Why, before I met you I used to think pianissimo was a rude word in Italian.”
Nigel pulled the unfair trick of becoming suddenly and offensively serious. “I do think that’s a terrible thing to say,” he said quietly.
A fume from the sherry—there hadn’t been enough to make it fumes in the plural—coiled about Anderson’s brain and lovingly urged him to say Go to hell, you loathsome little person. “You must remember I’m tone-deaf,” he said, falling back on his final line of defense. “Unless the pitch is different enough, I mean really different, I can’t tell one note from another.”
(He could remember a time when this fact had seemed a rock-solid defense. “Come sir, why do you not appreciate da Vinci’s great masterpiece?” “Well, actually, I’m blind.” “Oh my God, I didn’t know, I’m so sorry, please do forgive me—” Somehow the revelation of tone-deafness never produced quite this reaction. Instead—)
“Oh, that’s just an excuse,” said Nigel. “I’m sure you really aren’t ... I’ve read how true tone-deafness is extremely rare, and most people who say they’ve got it are simply musically illiterate. You’re not trying, that’s all. You really should make an effort.”
“How much effort do I have to put in before I appreciate a team of monkeys playing pianos, or whatever you said this godawful noise is?”
Nigel sniffed. “Really, Colin, one has to master traditional music before one can expect to follow conceptual works which reject its conventions. Now do promise me you’ll try.”
Rather to his horror, Anderson heard himself mumble something that sounded hideously like acquiescence. Then Nigel was gone, off to adjust the noise machine further, and Anderson was left peering suspiciously at his tiny, empty glass. As a small measure of revenge, and because there was still nowhere to deposit it, he put the glass in his pocket before leaving.
“What brought you to us?” asked the white-coated man, suddenly and treacherously forcing quantities of ice-cold goo into Anderson’s left ear.
“I saw the small ad in The Times,” he said. “Ouch.”
“There, it doesn’t hurt a bit, does it?” said the man from Computer Audio Services, kneading the stuff with his fingertips until Anderson felt his eardrum was pressing alarmingly against his brain. “Ouch,” he agreed.
“Just a moment while it hardens,” the man said chattily. “I’m so glad when people aren’t ashamed of coming to CAS. After all, the world’s so complicated today that busy men like yourself just can’t take time out to lear
n little things like musical appreciation ... That’s what I always say,” he added with the epigrammatic air of a man who always said it.
“I’m tone-deaf,” Anderson said.
“Oh quite. There’s no need for excuses with us, Mr Anderson. We understand.”
“But I am tone-deaf.”
“Of course, of course ... Now this isn’t going to hurt a bit.” For the next several seconds Anderson enjoyed the sensation of having his ear cleared of blockages with a rubber suction-plunger. Blockages such as eardrums, he thought. At last the mold was out, and the CAS technician summoned a flunky to carry it away.
“There. It’ll be cured, machined, drilled, tapped and ready in fifteen minutes. Now I think you’d decided to try our Analyzer aid ... our cheapest model,” he said reproachfully.
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