Other Aliens Read online

  From my book About Writing, I like “Thickening the Plot.” Some readers have found it helpful. Others have found “Some Notes for the Intermediate and Advanced Creative Writing Student,” a consideration of the structure of novels, of particular use.

  After that, there are my two major nonfiction pieces—Times Square Red, Times Square Blue and The Motion of Light in Water.

  My fantasy series of eleven stories, novellas, and novels, Return to Nevèrÿon is one fictive project that was about a decade’s work. Dhalgren, Triton, The Mad Man, Nova, and the short stories in Aye, and Gomorrah, probably in that order, are the fiction works I’d recommend if a page or three of any of them interested you. For separate reasons I like both Phallos and Dark Reflections. As well there are a handful of short works, the three long stories in Atlantis: Three Tales, along with other short works: Empire Star, Equinox, The Einstein Intersection, They Fly at Çiron, and the aforementioned Phallos, which really belongs with them.

  There are also the highly challenging works such as Hogg and Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders.

  That’s one way through the maze of Delany—but there is no right one. Indeed, if you read one and find something in it you recognize or smile over or frown at, I will be humbly delighted.

  But for any writer even to take on such a question seriously seems to me the height of arrogance. What is called for by such a request is a silence that assumes anyone seizing on any thread that dangles from any door of the maze as privileged over any other is, in itself, absurd. To read or not to read is always the reader’s choice. It’s never the writer’s to recommend. Likewise the reader starts where chance and propinquity places her or him. And it goes on or ceases as long as she or he likes—and no longer.

  1“Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones” makes overt reference to Joyce’s Finnegans Wake.

  2The exception is his 1993 novel, They Fly at Çiron, though this is an expanded version of an earlier piece written in 1971, and is closer to science fantasy than science fiction.

  The Transition

  Matthew Baker

  Of course, his family had heard of the operation, knew not only that such a thing was possible but that there were actually people doing it, and although his family was conservative, his family wasn’t radical by any means, in fact his family was really quite moderate, so much so that during elections in which the conservative candidate seemed especially intolerant or corrupt or feebleminded his family was occasionally even known to vote for the liberal alternative, and although his family was religious, his family certainly wasn’t the type to speak of issues in terms of good and evil, and for instance had no qualms about nudity in the media, and sometimes drank to excess, and wasn’t opposed to gambling, and believed in evolution, and although his family was poor, not destitute exactly, but decidedly working class, and possessed no college degrees, his family held no prejudice against people who elected to have vanity surgeries like liposuction and rhinoplasty, and were always heartened to meet people benefiting from bionic modifications such as pacemakers and prostheses, and enjoyed watching programs of an educational nature, and took naturally to new technologies—and yet there was something that set the operation apart from other issues, something that repulsed his family almost instinctually, something that filled his family with contempt, a fact his family had made no effort to hide, like back when the news had been flooded with stories about a famous architect who had transitioned and his family had spent an evening sitting around out on the stoop ridiculing the architect, or back when the news had been flooded with stories about a former model who had transitioned and his family had spent an evening sitting around out on the stoop bashing the model, and so the fact that his family found the concept utterly loathsome certainly would have been clear to Mason.

  Then there was also his personality. He was profoundly reserved. He rarely smiled. He seldom laughed. He spoke clearly, without any animation. Although he often complained, he never became angry. He never seemed gloomy. He never appeared excited. He must have cried occasionally as a child, but no incidents came to mind specifically, and regardless he certainly hadn’t cried in the presence of his family since. He never showed signs of feeling powerful emotions.

  So, considering that he was showing signs as he sat there at the table, that his hands were trembling, that his voice was shaking, that he was so nervous that the feeling was actually affecting him physically, and that he really wasn’t in the habit of joking about this type of thing—or, quite honestly, joking about anything—there seemed to be no doubt that he was serious when he interrupted a moment of silence to announce, or rather confess, that he was planning to have his mind converted to digital data and transferred from his body to a computer server.

  Mason’s father, who was wearing his favorite apron, with the cartoon pelican across the chest and the maroon stain just beneath the pockets, gaped at him from the counter in the kitchen, frozen there in the midst of dipping a silicone spatula into a container of the latest batch of his secret sauce. Mason’s brothers, who planned to drive the motorboat down to parkland at dusk to go shrimping on the gulf, were reclined around the table in athletic jerseys and camouflage cutoffs, squinting at him with expressions of confusion. Mason’s mother had come in from the backyard when she had heard him arrive, wearing the straw hat and baggy caftan that she’d been sunning in, and she felt such a jolt of panic when he said what he said that she had to set her iced tea down onto the nearest surface, the stove, or else she surely would have dropped the bottle onto the floor.

  Mason stared at the table, and then, as if suddenly daring to hope that the idea might be met with no resistance, looked up and blurted, “We’ll still be able to talk or whatever.”

  His mother crossed the kitchen toward the table, feeling past the counter with her hands, her eyes never leaving him. He must have come from a shift at the supermarket. His uniform was rumpled. His name tag was askew. He’d always been scrawny, but recently he seemed especially frail. His eyebrows were so light in color that he didn’t seem to have eyebrows at all, which had caused him untold trouble on the playground as a child. He had watery eyes, a delicate nose, thin lips, and a weak chin. He looked like the type of person who’d probably have a milk allergy. She couldn’t explain what that was supposed to mean exactly. A neighbor had said it about him once, though, and as soon as she’d heard it, she’d known it was true. She loved his face. As she slid into a chair at the table, she had to resist an urge to reach over and cup his jaw in her palms. The thought of losing him was terrifying.

  “I mean, I’ll be able to chat whenever you want, I’ll be online literally all of the time,” Mason said, gaze falling back to the table.

  His mother turned toward the counter, searching for some indication of how his father was reacting to the announcement. The heat from the sun was already leaving her skin, and the sensation seemed almost like a manifestation of her fear, as if the emotion were sapping the warmth from her skin as the feeling spread. She had been relaxing in a canvas lawn chair all morning, sipping from that bottle of iced tea, watching with amusement as sparrows hopped along the branches of the tree, basking in the occasional gust of wind that rushed across the backyard, letting loose tremendous yawns, stretching her limbs out, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands, scratching her belly periodically when the urge struck, savoring the tart aroma of the charcoal burning in the grill, enjoyably aware of being dressed in a bright caftan and floppy hat. Coming in from that realm of bodily pleasure to be confronted with somebody who wanted to leave all of it behind was intensely jarring. She didn’t understand what he could be thinking.

  Over by the counter his father set down the spatula.

  “You do realize that not having a body would mean not having a body?” his father said.

  “Yes.”

  “As in never again?” his father said.

  “Yes.”

  “What the hell is wrong with your head?” his father said.


  His father swore only when he was deeply afraid, which told his mother that she wasn’t the only one taking the announcement seriously. Despite how grave the situation was, however, his father apparently really did need to check on the grill before the ribs burned. Scowling, with the hem of his apron flapping at his shins with every step, his father marched out the door into the backyard.

  Mason, who had been staring intently at his knuckles during that brief exchange with his father, glanced back up again. His cheeks were flushed; sweat pitted his shirt. His mother suddenly felt sure that this discussion, albeit awkward, would be easily resolved. Years from now, his family was going to look back on this moment and laugh about his mistake, like how the family still joked about the time that one of his brothers had considered quitting his job in order to sell dietary supplements for a company from door-to-door until the family had explained to him that the operation was obviously a scam, or how the family still joked about the time that one of his brothers had considered starting a jazz group until the family had explained to him that yes he might love the drums but honestly he had no rhythm and he didn’t belong anywhere near a stage. Certainty spread through her, and a bit of pride that she had been the one to realize that this was all a misunderstanding. She felt so relieved that she had to suppress a grin.

  “You’re just not thinking,” she announced.

  “About what,” Mason said.

  “I don’t know what put the idea in your head, but you’re not like those other people doing it, there’s too much you’d miss about having a body,” she said.

  She could tell from his stare that she hadn’t yet convinced him, and she folded her hands together, searching for an example.

  “Like dancing,” she exclaimed.

  “I hate dancing,” Mason said.

  “Oh you do not,” she said, and then she fell silent, because she knew of course that he did.

  Until now his brothers had been sitting back observing the scene, picking their teeth, biting their nails, but his brothers finally exploded.

  “What the heck, bro?”

  “Where did this even come from?”

  “How could you actually want something that messed up done?”

  “Our own flesh and blood?”

  His oldest brother leaned in.

  “You’d even give up sex?” his oldest brother said.

  Mason didn’t reply, just gazed at the centerpiece, a vase of wildflowers.

  “What about sex?” his oldest brother demanded.

  Mason gave a faint shrug.

  “More trouble than it’s worth,” Mason said.

  His mother had never seen his brothers look so offended.

  His oldest brother sat back, knitting his fingers behind his head with his elbows thrown wide in a posture of dismissal, and sneered, “Well, who cares if you want it done, you’ll never have enough money to pay for it.”

  “I already do,” Mason said.

  Mason apparently had been setting aside a substantial portion of each paycheck for years now. His mother fiddled with the bangles around her wrists in distress. Back when his family had sat around mocking the celebrity chef who’d transitioned, back when his family had sat around trashing the piano prodigy who’d transitioned, he must have been saving up money for the operation even then. He had sat there and had listened to his family call people like that monsters and had secretly believed that he was a person like that all along. The thought stunned her.

  Mason stared at the table, then glanced back up with a desperate look, exclaiming, “I hate having to deal with clothing. I hate having to go shopping and trying to find things that fit and having to put together an outfit every single day and worrying about what matches and having to drag everything down to the laundry. I hate getting sick. I hate getting headaches and getting backaches and getting earaches and getting toothaches and puking especially. I hate having to get checkups at the doctor and the dentist and the optometrist every single year. I hate always having to make meals and eat the food and wash dishes afterward. I hate having to shower. I hate having to sleep. I’m tired of wasting so much of my life on taking care of a body. I just want to be able to read stuff and talk to people all the time.”

  “Sweetie,” his mother said. She leaned across the table, her heart beating wildly, and laid her hands over his hands. “I know you might feel like that right now, but if you’d just stop and think about it for a couple days, you’re going to change your mind.”

  “I’ve been thinking about it for over twenty years,” Mason said.

  He eased his hands out from under her hands, pulling away, as if ashamed.

  “I don’t belong in a body,” Mason said.

  He lowered his head.

  “I’ve always known,” Mason said.

  He left before the meal was served, slipping out the door with his shoulders slumped, then sputtering off down the road in his rusty hatchback. While his brothers sat around the table bitterly rehashing that comment about sex, his mother drifted in a daze out into the backyard, where his father was squatting next to the grill. Looking up from the ribs with an expression of fury, his father confessed that he had come out to the backyard not so much out of concern for the ribs as out of fear that he had been about to cry, which he had never done in the presence of the children before and didn’t want to.

  Mason had scheduled the operation for later that month, taking the earliest available appointment the local clinic could offer. As his mother brushed her teeth that night, an activity in which she usually found much enjoyment—the tingle of foam on her tongue, the prick of bristles against her gums—she couldn’t focus on the experience at all, but instead was gripped by a feeling of dread. She had driven past the local clinic before, a nondescript facility with screened windows and tinted doors, and the place always seemed to have a sinister aura. Although he had asked his family to be there for the operation, there was no way that she could go. She found the concept disturbing enough when the procedure was done to a stranger, let alone her youngest son. What frightened her most was imagining the actual transition. The exact moment when his body would be empty. The exact moment when his mind would be gone.

  She had never suspected he might want something like that, but now that she knew he did, she couldn’t help feeling like she should have suspected all along. He had always been different from his brothers. He had been a puny, feeble, pallid child. Even back then he had whined about everything. He hadn’t liked doing puzzles. He hadn’t liked making crafts. As an eater he had been picky, declining to eat fruits, refusing to eat vegetables, not even liking candy, subsisting mainly on cereal and macaroni. He’d sipped reluctantly at colas. He’d nibbled grudgingly at cookies. His brothers in contrast had eaten with gusto, devouring multiple helpings apiece of whatever she’d cooked, praising the flavors in exultation, licking salt from lips and grease from fingers. His brothers had been playful too, wrestling each other and racing each other and spinning each other dizzy and taking great joy in both resisting and surrendering to gravity, climbing trees and leaping from roofs and soaring and plunging back and forth on swings, but he’d had an aversion to physical activity. He hadn’t even liked walking. He’d had a listless gait, walking about with his arms limp and his feet dragging, as if having to walk was an arduous task, simply onerous. Getting him to make the walk from the front door of the house to the bus stop at the corner on weekday mornings had been nothing short of a miracle. He hadn’t liked going outdoors at all. If she had tried to take him bicycling, he would crank at the pedals a few times, then grumble, gradually coast to a stop, slide off the seat, let the bicycle fall onto the pavement, and flop down on the curb, refusing to go any farther, complaining that pedaling made his legs hurt. If she had tried to take him canoeing, he would heave on the paddle a few times, then mutter, slump over on the seat, and stare at the bottom of the canoe, complaining that paddling made his arms hurt. If she had tried to take him swimming at the ocean, the water had always been too hot or
too cold or too salty or too wet. While his family had tossed a foam ball around in the shallows, he had sat on the beach with his arms wrapped around his shins and his chin propped on his knees, either in the sun, complaining that the light was too bright, or under the umbrella, complaining that the shade was too dark. Sitting on the sand had made his butt hurt.

  He was remarkably annoying. Yet despite how finicky he was—or maybe even because—he had always been her favorite. She adored him. As a child the only time he had ever seemed content was when he had been left to his own devices. He had preferred to stay indoors, hunched over a screen on his beanbag in his bedroom, poring over online encyclopedias. Compared to how reserved he had been in person, he had seemed to come alive when exchanging messages with people over the Internet. Occasionally she had even heard him chuckle or snicker in there at something he had read. She had taken pains to keep him from being disturbed.

  Now she couldn’t help blaming herself for what was happening. She had only wanted him to be happy, but in the process she had ruined him. She should have forced him to play with other children. She should have forced him to eat whatever she had cooked instead of letting him prepare meals of bland grains. She should have forced him to bike and she should have forced him to canoe and she should have forced him to swim until he had learned how to love the world. It was her fault that he had ended up like this. She had failed him as a mother.

  She spat toothpaste into the sink, rinsed the toothbrush under the faucet, shut off the lamp in the kitchen, set an alarm for work the next day, and then climbed into bed. His father was lying there on his back with the blanket thrown off. Moonlight coming through the window illuminated the strip of gut exposed between the band of his briefs and the hem of his tee. She stared at the silhouette of the fan on the ceiling for a while.