Scar Stories is now available as a podcast from Podcastle. This short piece originally appeared in the Bandersnatch anthology.
It’s 10 minutes long. You can listen while you clip your toenails if you want.
Today I stopped at a convenience store — immediately after a robbery.
I’m fine. The clerk is fine. But it was very unsettling. I just wanted a Gatorade, so I parked my car and went to the door. I was in my own world and not paying attention to much, though I noticed I was the only person in the lot. When I got to the door, a guy was unlocking it while clutching a phone to his ear. I figured he was late for his shift or something. He muttered something at me, but I missed what he said.
When I got inside, I saw the empty cash drawer sitting on the counter, and the haunted look in the guy’s eyes. This snapped me out of my self-absorption and I just stared at him. He repeated, “I’ve just been robbed. I have no cash. I’m on the phone calling 911.”
I blinked, realizing that he’d come to unlock the door for me. What an odd thing to do in these circumstances–to think he should be helping a customer right now. And then I realized he was in shock, and not able to process what was happening.
My next thought was fast and instinctual. It said, “You can do nothing here. Get away in case they come back.”
Immediately my brain started to argue, “Well, that’s dumb, there really isn’t anywhere safer than a store that’s just been robbed, is there? I mean, any other store out there is perhaps about to be robbed at any given moment. This one’s already been–”
Another part of my brain kicked in: “Oh my GOD, I’m glad no one was hurt.”
The part that said “You can do nothing here” seemed very sensible, so I said, “I’m incredibly glad that you are okay and not hurt. That’s what matters. Listen–I’ll just go, and let you handle this without me in the way.”
He just kept staring at me. On hold with 911. “You can buy gas if you want,” he said, distantly.
It seemed too complicated to explain that I just wanted some Gatorade. “Okay,” I said, and left. That all took about 10 seconds.
As I drove away, I wondered if I should have given him the $4 I had on me before I left. Just in case he needed to get home somehow. But I didn’t think of that fast enough.
Keep in mind, my instincts were saying “get out of here.” Last time my instincts gave me that message, it turned out I was being followed on a dark street by a man with bad intentions for either my purse or my body. So I always listen to my instincts.
So, dear readers, here is the question: What should I have done in these circumstances? What do you think you would have done? And what would you actually have done, given that you’d have no more time to think about it than I did?
Dear Internet, particularly seamstresses and people with Google-fu,
I am looking for a hooded couch sack (click on the link at the top to see it). The hood is what I’m not finding. Can anyone do any of the following?
a) find a hooded couch sack for sale
b) find a sewing pattern for a hooded couch sack
c) find a regular pattern for a couch sack that my mom could add a hood to? (she’s a reasonably decent sewer, but prefers working from patterns)
Also, if I remember my sewing right–it’s pretty easy to line a fleece couch sack for added warmth, right? I can sew a little, but not as well as my mom. So this would be something I’d ask her to make for me.
Thanks.
Write a high fantasy flash fiction story. The theme is “moving pictures”. 500-2000 words.
Your deadline is Friday. 11:59 PM, Pacific time.
When you’re done, submit it to the Cinema Spec anthology. Karen Romanko is specifically looking for high fantasy flash fiction.
If she accepts it, you get 3 cents a word and a copy of the anthology. Plus you’ve demonstrated your amazing writing-fu.
Then sell it as a reprint to Podcastle, whose editor is looking for more high fantasy and more flash fiction.
Log out. GO.
Wow. L. Timmel Duchamp had this to say about “Godivy,” published in Paper Cities. This review was in Strange Horizons. Overall, she didn’t like the book, but she liked my story–and what a compliment she paid to it:
Though only three pages long, Vylar Kaftan’s “Godivy” strikes me as the best story in the book; it’s also the first one to grant a woman character agency. If I’d been given it in a blind reading, I’d've assumed it was written by Leslie What. It doesn’t matter that the characters are merely figures for playing out a conceit. The tale’s style is snappy, its images delightful and snarky, and every word carries its weight. Less, here, is definitely more.
That makes my day. 
In other news, Transcriptase has new work published by myself, Jennifer Pelland, Leah Cypess, Tina Connelly, Ada Milenkovic Brown, Ruth Nestvold, and a handful of others who were added after the initial publication of the site. Go check out the new stories–or, if you have no idea what Transcriptase is, check out the site and see what inspired it.
You can read “Break the Vessel”, the infamous poop story, which unfortunately was caught up in all the Helix drama and unable to achieve its full fecal glory.
My tin of licorice Altoids bears this label: “Naturally Flavored With Other Natural Flavors.”
What?