UNIFORM

Cover art by Dominique Ramsey, @euqinimodart on Twitter

Coming soon to Fiyah Literary Magazine, issue #14 will be my short story, “Uniform.” I am so pleased that this is going to see the light of day, it’s an idea that percolated for a looooong time. I won’t say how many iterations of this story there have been, but I will say there were too many. More than I’ve ever done on any other story, in fact. I will say, however, that a couple of people were instrumental in getting this over the finish line: Christopher Golden and DaVaun Sanders. I’ve been friends with Chris for several years now and I truly enjoyed his novel, “Tin Men.” (I still wonder how it didn’t get picked up by the Science Fiction Book Club.) He’s the type of genre author who can write literally anything. The guy’s got a very broad portfolio. If you haven’t read his stuff, check it out. Anyhow, there are similar themes in “Tin Men” and my story. Namely, the idea that drones are unethical, but human operators are not. He made some stellar suggestions regarding the path and style of the story and I’ll be forever grateful. He was the first person I shared the news that I’d sold the story—after I’d made an obnoxious racket alarming my eleven-year old daughter. (I had to repeat my joyous exclamation for each family member as they came home, that evening.)

DaVaun Sanders is the executive editor at Fiyah and the final editor for the story. His edits were exemplary and I am really excited for people to read about this PTSD cyborg struggling to find a purpose in society after such harrowing service. Specifically, he made edits for clarity and flow that significantly improved the work. Exactly what a good editor is supposed to do.

I wrote this story because I’m interested in the idea of what happens to people after all the action and heroics have passed. And I’m always interested by how our country treats its vets. In the future, where does a combat cyborg, irreparably transformed from human to machine, go after the war? And why would someone go through a process like that, why do citizens serve in volunteer armed forces? I’ve always felt the answer was more complex than patriotism or a morbid fascination with large-scale violence. If I’ve successfully conveyed the reasoning in this story, Golden and Sanders are the big reasons it shines through!