Award Eligibility 2024
This year my story "Post-Op Instructions After Your Mind Control Chip Implantation", originally published in the FUMPTRUCK anthology, is eligible for the Short Story category for the Hugos, Nebulas, World Fantasy, Locus, and other awards.
Post-Op Instructions After Your Mind Control Chip Implantation
Published in FUMPTRUCK
“Oh good, you’re back with us!” says a voice from your right. Everything in front of you is fuzzy and smelling of beach-ball-plastic. You blink, and things sharpen into focus. It’s a nurse, wearing American-flag-print scrubs and standing next to your bed in a hospital recovery bay. The plastic smell is the oxygen-giving cannula in your nose, which you manage to yank out with sloth-like elegance and speed.
The nurse hands you a cup of apple juice. “You took your sweet time, didn’tcha.”
You struggle to get words out. You want to ask why you’re here, what happened. The words are floating around in your head like cocaine-fueled butterflies, flitting about and refusing capture. You concentrate and manage to say “Banana?”
“Oh good, you’re back with us!” says a voice from your right. Everything in front of you is fuzzy and smelling of beach-ball-plastic. You blink, and things sharpen into focus. It’s a nurse, wearing American-flag-print scrubs and standing next to your bed in a hospital recovery bay. The plastic smell is the oxygen-giving cannula in your nose, which you manage to yank out with sloth-like elegance and speed.
The nurse hands you a cup of apple juice. “You took your sweet time, didn’tcha.”
You struggle to get words out. You want to ask why you’re here, what happened. The words are floating around in your head like cocaine-fueled butterflies, flitting about and refusing capture. You concentrate and manage to say “Banana?”