{"id":201,"date":"2014-12-31T01:29:41","date_gmt":"2014-12-31T06:29:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/circlet.com\/?page_id=201"},"modified":"2014-12-31T01:29:41","modified_gmt":"2014-12-31T06:29:41","slug":"things-invisible-to-see-edited-by-lawrence-schimel","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/circlet.com\/?page_id=201","title":{"rendered":"Things Invisible To See edited by Lawrence Schimel"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>ebook $6.99
\nISBN 9781613900833
\n60,980 words<\/p>\n

[wp_eStore_add_to_cart id=83]<\/p>\n

The ebook edition is also available at: Amazon<\/a>, Barnes & Noble<\/a>, Smashwords<\/a>, Kobo <\/a>& AllRomanceEbooks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This Circlet title from 1998, part of the Ultra Violet Library imprint for queer fantasy and science fiction, is now available in digital format for the first time. Top contemporary authors bring us these stories of the realms of spirit that underlie the mundane world. Comic situations, such as a lesbian who wakes up one morning to find that she has a penis or a gay man who finds an angel tangled in his laundry line, alternate with poignant tales of loss and love. These stories are about looking for\u2013or inadvertently finding\u2013something more than life as we know it.<\/p>\n

This book contains stories by Lawrence Schimel, Laura Antoniou, Michelle Sagara West, Leslea Newman, Nancy Springer, Martha Soukup, Sarah Schulman, Rand B. Lee, Kerry Bashford, and Brian Thomsen.<\/p>\n

Excerpt under the cut\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

Excerpted from The River of Time<\/em> by Lawrence Schimel<\/p>\n

I placed Eric\u2019s ashes on the seat beside me. I wasn\u2019t expecting to feel such relief to let go of them, which made me realize it was the right thing to do. I\u2019d been carrying them around for so long, it seemed, walking through this last request he\u2019d made to me: to scatter his ashes from the Christopher Street Pier into the Hudson River. I knew I was having trouble letting go of him. I\u2019d kept putting off the day of scattering his remains with excuses: the weather wasn\u2019t right for how I thought his last moment (as if he hadn\u2019t already had it) should be or my work schedule meant I couldn\u2019t do it at the \u201cright\u201d time of day for such an occasion, whatever it took to convince myself of the need to delay. Now that my hands were free, I rubbed my shoulders, which ached from the weight of carrying him around. The urn with his ashes was nothing, really, compared to what his phys\u00adical presence had been. I was amazed that an entire human body could become so insubstantial. \u201cWe\u2019re mostly water,\u201d Eric had said, the first time he\u2019d gotten really sick, when he was telling me what he wanted me to do. \u201cThey\u2019ll just be taking all the water out. I\u2019ll be like that freeze\u00addried food they give astronauts. Just add water and it pops back to life.\u201d<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t say anything. There was nothing I could say that would change anything, make a difference. He\u2019d put his hand on mine and continued. \u201cThat\u2019s why I want you to dump me in the river. I know I won\u2019t pop back to life, not like that astro\u00adnaut food. But it\u2019ll be like mixing me up into a sort of clay and giving me a new start. Who knows where I\u2019ll wind up? I want to go all over the world, at last get to visit all those places I never could afford to go to! And I will; I\u2019ll be like a drop of ink falling into a cup and, over time, it colors the entire glass. You\u2019ll never be able to see water, drink water, even be water, since that\u2019s what you mostly are\u2014anywhere there\u2019s water, I\u2019ll be there, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019d started to cry, and he stopped talking to stare at me. I\u2019d laughed at myself then, I\u2019m not sure why, the look on his face or my lack of control or both, and he\u2019d reached out with one arm to wipe a tear from my cheek. \u201cAnywhere,\u201d he said, hold\u00ading the salty tear on his finger.<\/p>\n

He\u2019d gotten better, only got that sick once more. But he never let it stop him; he was always living grandly, by the seat of his pants, getting into scrapes, having adventures\u2014even those two times he was confined to a hospital bed. That first time, when he spent a week in St. Vincent\u2019s, he\u2019d seduced one of the male nurses, who\u2019d broken all sorts of rules and regula\u00adtions to finger\u00adfuck him and jerk him off. There were boxes of safety rubber gloves everywhere, and medicinal lubricants. He\u2019d claimed it was some of the best sex he\u2019d ever had, as he gleefully told us the details one night at the restaurant.
\nEric had been one of the protease success stories. He\u2019d seemed invulnerable\u2014except for those two hospitalizations\u2014 as he confronted elemental forces of nature: he went white water rafting, climbed mountains, went deep water scuba div\u00ading, anything and everything that would give him that terrify\u00ading, exuberating thrill. We\u2019d all gotten used to the idea that this disease would kill him in the end, despite the drugs, as the promise of a cure kept slipping further and further back. But it had been such a shock for him to die as he had, a freak acci\u00addent in his own home where he\u2019d tripped getting out of the bathtub and cracked his skull, something having nothing to do with his HIV.<\/p>\n

We felt cheated, I guess. At least I did. We\u2019d always thought there\u2019d be time to say goodbye, a long slow descent. His friend Liza had asked him once, when a group of us were getting stoned at her apartment late at night, how he felt about suicide, if he thought there might be a point when he\u2019d want it for himself.<\/p>\n

He hadn\u2019t answered right away. Sitting up, he looked around, took another hit. \u201cI\u2019m too much of an overacheiver ever to give up,\u201d he\u2019d said. \u201cBy the time I got so bad that I\u2019d want suicide, I wouldn\u2019t be able to do it myself.\u201d He\u2019d smiled then. \u201cI\u2019d feel like such a failure if I had to have someone help me, I\u2019d never be able to live with myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t sure why he\u2019d picked me. We were friends, but in a casual sort of way. We were never lovers, though some\u00adtimes we flirted so madly that our acquaintances were sure we were getting it on with one another. I met him one night when I was working as a waiter at Stingy LuLu\u2019s and he\u2019d come in and just struck up a conversation with me every time I walked past, not hitting on me, just talk.<\/p>\n

He became a \u201cregular\u201d and somehow that evolved into a friendship where we\u2019d see each other outside the restaurant. And whenever I quit and started working elsewhere, he\u2019d become a regular over there. He had an amazing appetite and would try anything you put in front of him, which made sense given how adventuresome he was in other parts of his life.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy the Hudson?\u201d I\u2019d asked him one time.<\/p>\n

\u201cExactly!\u201d he\u2019d replied, and I knew there was a doozy of an explanation coming. Eric was always enthusiastic when he was telling of his exploits, and this, to him, was just one more adventure. \u201cWho\u2019d even notice me in there, what with all the pollution and stuff? It\u2019s someplace I\u2019ve always been too afraid to go swimming, but when I\u2019m dead I won\u2019t be so afraid. It beats getting flushed down the toilet like an alligator.<\/p>\n

\u201cBesides, I think it\u2019s the perfect place for my ashes to be dumped, because whenever I got dumped, that\u2019s where I always went: down to the piers, to drown my sorrows and the memory of my now\u00adex\u00adboyfriend in the sticky, blissful forget\u00adting of anonymous sex.\u201d<\/p>\n

So he and I were on our last excursion together, taking the subway downtown to go dump him in the river like he wanted.<\/p>\n

Walking through the street with his ashes had felt uncom\u00adfortable at first, like when I had just realized I was gay and was afraid that everyone else could tell, too, like it was written on my face the way some of the kids at school would write signs saying KICK ME and tape them on my back when I wasn\u2019t look\u00ading. I walked around with this awkward burden that was all that remained of my friend as if it were some secret shame; everyone who passed me stared at it, recognized what it was. When they looked at me, it was as if they thought I had mur\u00addered him, as if I were holding his dripping severed head in my hands. They wouldn\u2019t meet my eyes.<\/p>\n

To read the rest, download the ebook today!<\/em><\/p>\n

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ebook $6.99 ISBN 9781613900833 60,980 words [wp_eStore_add_to_cart id=83] The ebook edition is also available at: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo & AllRomanceEbooks. This Circlet title from 1998, part of the Ultra Violet Library imprint for queer fantasy and science fiction, is now available in digital format for the first time. Top contemporary authors bring … Continue reading Things Invisible To See edited by Lawrence Schimel<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":877,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-201","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/circlet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/circlet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/circlet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/circlet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/circlet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/circlet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/201\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/circlet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/circlet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}