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⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺
"He fantasized for a moment that Connecticut was all trees and no cities and there was
a clan of vampires sleeping in a cave neaby the farm he imagined his girlfriend lived on."
⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺
credit: Pinterest
before we get into speculative fiction, I wanted to explore what exactly it means to speculate.
To speculate,
is to form a theory of what is or what will be. Speculating is rooted in thought experiment, in what ifs, in filling in the gaps of the unknown with our own imaginations.
Speculation, I think, is born from both uncertainty and intrigue.
Is there any need to speculate if there’s no uncertainty? Any reason to speculate if there’s no intrigue?
I think not.
As a lover of creative writing, I have been following for years a writing competition called the Bennington College Young Writers Awards. Every year, awards are presented to three works in each of the categories of Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry. And every year, I have observed that the selected works have an interesting flavor, an interesting quirkiness that not only keeps me fascinated, but gets me speculating about why they were selected and what these works could mean.
In 2020, I read the first-place prose fiction piece titled “Somewhere Nearby Connecticut, There’s a Clan of Vampires and a Woman He May Never Know” written by then-senior in high school Alyssa Wilson from the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities. Less than 1,500 words in length and spanning just about two-and-a-half pages, this is no complicated story, but it is one that has held a space in my mind for about four years now.
-- scroll to read the full story --
Somewhere Nearby Connecticut, There’s a Clan of Vampires and a Woman He May Never Know - Bennington College Young Writers Award.pdfThis story is presented in an insipid, flat tone, reminiscent of something like Albert Camus’s The Stranger.
A man who sleeps on a deflating inflatable mattress texts his girlfriend—a woman he has never met, has never seen, and frankly knows nothing about—and his thoughts are narrated as they wander from the field of cows and chicken he saw earlier in the day to an imaginary vampire clan in Connecticut—or rather “nearby Connecticut”—where his girlfriend says she lives.
"Calves and Chickens Feeding in a Farmyard" by Edgar Hunt
This story brings up a myriad of speculations:
The man and his girlfriend speculate if cows and chickens can coexist in a field. The girlfriend speculates that there must have been many dead chickens in the field that the man did not see.
The girlfriend recounts an experience where her chickens were all killed by wolves who stayed by the coop long enough for her to see them. “I don’t really know what they were still there for” allows us, the reader, to speculate why they lingered.
The man “fantasizes” that Connecticut is a land of vampires, and he dreams of an alternate reality where he saves his girlfriend after she is taken by the vampire clan leader.
The man speculates about what his girlfriend could look like. He draws a picture of “the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen" -- and the girlfriend responds with a mere "Oh," leading us, the reader, to again speculate what this could mean.
When you finish the story, you are also left speculating (in my case, for years at a time): How did these two enter into this relationship? Who is this man and why is he at the place that he is? Who is the girlfriend and what has led her to this spot? Why did the writer choose to capture this scene in particular, one which initially seems to be mundane and purposeless, but also piques an instinctual inkling that something is happening beneath the surface?
In my four years since discovering this text, I haven’t exactly been able to pinpoint an answer to any of these questions. But I revisit and speculate often. Because the text does not present you with a clear message. It presents a level of uncertainty. And because the text is intriguing. I want to know more.
For me, this piece of short fiction is exactly what I think about when I think about “speculation.” Not just because the piece revolves around the man’s speculations about his girlfriend—what she looks like, what she likes, what she has gone through—but because I have spent hours and hours speculating about what it could mean and why it is significant. This piece, packed with all its uncertainty and intrigue, represents to me what I think “speculation” is at its root: a cross-hybrid between uncertainty and intrigue.
Though there is much to speculate about this work, “Somewhere Nearby Connecticut…” is not what you would define as speculative fiction; I simply bring it up to discuss what exactly “speculation” means to me.
As I transition to discussing Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, a speculative fiction novel, I want to hold onto these ideas of uncertainty and intrigue.
"
Speculative fiction is an encompassing genre that freely explores possibility and impossibility alike.
"
-Mars Girolimon,"What is Speculative Fiction?"
A lawless, chaos-ridden society is the backdrop of Parable of the Sower, which follows Black teenager Lauren Olamina as she develops and spreads her new philosophy of thought, Earthseed, rooted in the principle that God is Change. The 2024 Southern California of Butler’s imagination is set for social, economic, and environmental collapse, slavery has returned, and no one is safe from the threat of being looted, raped, or set ablaze. Amidst this, Lauren not only finds the strength to escape, but the courage to spread her religion to a band of followers, and by the end of the book, they come together to establish the first Earthseed community.
Parable of the Sower is created through Butler’s speculation of what California in 2024 could look like. And this speculation, as mentioned prior, was possible because of uncertainty and intrigue. As Prof. Alexander mentioned in his lecture, the world that Butler herself encountered (drug use increase, declining education, job market degradation, as per Prof. Alexander) culminated in her imagined world. Her uncertainties of the future led her to create the world of Parable in which she filled the gaps of her unknown.
↠ She did this because she was interested in what the future held, intrigued to explore what would happen if it went awry.
Speculative fiction, as mentioned above by Girolimon, freely explores possibility and impossibility. Studying Parable has shown me that the function of speculative fiction is to vividly and freely explore a future, one that is grim and scary and very much possible (according to Butler), in order to inspire us to act. Flipping through the book, taking in each panel, I was legitimately saddened and fearful of Lauren’s everyday life. She could not escape loss and death, constantly had to compromise her morals and pain herself (due to her hyperempathy) just to save her own life or the life of her companions, and could never have the comfort and security of just feeling safe. Engrossed in the book, I could not help but feel my own anxiety heightening by the pressure and tension of Lauren’s. Just as Butler had intended, as noted in her journal, the book entirely made me FEEL FEEL FEEL.
This feeling is important. This feeling compels us to act, to find ways to build a better future and world, to make sure our future does not end up like the ones of speculative fiction novels. A novel that incites us to feel is one that incites us to remember it, and incites us to do something about it.
⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆ my modern speculative fiction favs
never let me go kazuo ishiguro
never let me go kazuo ishiguro
"Somewhere underneath, a part of us stayed like that: fearful of the world around us, and -- no matter how much we despised outerselves for it -- unable quite to let each other go."
In this speculative fiction, Ishiguro imagines a world where human cloning technology has advanced. Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth are all "normal" children who grew up at an idyllic boarding school. It's only after they grow up and leave the school that they learn the truth: they are clones, farmed to donate vital organs until they “complete" (or die).
Ishiguro uses this book to imagine an alternate future where humans use cloning to prolong their life spans, disregarding the lives and souls of the clones themselves. It also seems to be a commentary on the racism and social alienation that Ishiguro observed in our modern age, pointing out the irony that the main characters, who are clones, are being discriminated against-- and seen as souless-- by people who share their exact DNA.
if I were a boy beyoncé
if I were a boy beyoncé
"If I were a boy / I think I could understand / How it feels to love a girl / I swear I'd be a better man"
In this song, Beyoncé heartbreakingly sings about an alternate reality in which she were a boy. In this reality, she can wear whatever she wants and hang out with whoever she wants. However, she also speculates that she could "be a better man" for a girl, positing that she would know to listen to her and not take her for granted.
Beyoncé uses this song to speculate about a world in which men can better understand the experience of a woman, including how in certain relationships, some men dictate what their partners wear or who they can hang out with. Through the sorrowful melody of the song, she evokes audiences to feel heartbreak for the feminine experience, and pushes for more understanding.
eternity in a moment mika ninagawa
eternity in a moment mika ninagawa
I had the opportunity to visit the "Eternity in a Moment" art exhibit at the Tokyo Node last December. The exhibit "sublimates the ephemeral beauty found in everyday life into an eternal existence, and uses videos and photographs... as a starting point for researchers and architects," according to Tokyo Node.
Utilizing the spaces where the exhibit is viewed, involving onlookers into the art itself, music, and light, Ninagawa creates a speculative world in which humans are more perceptive to the small, intricate beauties of everyday life, from falling leaves to footsteps. She pushes audiences to feel serenity and peace, which motivates everyone to be more aware of the fleeting beauty of the everyday experience.
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