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The Swan And The Snake
Featured The Swan And The Snake

Part Four: Don’t Walk Through That Door

The two of them clashed blades as if a kitchen cleaver and an army knife were built for clashing. Rebecca managed to avoid each swipe or lunge that the girl made, a kind of accuracy that only fearful adrenaline could fuel. She failed to dodge but one, an upward swing near her right side that nicked her arm and her cheek. For her trouble, she almost accidentally got a decent-sized stab to the girl’s right torso.

The girl grunted, taking a couple steps backward to admire the cut. “You are good.”

“And you are crazy.”

The girl brought her free hand to her side and pressed down against the cut, smirking. “The swan chose someone who can fight. Someone who’s willing to draw blood. It’s almost as if destiny is no fool.”

“… what–”

“I wonder if destiny wants me to slit your throat or not.”

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Featured The Swan And The Snake

Part Three: Blood Filling Up The Room

“Ohmygodohmygodohmygod—”

Rebecca grabbed Adrienne by the shoulders, gazed intensely into her eyes. “Calm. Down.” Then, she glared at Darren. “What the fuck did you bring us into?”

Darren raised his head from inspecting the bloody portions of the man who once was, presumably, Mr. Muzzio. “I don’t know!” he whispered. “This was just about–”

“—about a book! Exactly! About a fucking—”

“Shh!”

Adrienne was shaking, her eyes darting, trying to find at least one thing that wasn’t slick with blood. The room didn’t have an answer for her. Even a drop, it was all over. Speckled against the curtain, pooling on one corner of the bedsheets, hardening against the fabric of Muzzio’s houndstooth blazer.

Darren drew a slip of paper from the blazer’s inside pocket, squinted at it, and held it up silently for Rebecca. When she wouldn’t take it, he turned to Kevin, who had his arms folded anxiously, pacing along one side of the room. “Will anyone take this fucking thing and look at it?”

Rebecca sighed, reaching across to grab it, unfolding it slowly into a long typewritten sheet. Dozens of lines of text starting from the top had been crossed out in neat black ruler-drawn lines of black and blue pen. Near the bottom of the list, between other blacked-out lines, were four untouched ones, made up of what looked like jumbles of numbers and letters separated by pilcrows in a way Rebecca imagined wasn’t random.

“What is it?” Adrienne’s voice choked. “What does it say?”

“Fuck if I know,” Rebecca replied, tossing it away. “Are you gonna be good?”

“No?!” She shook her head. “We’re in a crime scene in the middle of the night! Why would I be okay?”

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Featured The Swan And The Snake

Part Two: The Man In Room 212

‘Hægl’

He looked at his daughter Joan, his darling daughter, lying on the floor, shaking her head for him not to go. Then he looked back up at Olga Pastukova.

“You’re sure? It has to be me?”

Olga Pastukova nodded.

“Alright. I’ll come. But, all throughout, you have my word that I won’t fucking like it.”

– ‘Hope Has A Sailor’s Tongue’, Derek Merriman, in The Tilleton Weird Reader: Volume 3

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Featured The Swan And The Snake

Part One: Where Everyone Knows Your Name

What’s the difference between a bar and an IRC chatroom? Kevin thought.

He was having problems coming up with an answer. They were both crowds made up of wanderers. A chatroom, at its core, is just a bar without drinks – the same losers coming in and out, mingling without consequence with someone they will barely know at all by the time they’re done.

Maybe the only difference with a bar is that you can find someone you like here and be lucky enough to leave with them. This was, for some, the literal reason they went to bars – to find someone they like, tell them they could no longer be in the bar, and… leave the bar. Together. Get in their car and head off to their semi-messy apartment where they’ll enjoy each other’s sloppy company till the early morning. That drinking was just foreplay, prologue, an appetizer.

He shrugged and brought his second bottle of stout to his lips, still mulling over the question silently. Doesn’t that mean, he thought, that being here was like… leaving a chatroom… for a chatroom? 

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About me

Hello there! I’m Brandon O’Brien. I am a performance poet, science fiction writer and teaching artist living and working in Trinidad. This is my blog, where I share work, talk about my process, and generally geek out. Never miss out on new stuff.

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Popular Posts

Brandon O’Brien’s 2018 Awards Eligibility Post

November 23, 2018

I’m Mad At The Mountain

July 19, 2018
Brandon O’Brien’s 2019 Awards Eligibility Post

Brandon O’Brien’s 2019 Awards Eligibility Post

November 18, 2019

Brandon O’Brien’s Capricon 41 Schedule

January 22, 2021

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Brandon O’Brien’s Capricon 41 Schedule

The System We Could Have Been Driving: Rage vs. Revolution Redux

The System We Could Have Been Driving: Rage vs. Revolution Redux

March 24, 2020
Brandon O'Brien's ConFusion 2020 Schedule

Brandon O'Brien's ConFusion 2020 Schedule

November 30, 2019
Brandon O’Brien’s 2019 Awards Eligibility Post

Brandon O’Brien’s 2019 Awards Eligibility Post

November 18, 2019

Brandon O’Brien’s Worldcon 2019 Schedule

July 27, 2019

Tag Cloud

Arisia assault Black Panther ConFusion 2020 COVID-19 fandom Hugo Awards intimate partner violence LGBTQ National Patriotism Month Performance Poetry revolution SFF Awards Season socialism Speculative Fiction Speculative Poetry The 2 Cents Movement Voltron: Legendary Defender

therisingtithes

Poet, writer, tabletop game designer, nerd. Trying to make something of himself. Preferably in pen.

therisingtithes
I did a panel at #PAXOnline2020 earlier this year I did a panel at #PAXOnline2020 earlier this year and it was really rad, so you know your resident pin-obsessed nerd had to get some swag. Including some new locking backs, and some dope pronoun hexes so I can try on ‘they’ more often in public!
Behold, my @fiyahlitmag #IgnyteAwards Finalist med Behold, my @fiyahlitmag #IgnyteAwards Finalist medallion has arrived! Still beyond blessed for all of it: for my poem simply being nominated, for FiyahCon—the very best con of this year—& for FIYAH in general, the best damn outlet in this whole damn genre. 🔥 🔥 🔥
Portrait of An Election Stain, 2020. Portrait of An Election Stain, 2020.
A book I cannot wait to eagerly consume. QUEEN OF A book I cannot wait to eagerly consume. QUEEN OF THE CONQUERED is finally in hand, and the sequel done preorder.
Guess what finally came in the mail! My copy of So Guess what finally came in the mail! My copy of Sovereigns of the Blue Rose! ‘Like Ice And Then Like Fire’ is a little ache of a story about how we mourn, and how we judge mourning. It’s surrounded by so many fabulous tales of the decades of the chosen sovereigns of the Kingdom of Aldis. The book looks amazing, inside and out.
Ordered a #Heckadeck to tinker with, but as soon a Ordered a #Heckadeck to tinker with, but as soon as I opened it, I was supernaturally compelled to #DestroyThisCard in particular. Don’t know what came over me.
One for each generation. ———— These @bozor One for each generation. ————
These @bozorobo pins are my absolute favourites. I just got the Kamen Rider Ichigo one on top, which completes the set. 
Kamen Rider, starting with Ichigo, seems to consistently argue that even when your power comes from a potentially dark place or has cruel origins, dedicating its use to destroying the forces of evil is what slowly turns that power into justice. Fascism denies you your own body? Reclaim it for the sole purpose of destroying fascism, and it becomes justice. Your space suit was made possible by revelations that led to the murder of your best friend’s father? Avenge him by thwarting evil’s plans while always smiling and sowing joy. Have you survived the trauma of unending hopelessness? Spare innocents that same pain by sharing hope wherever you go. Have you become a tyrant, forgetting to do good as power corrupts you? Then justice is the act of *literally* confronting yourself. Is time itself a record of the cruelties and selfishnesses of man? Then even break time against your heel.

I mean… it’s also not shy at all about how several antagonists are just mutant fascism, incapable of argument or compassion, only performing reason to keep their violence undetected, seeking power through force. Resistance, then, is in wielding the parts of you that are on the verge of collapse or corruption, and throwing them against the gears. Forge those dark portions in the fire of your own rage, tie them to your heel, and drop-kick all evil. 
I’m thinking about this as I work. What are the cruelties in my space that my body is unduly bonded to? And what parts of me do I wield in contrast to that cruelty? How do I transform myself, Darkness and all, into justice, resolve, compassion, and solidarity?

#kamenrider #enamelpins #resistance
#ConFusionSF was amazing. I got to give my mother #ConFusionSF was amazing. I got to give my mother the early birthday gift of her first trip to the States, her first live sight of snow, and her first con experience. I got to see snow for the first time, too, and even make a snowball (I’m good on that now, thanks). I got to link up with old friends, meet digital friends in person for the first time, and make brand new ones. I attended panels that actually made me think more deeply about what I make. I got to cohost a Speculative Open Mic, to talk about speculative verse, to ask deeper questions about how we write men with power or men with pain or both. @bogiperson even took us to this really neat black-owned bookstore in the area afterwards, and then @edebellauthor and Chris took my mother and I out for pizza after that! I adored the entire weekend. 
I’m particularly grateful that @miconfusionsf made me their Creative Guest of Honor this year. I tend to feel like I haven’t done enough, haven’t ‘made it’, but just knowing that I’m welcome in a fandom space seems to allay those fears. I’m grateful for those spaces. If ConFusion would have me back, I’d work my hardest to be there, any time.
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