Plugs

Alex Dally MacFarlane’s story “The Devonshire Arms” is available online at Clarkesworld.

Jason Fischer has a story appearing in Jack Dann’s new anthology Dreaming Again.

Jason Erik Lundberg‘s fiction is forthcoming from Subterranean Magazine and Polyphony 7.

Sara Genge’s story “Godtouched” may be found in Strange Horizons.

Zoli Finds His Anima

by SaraG

Zoli liked to hang around psychiatrists’ waiting rooms to hit on the low self-esteem chicks. Neurosis was his game and he was good at it, but he hadn’t counted on full-blown crazy.

“I’m telling you, I can’t date you. I’m here to find my animus,” the girl said. Her name was Padme? Pardoma? Ah, yes, Pandora.

Zoli wondered whether he should forsake Jungian practices altogether, but the paramythological interpretations were so convenient. Arguments could always be derailed away from his practical failings and into the terrain of the symbolic and abstract. Besides, sex with Freudians was kinkier than he cared for.

“I can be your animus, honey. For you, I can be anything you want,” he said.

The girl chuckled, shaking her head. “The animus isn’t a guy,” she said. “It’s the male aspect present in the collective subconscious of women”–she sounded like she was quoting something– “You should get in contact with your anima, honey, you might become less of a jerk.”

Zoli opened his mouth to proclaim himself innocent of jerkitude, but the woman scuttled closer on the bench and pressed his head against her chest. The proximity of the boob shocked him into silence.

“I’m opening your chakras,” the girl announced, caressing Zoli’s hair. “You have a beautiful anima, you simply need to let it out.”

The door of the office opened and the girl stood up, stepped in and left Zoli alone in the waiting room.

As soon as Zoli stepped out of the office, he noticed something was different. He turned heads. The women who looked at him weren’t prettier than the ones he usually attracted, but they seemed sharper, more together. Their eyes were everywhere. They held doors open for him.

The combination of gallantry and insult confused him.

He looked down at his body, fearing something drastic had happened to his sexual differentiation, but nothing had changed, as far as he could see. He was still a guy and he sighed with relief.

Suddenly, a knight appeared out of nowhere. Her hair flew in the wind, framing her face over her full-body armour. She shone like a diamond against the asphalt and skyscrapers. Without a word, she lifted Zoli up on her white horse and took him away.

End

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