Whew! I just finished redrafting another story, “Consolamentum.” It’s dark, dark, dark little 500-word piece, and I could certainly expand it somewhat if it doesn’t end up being sent to Postcards From Hell. It is very much another take on the same theme I am dealing with in my story that’s currently being called “Jinni the Quae”… about the weirdness of a kind of willful self-suppression of knowledge that is complicit with, and fomented by, institutionalized suppressions of knowledge: the kinds of forgetfulnesses that are normalized and cultivated in societies, and what happens when there’s a fundamental breakdown in those kinds of agreed-upon forgetfulness.

In fact, I think this theme has something to do with my readings on the comfort women a few months back, as well as my current readings on blackface minstrelsy and recent discussions in comment threads and via email with velourmane about rape, power, consent, biology, culture, and socialization.