An Anchor in a Storm of Distortion

Guest Blog ​by Jennifer Shelby

The main character in my Recognize Fascism story, "A Disease of Time and Temporal Distortion," is a retired time-traveling smuggler named Revekah. After making a career of illegal time travel, she now suffers from a degenerative temporal disorder which twitches her back and forth through time. It’s during these twitches that she sees the future fascist regime that will take over her home system.

I look up to Revekah. She is dying, she’s struggling, and she’s tired. It would be easier to give up than to fight, but the faces of the future she’s seen in her twitches haunt her. Many of us feel that way right now: so tired. Weary. History acts as our twitches to the future; we’ve already seen what happens when fascism wins and it’s the faces of the past that haunt us. They whisper warnings from old photographs, stories, and Holocaust memorials.

Revekah acts when she recognizes the rise of fascism, and that recognition is crucial to kickstart resistance. Resistance comes in many forms, the most obvious being protesting and voting, but sometimes it’s an elderly lady using her time traveling skills to save what lives she can. Other times, it’s joining a community of writers, editors, and publishers to make a book. And sometimes? It’s reading that book.

I know you’re tired, I am too, but we can’t give up. We’ve got to keep using what skills we have to fight. Revekah uses an anchor to bring her home when the temporal distortion overwhelms her. When you feel overwhelmed, alone, and that the odds are stacking wildly against us, I hope this book can serve as your anchor and our stories help you find what you need to keep going.

We’re in this together.

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Jennifer Shelby hunts for stories in the beetled undergrowth of fairy-infested forests. She fishes for them in the dark space between the stars. This story, and many others, are a part of her ongoing catch-and-release program. If you'd to learn more, you can visit her website at jennifershelby.blog or on Twitter @jenniferdshelby