A place for stories about chronic illness, disability, mental health, and neurodivergence.
Short Stories
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“Now you can’t help thinking that the first call being made is to order beer. You look up at Jerry, knowing you should say something, then look down helplessly at all these pieces of the disassembled frame as if they are parts of a puzzle you know in your heart won’t fit together.”
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Imagine a world where suicide can be simulated through virtual reality. This is the context of Ericka Russell’s short story, Suicide Simulation, and the basis for the ethics the main character must grapple with.
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“You are born drowning. At the bottom of the ocean, your lungs fill with saltwater and sludge. Anglerfish light the immutable night, bright white spots catching on their jagged teeth and misshapen eyes.”
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EJ Croll’s speculative short story, Spoons, is about their own experience of chronic fatigue, chronic pain, and the frustration of living with these limitations.
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It’s the end of the world. Then again, we Spoonies have always been able to adapt. While the non-disabled, richest one percent were hidden underground in bunkers during the catastrophe, a network spearheaded by a disabled woman had secretly gathered to protect the most disregarded of the population.
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“We were friendly with the dark.” So begins Jamieson Wolf’s To Thrive in Darkness, a short story where the characters live in a fictional labyrinth, but the narrator’s experiences with disability are strikingly similar to Wolf’s own experiences with multiple sclerosis and cerebral palsy.
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Sometimes, all we need is a little help, even if that help comes from an unexpected source. Author Amanda Cessor shares with us a fantastical short story about her very real experience with ADHD, anxiety, and depression.
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Author Julián Esteban Torres López wrote this piece, Neurodivergent, intending it to be an auditory experience. Please feel free to listen to the audio below while reading along to the words below.