Recommending a single story is a bit of an impossible task for me, since I’ve been reading so much short fiction I admire this past year. So I’m going to bend the rules a little bit and mention three authors who I assume many Seize the Press readers will be familiar before making my final selection. First is Avra Margariti, and in particular their “Variations on the Memory Palace” from Skull and Laurel #1. This one sticks with me as one of the most creative reworkings of the “haunted/evil smarthome” trope as Margariti deftly uses technology and exorcism to allegorize a family trying to surveil their queer daughter. StP contributor Samir Sirk Morató has amazing work in the recent khōréō and elsewhere, but my favorite is still “Shrike” in ergot, which tells the story of frats, unsolved murders, ghosts, and the terror at the heart of a Southern university–all in incandescent, dreamlike prose. And, finally, Thomas Ha. I suspect that “In My Country” and “The Cepalophore,” which I read as interlinked pieces, will go down as two of the key stories of the decade, as they grapple with authoritarianism and complicity, as well as what role literature might have in the fight against state power.
That said, I’m going to pick a story that perhaps fewer people are familiar with, “In the Dream He is Skinless and Beautiful” by Spencer Nitkey from Weird Horror 10. I first found Nitkey’s work through his 2022 story “Nine Theories of Time” in Apex, which catalogues different theories of time–as fractal, circular, relative, absolute–and how they relate to the narrator’s grief over the death of their son. “In the Dream…” is also about grief and mourning, and told in a hypnotic, lyrical style that marks everything I’ve read by Nitkey.
The story explores two teenage “outsiders,” Trite, the narrator, and Tyler, his best friend who died for unknown reasons. Trite, in mourning (or perhaps melancholia?) cuts and peels off his skin, using it as a tether while he follows some footsteps deep into the woods, with the promise of safety and healing. Is this delusion and self-destruction? Is he burying his trauma by seeking to escape deep in the woods? Or is dreaming of a “skinless” body a way to accept what’s happened? I love how the narrative moves between dream and reality constantly, mirroring Trite’s own feelings of transcendence and despair, so we never quite know where we stand as readers. I also find it fascinating how Tyler’s death stands in for the narrator’s passage from childhood to adulthood and, at least in my reading, the looming threat of capitalism and work. As Trite mourns his best friend, he also lives in fear of losing the deep sensitivity to life and sense of mystery they shared in a world that instrumentalizes all feeling. It’s a wonderful work about trauma, connection, and the difficulty of healing.
Z.D. Dochterman writes speculative fiction, and his stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Seize The Press, Bone Parade, and Graveside Press’ “What Lurks: A Cryptid Anthology”, among other publications. He has also hosted writing workshops for formerly incarcerated people in Los Angeles and often listens to doom metal with his dog. You can follow him on Bluesky: @zddochterman.bsky.social or check out more stories at zddochterman.com