I’m on a planet that is inhabited by three humanoid species. My species is called “Villains.” I’m sure that long ago we had a more befitting name for our proud people, but centuries of warring with the other two species has left us worn down into accepting their nickname for us. The tide of battle has long since turned hopeless, and now we are on the verge of extinction, the last fifteen of us piling rocks in our quarry to be used for defensive walls. We are as thin as celluloid film, opaquely black with a plastic sheen, and no more detailed than block cutout figures lacking hands, feet or even facial features on our square heads. In fact, one of us is completely indistinguishable from the next, but far from looking at our lack of physical individuality as a handicap, it is a source of unity among us. Our leader stands high up on a rock pile and exhorts us to “Keep working! Villains deserve to live, too!” He has one of those deep, gravelly voices known to baddies the cosmos over. The walls that we have painstakingly built across our lands have failed to protect us from our enemies, as their well-trained soldiers are adept at tunneling under or climbing over our rocky defenses with the stealth of big cats. Out running them is impossible as both enemy species can cover over ten feet with a single bound. And because they always attack under the cover of night, we catch only the moonlit glint of a saber, the silhouette of a bulky frame, or an occasional skeletal hand that hangs ape-like lower than a soldier’s knees. We’ve never really been able to differentiate between their species, for they share a common language of snarls and grunts leading many to hypothesize that they are close species cousins.
Each day, we Villains keep methodically working, determined to cling to our rock-piling culture and to keep building our walls even higher, though high enough has always proven beyond reach. Soon night will fall, and we will be hunted again. Cave-dwelling hideouts are no match for our cunning adversaries’ coordinated attack. Then at daybreak, after they retreat again dragging the corpses of our slaughtered comrades as trophies, those of us lucky enough to have survived will return to the quarry to work once again. Gathering rocks when you don’t have any hands is the hardest of hard labor.
Shawn Shiflett is an Associate Professor in the English and Creative Writing Department at Columbia College Chicago. His debut novel, Hidden Place (Akashic Books, 2004), received rave reviews from newspapers, literary magazines, and Connie Martinson Talks Books (national cable television, UK and Ireland). Library Journal included Hidden Place in “Summer Highs, Fall Firsts,” a 2004 list of most successful debuts. He was awarded an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship for his work and was a three-time Finalist for the James novel-in-progress contest, sponsored by the Heekin Group Foundation. New City Newspaper elected Shiflett to their Chicago Lit 50 list, an annual ranking of top figures in the Chicago Literary scene. His essay, “The Importance of Reading to Your Writing” (Creative Writing Studies, UK) was published in 2013. His novel, Hey, Liberal! (Chicago Review Press, 2016), a story about a white boy going to a predominately African American high school in Chicago during the late 1960’s, has received acclaim from Booklist, The Chicago Tribune, Kirkus Review, Newcity Lit, Windy City Review, Mary Mitchell (Chicago Sun-Times), Rick Kogan (WGN Radio), and others. Excerpts from Shiflett’s novels and short stories can be found in Hypertext Magazine, various issues of F Magazine, and other literary journals. In 2018, he performed his oral story performance “How My Yo-Yo Could Have Gotten me Killed,” and in 2019 he performed “Oriole Park, from White America to Multicultural America.” He is on the Chicago Writers Association Board of Directors. Currently, he is working on a non-fiction, multicultural project: collecting oral stories concerning race. Several pieces from his work-in-progress My Secret Lives (a murmur of dreams), will be forthcoming in Hypertext Magazine, fall 2019. Shiflett lives with his wife, a couple of step-cats, and an English setters named Higgins.
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