I don't generally write introductions to my stories, preferring to let them stand on their own. But "New Forms Of Identification" perhaps requires one, at least in our current mad times when people have lost their sense of humor. I wrote this short story in early 2023. My girlfriend read it at the time and advised me not to publish it, saying it would offend the wrong people. I set it aside, thinking she was probably right and figuring it would have a short shelf life anyway. But the story kept popping up, demanding to be looked at. So I reworked some parts of it, and here it is. If it offends people on either side of the issue, so be it. I think anyone on the left who is offended will be missing the point. And anyway, I'm not against offending people, especially those who lack a sense of humor. Don't take yourselves too seriously. Life is much too short.
New Forms Of Identification
by Michael Doherty
When Joseph
changed his name to Carissa, Diana was not the least bit troubled, or even
surprised. Her son had always been a bit effeminate, and had long expressed
dissatisfaction with his biblical name. Carissa made some sense to her, and
Diana quickly made the adjustment. But when a year later he announced he wanted
to be called His Majesty, The Supreme Lord Xavier The Conqueror, she refused.
“I now identify as an interplanetary pharaoh,” her son explained. This did not
surprise Diana either. Her son had always been a tad dramatic, but she had no
inclination to follow this latest directive as to how he wished to be
addressed.
There had been
enough changes in her household, Diana decided. Her couch had begun identifying
as a refrigerator, and her dog had begun identifying as a sock puppet. Her
entire bedroom set now wished to be referred to as Corky Fungi, a heavy metal
band specializing in demonic waltzes. Diana had done her best to adjust to each
of these changes, never wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings, but reality had been
lost somewhere in the many transitions, and she was no longer certain which
things were fact and which were mere fantasy. Everything was jumbled, it seemed
to her. All interactions required inquiries as to identities. But those
questions themselves required a delicacy, and had to be spoken in soft, gentle
tones, so as to imply no judgment. And the list of words one was now expected
to avoid using grew with each passing day. She kept the list taped to her
refrigerator, her real refrigerator (though she knew she shouldn’t refer to it
in such a manner aloud, at least not in front of her couch, and the word “real”
had become questionable anyway). She looked the list over each morning before
breakfast, a reminder of what it was no longer polite to utter. She had slipped
up once last week, referring to the nice woman who did her nails as a woman,
forgetting for just a moment that “woman” had recently been added to the list
of forbidden words and expressions. Plus, as Diana soon remembered, that woman
now identified as a school of angel fish. The look of anger Diana received as a
result of her social faux pas led to her decision to get her nails done at
another salon.
And now her
son, an interplanetary pharaoh? How would she ever get him to clean his room
again? Everything she’d once been certain of in life now was illusive, dubious.
Objects were nothing more than outlines, the middle being constantly emptied
and refilled with different material, the exteriors dressed and redressed. She
understood that part of it was just that she was getting older, and the world
was doing its best to shed itself of the previous generation, as it had always
done. But that couldn’t be the whole story. Could it? Besides, she was only
forty-one. Needing to at least momentarily escape her thoughts, she decided to
take in a movie (you weren’t allowed to say “film” anymore). She called in sick
at work, telling her boss (though of course not using the word “boss”) that she
was suffering from cisgender dysphoria, an excuse newly recognized as valid.
The movie was a delightful romance about two non-binary penguins who start a
dry-cleaning business on a shrinking glacier. When Diana got home, feeling much
more herself, the Moopies were there.
In other parts
of the galaxy, Moopies had a reputation for being cruel, rude and selfish, for
being prone to violent outbursts and lengthy monologues. They were also known
for making a mess, breaking things with their large bodies and awkward dancing.
This was a generalization, certainly, but one which proved true more often than
not. And the one thing that was the case with all Moopies, without exception,
and without argument, was their love of a good loud waltz. And it is for that
reason that this particular group of Moopies had traveled to Earth. They wanted
to hear Corky Fungi perform.
Diana’s first
clue that something was amiss, even before she saw the terrible state of the
kitchen, was the way her front lawn was all torn up by the monsters’ transport.
Moopies were generally fast drivers, and if you needed to get somewhere
quickly, hitching a ride with one would do the trick, but few had bothered to
master the art of landing. Diana saw that the doghouse had been crushed, and
briefly wondered if her dog had been inside it. Not that he would be much help
against the intruders now that he identified as a sock puppet. The journey had
made the Moopies hungry, and they had emptied Diana’s refrigerator, and even
her couch, of all contents, and were now consuming it while clumsily dancing to
the music of Diana’s bedroom set. Their many feet were covered not only in
dirt, as usual, but also in ketchup, mayonnaise, flour, tabasco sauce and sour
cream, sullying her expensive shag carpeting with each awkward step, while
their flailing arms knocked the artwork from the walls. The more the Moopies
enjoyed themselves, the more destruction they caused, and the more of Diana’s
reality they consumed. But no one could deny that the band was cooking. Corky Fungi,
playing to an enthusiastic audience, put on the show of its career. One of the
Moopies was moved to deliver a lengthy monologue during a break between songs
while the vanity re-tuned its instrument, the thrust of it being that the
monsters would do well to take the band back to their planet to continue the
party there. The others, seizing upon the idea, began to tear up the extra
bedding, the strips of which were then used to tie up the band members.
This proved
too much for Diana, whose relaxed mood from taking in a movie had long since evaporated.
“No, you can’t take my bedroom set,” Diana shouted, in her agitated state momentarily
forgetting what her furniture now wished to be called and reverting back to the
reality she had trusted for so much of her life. That didn’t stop the Moopies
from their task, and the largest of the creatures started to drag Gruff Iron,
the bass player, who in easier days had simply been her dresser, from the room.
This created a terrible racket, enough to draw Diana’s still-sullen son from
his room to complain.
The moment the
large Moopie saw him, he stopped dragging Gruff, dropping the rope. He then
dropped to his knees, saying, “Your majesty.”
At that,
Diana’s son straightened up, and focused his gaze slightly above the prostrate form
of the Moopie. “Yes, subject?” he said.
“What is your
pleasure, Majesty?”
And Diana’s
son said, “Corky Fungi is to remain in my mother’s room.”
And that is
how The Supreme Lord Xavier The Conqueror kept Diana’s bedroom set from being
abducted by monsters. And though Diana’s link to reality was permanently
severed, she did eventually gain an appreciation for heavy metal music.
Copyright 2023/2025 by Michael Doherty
