Synkroniciti is stoked to welcome back writer Judy Klass, based in Nashville, with “Flesh Wounds,” a provocative sci-fi story set on an alternative Earth plagued by an intractable menace. “There are different kinds of intelligence. The flesh-digger parasites that floated through space from Proxima Centauri and fell, like clouds of orange dandelion seeds carried by the wind, onto the people of Earth had no self-awareness. They could write no poetry. They could not calculate numbers. But they had a certain cunning. They came from a world where sentient beings had learned to kill them, at great cost, through use of a precious mineral pounded into powder—and they evolved, therefore, over millennia, to settle on the most despised and marginalized members of society—those that the community of sentient beings on their home world did not think worth the expensive treatment.” Judy has created a powerful allegory. These flesh-diggers are surrogates for the persistent disadvantages and shame experienced by women, BIPOC, LGBTQ+ people, and the disabled (not an exhaustive list). Externalizing and physicalizing these vulnerabilities makes them visible and creates space for thought and dialogue. Our heroine, Marisol, is an undocumented high school student with a passion for writing. Her best friend is Liam, who comes from a wealthy white family. Their friendship is strained and ultimately broken by Liam’s reaction to Marisol’s infestation. In this engaging cautionary tale, recalling Asimov but decidedly female in its gaze, Judy shows us how allies may unwittingly contribute to and reinforce society’s shaming of their friends and loved ones.
Read “Flesh Wounds” in Synkroniciti’s “Vulnerable” issue, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Judy Klass started out in the NYC/New Jersey area, but wandered off to Nashville, thinking she’d write country songs. She teaches at Vanderbilt University. Eight of her full-length plays have been produced onstage. Full-lengths of hers have won the Dorothy Silver Award and the SOPS competition.Three of her full-length plays are published: Cell by Samuel French/Concord, After Tartuffe by Next Stage Press and Country Fried Murder by Lazy Bee Scripts in the UK. Two of her full-lengths and six one-acts have been produced as podcasts. Forty-two of her one-act plays have been produced onstage, many with multiple US productions. A few have been produced in the UK, Ireland and Canada. Judy also writes screenplays.