
A v ~A by James Tadd Adcox
“They don’t feel anything, do they?” she says. He smiles at her. His smile says, who cares if they do.
James Tadd Adcox’s work has appeared in Granta, Passages North, and previously in X-R-A-Y, among other places. He is a coeditor at Always Crashing Magazine.
“They don’t feel anything, do they?” she says. He smiles at her. His smile says, who cares if they do.
I am a man who never needs to do what other people tell him to do. I am so much bigger than they are. When someone tells me to do something, I give them a look. It is a calculated look. In this look, I share with them the artificiality that lies at the base of this interaction, and indeed all of our interactions. It is a look that says, “Whatever you might tell yourself about rights and authority, we both understand the physics of the situation. Perhaps, after you have told me to do a thing, I will do…