The World's Best Dad
Short story by Casper Reynolds
Thank you for being here! Teiresian is a tiny, independent press led entirely by trans artists & writers. A special thanks to our paid subscribers, who provide us with another stream of income to support future publications, from buying beautiful paper to print on to paying the trans artists we work with. You can become a paid subscriber from £3.50/month or £20/year, and in return you receive an extra essay every month. Alternatively, you can support us by buying our publications or making a one-off donation to our ko-fi.
Casper Reynolds (they/he) is a trans horror author who once was a feral child caked in Georgia’s red clay. They grew into a Gore Whore obsessed with the monstrous, determined to write about the demonization of queers, sluts, and fatties alongside the horror of transphobic, white-supremacist, late-stage capitalism. He also hopes he can pull a chuckle or two out of his readers, because goddamn, life can be a fucking headache, and sometimes, laughter can heal. Casper has previously been published by Uncharted Magazine, A Story Most Queer, Black Fox Literary Magazine, and The South Broadway Ghost Society. You can find Casper on Instagram at @LittleMxGhostie.
Content Warning: sexual imagery and graphic violence/gore
Davie doesn’t want to murder their boss. Yet the more Janice talks, the more Davie imagines capturing Janice and forcing her to listen to the audiobook of Gender Outlaw until her shitty opinions bleed out of her ears.
Despite everything Janice has said during the last 15 minutes, Davie knows Janice considers herself a tough, but fair, boss. She teaches her employees how to carefully butter up the library director by annually purchasing at least one box of his wife’s not-a-pyramid-scheme energy drinks, and to act gracious and surprised when he plumps the library’s budget a few weeks later. How to talk Sunday casserole recipes with little Matilda’s mom so she doesn’t complain about the “inappropriate” book choice for Wednesday’s story time. Janice’s life’s purpose is to guide her flock of young women through the shelves of political savviness, and she expects nothing but gratitude in return.
Davie thinks Janice can eat it.
“I’ve worked at this branch for three years,” Davie argues. “And I’ve had blue hair the whole time. And tattoos. What’s changed?”
Davie hates how their voice comes out squeaky and small. They hate how they can’t seem to force themself to make eye contact with Janice. Instead, they glance at the team picture proudly displayed behind her desk, taken just a few weeks after Davie started working at the library.
They remember that day as vividly as they remember the final sex scene in the third book of the Spring of the Silent Ogre series, during which Zogokor’s engorged three-headed penis spurts green cum onto a statue of the Virgin Fiona after their enemy-turned-lover, Andrew, rimmed Zogokor with the giant earthworm that is attached to Andrew’s neck via symbiotic fusion. (Which is to say, Davie remembers that day very well.)
