Matt Dovey
They Say
Content Warning: Gore, bullying
They surround us both in the school car park, enough of them that numbers don't matter, their shadows snatching the hot sun from our faces. Boys stalking like hyenas; a pack mentality of cruelty and fear.
Madeleine hides behind me. I try to stand tall and brave for her sake, to show her the only honest way to justify your existence in this world: pride.
Read the rest at Nightmare Magazine (issue 129) →
(exclusive until 1st January 2024)
Notes
The first draft of this came out of my head in November 2016, for obvious contemporaneous reasons. As is often the way of stories, though, it took a while before I realised what I was really telling myself in the writing. I've been on a journey of self-acceptance for my neurodivergence these last couple of years, and part of that is trying to break myself of the cringing need for everyone to love and understand me: to learn, instead, that if I am to love myself, my true self, I have to accept that I will never be able to prove myself to some people; that I cannot be all things to all people; and that there is nothing to be gained from tearing myself apart in trying to please the crowd, but only myself to lose.
Reviewed in Maria Haskin's Short Fiction Treasures at Strange Horizons: "Every line in this story quivers with fear and desperation as a group of children are hounded and bullied for who they are, what they are. What is left of you when you try to placate your tormentors, when you do everything to convince them you deserve to live?"
Recommended in K. C. Mead-Brewer's newsletter Peacock Mantis Shrimp: "Matt Dovey's 'They Say' offers up that dripping, wretched ache that's born under the relentless refrain you're not one of us"
Reviewed in Annaliese Lemmon's Hugo 2024 Reading: "I feel like stories about trying to prove your humanity to those who are prejudiced have been done many times. This one stands out thanks to its viscerality. There's rich details as the narrator takes apart their body, organ by organ. There's barely any description of pain, but it made me flinch. And the ending shows that this act has cost them so much they have nothing else to give. It's a bitter, yet true note missing from other stories of this kind. Highly recommended."
Published
Nightmare Magazine (issue 129), 28th June 2023 →
Word Count
496 words