The Man Whose Left Arm Was a Cat

My short story The Man Whose Left Arm Was a Cat is now published on Diabolical Plots!

　
Read it for free here: http://www.diabolicalplots.com/dp-fiction-47b-the-man-whose-left-arm-was-a-cat-by-jennifer-lee-rossman/


　

This story is a long time coming. It was actually the first story I ever tried to submit somewhere, just over three years ago. I got six rejections for it before Diabolical Plots accepted it, way back in August of 2017!
(My story Jesus and Dave http://www.diabolicalplots.com/dp-fiction-41b-jesus-and-dave-by-jennifer-lee-rossman/ was also accepted by Diabolical Plots that day. I'm the first author to get two stories accepted in the same submission window.)


It's just what it says on the tin: a story about a man with a cat instead of an arm. Believe it or not, it was inspired by a commercial for the movie "Barbie and the Three Musketeers." At one point the characters were putting their swords together and saying "all for one and one for all," and I guess one of the musketeers was a cat? (Wikipedia says she dreams of being a "muscatteer"; how cute!) Well, the cat was sitting on someone's arm, and it looked like the cat was the arm. And my brain took over and turned it into a story where a man gets his arm replaced by a live cat.

From there, the idea became a very bad attempt at a Nanowrimo novel. The cat was named Nova, and was a superintelligent experiment at the lab where Tom worked. She could type on the computer, and one scene involved her ordering doll clothes from eBay because she wanted to dress up.

In that version, Wendiie (although I think her name was Nancy?) and Tom met in a chatroom and fell in love. Most of the plot was Tom wondering whether or not to meet her in person. But now the focus is much less romantic.

　

　

This story was published in Diabolical Plots: Year Four anthology and in DP's newsletter last year, in a slightly different version. I want to talk about why I asked to change two words in it.

　

Ableism -- the hatred of or discrimination against disabled people -- is ingrained in our culture and language. I strive to make my stories as harmless as possible, but before I was really a part of the online disabled community, I didn't realize how harmful some words were.

This story was written several years ago, before I had even realized the word "ableism" existed, there were some harmful phrases. Most were edited out, but two words slipped by unnoticed. "Lunatic" and "mad scientist."

These words get thrown around so casually that it's easy to forget that they have been used to harm mentally ill people, and that using them to mean bad or evil contributes to the stigma against people with mental illnesses.

Of course I meant no harm. I am mentally ill myself. I do not personally find those particular words offensive, but others do and I respect that. I was uninformed when I wrote it and must not have been on the top of my game during editing.

I didn't catch these words until the story had already been published in the anthology and newsletter. I apologize to anyone who was offended by their inclusion. That is not the type of language I want to be known for, and I believe the story is much better without them.