Sailor Moon doesn’t need a magical wand or an idiot with roses. The ghouls that chase her are already a dying species—outdated, second class to the real monsters shouting on the TV. She rides the train with oversized sunglasses and a wig that makes her scalp itch, dreaming of all-you-can-eat dim sum buffets and clubs where the lights strobe just enough for her to find another body in the dark that’ll help her forget her own. She’ll put on the sailor outfit if they ask nicely. If they’re good in the only way that still matters.
She spends her late nights looking up plane tickets to cities where she hopes no one will recognize her. Kirkenes, Chuxiong, Puerto Williams. But every blog says New York is supposed to be nice in the spring. Daffodils and forsythia-draped brownstones. Skies blue enough to sip through straws. She can order a small almond latte at that overpriced Brooklyn cafe her dentist recommended and nurse it for hours in a corner seat. But she’s worried about the bathroom. Those jars of potpourri and wooden sticks soaked in sandalwood and cherry blossom-scented oil perched on a dainty shelf behind the toilet. She’s not sure she could stand the sticky sweet smell. Everything mixes with the lingering stink of the burning ghouls. Sugar toast, cheeseburgers, hot and sour soup, it all smells like burning bodies.
She takes long showers, wondering when the stink will go away, if it’s soaked too deep into her skin. She’s thrown out the old white gloves because the stains never come out completely. Under the hot stream of water, she licks her wrists, wondering if she’s started to taste like them.
Her phone flashes with FaceTime calls from her friends, the upbeat ringtone like the Saturday cartoons she grew up watching. Fighting evil by moonlight, winning love by daylight. She smiles, watching the red and green buttons like colorful full moons, letting it ring. She pictures the bouncing EKG of the other sailor scouts, their heartbeats like sharp violin strokes. She pictures her own heart wrapped in tightening red ribbons. She mutes the sound and opens a private browser. She looks up horror escape rooms within a 100-mile radius and imagines herself as one of the staff, slipping on a chafing bloody gown, prop knife in hand, white make-up smeared over her face. I could scare them too, she says to her reflection in the flickering touchscreen, give them something to really scream about. She runs her tongue over her teeth.
I could punish them real good.
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Angela Liu is a Nebula-, Ignyte-, and Rhysling-nominated writer/poet from NYC who writes about intergenerational trauma and weird things. She formerly researched mixed reality storytelling at Keio University in Japan. Her stories and poetry are published in Strange Horizons, Clarkesworld, Uncanny Magazine, The Dark, Interzone Digital, Lightspeed, khōréō, and Logic(s), among others. Check out more of her work at liu-angela.com or find her on Twitter/Instagram @liu_angela and on Bluesky @angelaliu