io9 is proud to present fiction from Lightspeed Magazine. Once a month, we feature a story from Lightspeeds current issue. This months selection is Teach Them a Story to Teach Them Kindness by B. Pladek. Enjoy! Teach Them a Story to Teach Them Kindness by B. Pladek USER: this is a message for Milwaukee Elementarys curator Jude Towers, I hope this is the right address. anyway thanks for the story you had RIGHTR generate for my 10th graders Empathy Week. it was really great! can you tell me more about it?CURATOR: I am happy to have fulfilled the assignment.USER: this isnt a trap, I promise! you curators are so scared of getting sued for using real writers. I KNOW youd never do that. but Ive liked all the stuff youve curated so far. my kids loved the ones who dont stay. I loved it too. what a concept, the perfect city upheld by a single childs misery! we had a better discussion about it than anything weve read so far. howd you get RIGHTR to do that? CURATOR: Im glad the story was useful. I enjoyed it too. USER: come on dont be that way. I swear I just want to talk. look my names Booker. heres my Instructor ID: 5-778. why do you enjoy it?CURATOR: Because its an indictment of our failure to imagine a world without suffering Because its so much more than a swipe at utilitarianism Because if I didnt send something real I was going to throw myself in the lakeDid your students learn empathy? USER: yeah! more than that though. we talked about how hard it is to believe in a world where everyones happy. and how it seems like the story gives you a choice: would you leave or let the child suffer? but then jokes on us, because we already live in that world. people suffer, we let it happen. we made our choice.CURATOR: . . . USER: anyway Im sorry for bothering you. I guess I just wanted to talk with someone. youd think this job would have more of that, talking about stories. real talk I mean. 10th graders are great but they only get you so far. thank you (and the AI) so much. I wont bug you again. CURATOR: WaitDo you have a messenger address? **** Dear Val, Glad to hear you and Sula are settling in well, and that Pacificas wildfires arent too bad. You can stop apologizing. You arent abandoning me. Im a big boy of 43. Sometimes your chosen family moves away, just like your bio one. The way you talk its as if you airdropped me into a New Dixie lynch mob! Lakes United isnt great, but its fine. Ive lived in it my whole life, ever since it was little old Wisconsin. Ill be fine.And lets be honest, I was lonely before. Thats not your fault! Its me. Classic Aquarius, shy and judgy. Now maybe that you two have left Ill kick my own ass to do something about it. Theres this queer book club that meets every Wednesday. No AI, just real books. Can you imagine? Obviously, Im bitter about the new job. Its fine, I can do it, but I swear its making me stupider. I guess it still hurts that Im babysitting the same fucking AI that stole my career. I wouldve been an acquiring editor in two years! And now I just curate endless milquetoast RIGHTR fables for high schoolers, making them stupider too.In 10 years theyll sue me for child abuse. At least one of the teachers seems nice. He texted me to let me know he liked Omelas. Small victories. And dont worry, I scrub the titles so no one can tell. Its not like the school admin checks anyway. They dont give a shit. Also, none of them have read a book in their life.Sorry for the whining. Please send more pics of little Gabbi, she is a perfect being of light and the one good thing in this terrible world. Funny, you never realize you want kids until someone else has them. Haha. Now you and Su know you wont die alone, which I also definitely WONT DO!! fuck, I shouldnt write emails when Im drinking. anyway, Im stupid, dont listen to me. love you both so much. xoxo Jude****To: Jude A. Towers, Curator, Milwaukee High, Lakes United District #4 From: Principal WalkerDear Jude, This week the kids are learning about SELF-LOVE: 35 English classes, 1 story each, for 5 days. Remember each RIGHTR story needs to be 100% unique so they cant use bots to write their essays for them. As mandated by Lakes United Federal Law (c.2047), please heed the following guidelines: Religious, racial, gender, class, and ability variants must EXACTLY match those of the Lakes United population: 67% white, 58% female, etc. (I know youre a Transgender but dont let that tempt you to put in more than 1 every 100 stories. Recall you people are less than 1% of the population!) All slurse.g., queer, fascist, slaveownerare strictly prohibited. No politics: all stories must be strictly non-partisan. (Remember especially not to insult our neighbors to the south. New Dixie has their system and we have ours. We must not teach our children to hate. For the list of prohibited political concepts, e.g., lynching, please see the Appendix). And remember RIGHTRs Three Rs:1. Relatability: EVERY child should be able to see himself in EVERY story! 2. Readability: Nothing that will harm students self-esteem by being too difficult! 3. Rectitude: Only stories that promote GOOD morals to create GOOD people!A final noteI know youre new to this job, so I just wanted to flag that in one of your RIGHTR stories for English 501, it wasnt super clear who the bad guy was. Youll want to tweak the algorithm a bit for next time. Thanks, Principal Walker**** Booker: so why did you become a curator? Jude: Because I LOVE AI that makes a joke of authorship Because I hate myself. . . Booker: was it because you love stories so much? Jude: . . . Yes.Booker: me too! thats why I became a teacher. I remember when I was 11 and the first chatbots came out. I spent hours on them, telling myself stories. I really liked dragons. I generated endless fantasies about me flying away with them. it was such a comfort. Jude: Comfort? Booker: right, you wouldnt know. my family were New Dixie refugees. we got out just in time. well, most of us. I liked to pretend sometimes that the ones who didnt, they escaped on dragons. It helped a little. Jude: . . . Oh my god Booker: haha whoops that got dark, sorry! big emotions to be dumping in the chat, my bad. Jude: No, its ok. I dont mind. How did you escape? Are you ok now? Can I help? You said its why you became a teacher? Booker: yeah. I wont get into it, but when we first got here I was pretty messed up, you know? Id internalized it all. you tell a 5-year-old theyre subhuman, what they gonna do, fight back? so my mom scraped a chatbot off the net, put me in front of it and told it to tell me a story about me, what a good kid I was. how I wasnt a coward for leaving my friends behind when we ran north. Jude: You thought you were a coward? Booker: well, not everyone we knew got out. Jude: . . . how did Booker: but thats why that story you sent hit me, you know? sometimes you do just have to leave. Jude: But in that interpretation, your family is the child, not the city dwellers. You were the ones suffering. Booker: sure. but theres not just one kid, in real life. and if youre them, sometimes youre the one who has to walk away. Jude: . . . I guess I never thought about it that way. Booker: what prompt did you put into RIGHTR to get it? Id love to string it in myself to make more. I dont have the full version, cant afford it, but I still have the free RIGHTR-mini my mom scraped. I still do dragon stories sometimes, haha. Jude: its REAL, the writers name is I forget. But I can pull up something else for your class if you like? Booker: thank you. and maybe . . . we can talk about it? Jude: Id like that. Booker: me too. hey, would you want to meet in person? **** English 501: possible re-titles list The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas (Le Guin) > The Ones Who Dont Stay (Empathy Week) Girl (Kincaid)Like A Lady (Self-Love Week) The Lottery (Jackson)Come the Good Harvest (Patriot Week) The Yellow Wallpaper (Gilman)John Tells Me (Family Values Week) Sonnys Blues (Baldwin)The Brothers?? (Colorblind Week)or Going to Meet the Man? too violent? (violates no-lynching protocol? though theyd never know, the word lynching never appears)Walker?? (note: when do I tell Booker? hell have to guess eventually. or maybe he just thinks RIGHTR can pull off a Shirley Jackson? according to him hes never read a REAL book. fuck, and it doesnt even bug him. dont be an asshole, Jude, he never learnedhow could he in New Dixie? and hes only 22. you can teach him) (note 2: give some context notes for the older stories, Booker said his kids barely know anything about the US before it split. I think he means he doesnt) (note 3: remember, you are too fucked up to be a father figure. DO NOT TRY.) **** Dear organizers, Im writing because Id like to be sent the geolocale of the next queer book club Dear Queer Book Clubbers, My name is Jude and Id love to join! I used to work for Harper Collins and I really miss talking with other readers Hi fellow queers, Im awkward and lonely too! can we talk books? Dear **** readdit.com/r_trans_lit_club Iscariot_J: subject: old essays on Jamaica Kincaids Girl I dont know if this belongs here, so mods please delete if it doesnt. Im a RIGHTR curator for a high school in eastern Lakes United. Used to edit for Harper Collins before they moved to bots. The other day I got curious about what teaching high school English used to be like. So I looked up one of those old sites where students posted essays to plagiarize. I read a bunch on Jamaica Kincaids story Girl, which was first published in the 1970s in The New Yorker (link here). If you havent read it, its 700 words, a single sentence of a mom telling her daughter this long, gendered list of duties, also berating her and calling her a slut. You only hear the poor kids voice twice. So the essays. I thought theyd all be stupid analyses of point-of-view or whatever. But so many of them were about how the students related to the story: how they saw themselves in it, even if they werent little girls in twentieth-century Antigua. I mean, they werent good essays. But so many of them said, this story is what its like to be in my head all the time. Other people telling me how Ive failed. I went and re-read the story. And I suddenly realized that I related to it, too. That its been my inner commentary, my whole life. I dont mean in a gendered sense (though clearly thats part of it). Or in a race sense, Im white. But all the voices in my head, and all the ones outside it toono matter what theyre actually saying, I can only ever hear the ways Ive failed. My list would be different than the girls obviously (like: I didnt freeze my eggs before hysto! after the war I chickenshitted out of adopting! I never learned to make bathtub hrt so no one wants me as their tranpa!). But the story ends with the mom asking, you really going to be the kind of woman who the baker wont let near the bread? And I swear to god, when I read that line I heard my brain telling me every day: you really going to be the kind of man who no one wants to be near? And I thought, wow, those kids with their shitty plagiarized essays, they might have really been onto something. Can anyone relate? Replies: 0 **** Jude: So how did Self-Love week go? Booker: phew! almost bad, but then really good! your RIGHTRs really amazing. didnt know it could work backwards like that. Jude: Backwards? Booker: the girl in Like a Lady! she wasnt being taught to love herself, she was being taught the opposite. I thought you were fucking with me for a second, this story about a girl being given all these orders and called a slut, then I realized that was the point. you cant love yourself if other people dont love you. Jude: Yes, exactly! Did the students get it? Booker: I had to help them, but yeah. it was so sophisticated! makes me grateful were using AI for teaching now, it was like this story was put together to make that point. haha, think about those poor suckers in the past who had to teach stuff humans wrote, trying to suck the moral out of some random text. like wading into a giant swamp full of snakes. Jude: . . . Booker: or worse, think of reading that stuff! why would you ever read something that wasnt fit exactly to you? like wearing someone elses clothes. I just think about how I wouldve been without my dragons. Jude: You dont think a real writer could have helped you more than a chatbot? Booker: of course not! Im me, not some random writer. haha! Jude: . . . **** Hi Jude, I want to preface this by saying we love you, and we know how hard its been for you lately. I hope youre talking to someone besides us, someone actually IN Milwaukee? I know you cant afford therapy, but there are the sharing-circles. Low-pay or no pay. Sula used to go to one, it kept up even during the war. There are even some specifically for older queers who dont have anyone else. Im not saying YOU dont have anyone else! But you write as if youre not talking to people, and were worried. Anyway, Im saying this because Im not sure youre approaching this new friendship in the right spirit. I think its cool you want to look out for Booker. And I think its noble to want to give him some of the education he missed, antebellum US history, literature, all that. Never a bad thing directing people to James Baldwin! Your hearts in the right place. But the reports youve been giving me of your conversations . . . you just come across as a little elitist. I know you dont mean to be. I get it. I even used to think the way you do. But do you know that Gabbi LOVES the chatbots? Theyve gotten her reading, when she only watched vids before. Theyre the only thing she readsand trust me weve TRIED. So maybe dont shit on them so hard? Theyre not the end of the world. Reading tastes change. Like I said, I think your hearts in the right place, and its great that you have a new friend. But I dont think you need to try to culture Booker so hard. Its kind of patronizing of you. Also, and Sula agrees with me on this, kind of white. Bookers from New Dixie, he knows more about racism than you ever will. You giving him Sonnys Blues isnt going to change that. We mean this with love! I know you are trying your best. Why dont we have a call soon? Gabbi misses her favorite uncle. Xoxo, Val Jude: but he likes it! hes becoming a better reader because of me! Val: holy shit I just pressed send! maybe you should step back, Jude? Jude: its not patronizing, its WORKING Val: do you want to have a call now? Are you free? Jude: no Im busy Val: clearly not. look youre talking like youre not his friend but his teacher Jude: no Im not!! Val: or his dad Jude: . . . Val: Jude? Jude: . . . fuck you val Val: Jude, are you drunk? **** (note 3: DO NOT TRY) **** Booker: good walk today, thanks! cool how well you know the crater. guess youve been walking it for awhile, huh? Jude: Since it used to be a lakefront, yeah! Booker: shut up, the lake came all the way up here? Jude: you mean you didnt Yeah, Milwaukee was lakefront. It sold a bunch of its water rights to Pacifica back in 2043. One of the first things Lakes United did as a country. Ironic, huh? Booker: haha, yeah! you should tell me about what it was like to grow up here, some time. when it was still the central west. did it suck? Jude: Midwest. And it was fine. Being trans was tough, but not nearly as bad as you grew up with. Booker: yeah, no one actively trying to kill you I guess. Jude: . . . Booker:??? wait did someone try? Jude: never actively Nah, it was just hard. Felt like a scapegoat during a lot of the war. Protect our children, eradicate the gender menace. Booker: scapegoat! thats the word you gave me for the Patriot Week story, about the village that stones a person every year. I taught it to my kids. they use it now: sometimes communities hold themselves together by targeting scapegoats. Jude: Its a useful word. Booker: but you were one? during the war? why do you never tell me these things when were actually talking, haha?? Jude: Its a lot to remember. I dont like to think about it much. Same as your family, they were scapegoats too. Booker: yeah. hey can I ask you something serious? Jude: . . . how serious? Booker: do you remember anything about what New Dixie was like, before? Like how bad it was, before ND seceded. way back in the 20th century. Ive always wanted to know . . . how people could hate like that. Jude: . . . Booker: my mom wont tell me, says it hurts too much. I always figured if I still had a dad, he wouldve told me. Jude: . . . . . . Booker: haha ok, I get it. maybe its better I dont know, I guess. Jude: . . . wait Booker: hey, maybe you could ask RIGHTR for a story about it? maybe for next weeks theme? (uuugh). itd be on topic (uuuuuugggh). Jude: . . . Booker: hey, you ok? **** To: Jude A. Towers, Curator, Milwaukee High, Lakes United District #4 From: Principal WalkerDear Jude, This week the kids are learning to be COLOR-BLIND: 35 English classes, 1 story each, for 5 days. To answer your question, no, the statistical percentages dont change just because this week is about race. The whole point is to show kids race doesnt matter! Remember the first RIGHTR R is Relatabilityevery student should be able to see himself in every story. Also, and I hate having to remind you of this, but one of our 8th-grade instructors complained about your stories for Family Values Week. One teacher was confused about why the mother crawled into the wallpaper instead of nursing her child. Another one wondered why the mother argued with her husband, who only wanted the best for her. That teacher mentioned wallpaper too. Remember the stories need to be UNIQUE, with CLEAR GOOD GUYS and BAD GUYS! Please take more care next time. I dont want to have to tell you again. Regards, Principal Walker **** Val: Jude? Im sorry I got mad. you want to call? Val: I really am worried about you Val: please answer **** Outside, in the world, he walks. September in Milwaukee breathes a high damp heat, its smell bodily, like the oilstain on an old pillow. Far off over the dry lakebed, quicksilver slicks the horizon. If he were to walk toward it, hed die of thirst. The difference between real and mirage can kill. Its something he would have taught a child, if hed ever had one, if hed ever been brave or lucky or good enough. But maybe its better this way. Here he is, old fart, seething about the Kids These Days who only read RIGHTR fables. He thinks the stories arent real, but who is he to say? The kids cant tell the difference. Maybe Vals right and hes just being elitist. If mirages bring comfort, their champions arent worse or stupider readers than the people he grew up with, who loved literary complexity and killed the world anyway. But. High above, cloud shadows slither along skyscrapers windows like mailed wings. What can he possibly give Booker? How can he know the younger man hasnt felt it, that breaching moment when a word written by a person youve never met turns your heart like a lock and opens youin pain, in delight, in joy that is both of these and beyond them? Surely thats just what the kids mean when they say, relatable. Surely thats how Booker feels about his dragons. But.And besides, its not his place to give Booker, say, some story by Walker or Baldwin or Morrison about the old south. Hes not his son. Even though he asked you, hes not your son. When people find their found families, they never find you. But, but, but. **** readdit.com/r_trans_lit_club Iscariot_J: Subject: Baldwins Going to Meet the Man This story is a brilliant, damning portrait of the mid-20 th century south, written from the POV of a racist sheriff who literally gets off on violence, in a Freudian way. Theres a lynching, though no one calls it that. Harrowing, but really captures something about hatred. Has anyone read it? Replies: 0 **** Val: Jude? **** To: Jude A. Towers, Curator, Milwaukee High, Lakes United District #4 From: Principal Walker Dear Jude, Call my office, now. Walker **** Booker: jude what the FUCK Jude: . . . Im . . . Booker: no answer me, what the FUCK was thatJude: . . . Its what you asked for, a story about how it was. Booker: a fucking racist sheriff getting off on rape and murder, n-word all OVER the place, and a LYNCHING??? Jude: . . . Im sorry, I thought Booker: my kids were CRYING. I had to send some of them home!! most racist story theyve ever read Im getting calls from their PARENTS and the PRINCIPAL I might LOSE MY JOB what the HELL were you thinking Jude: I thought you wanted to know why people were like that. To know the history Booker: history?? my kids didnt learn any fucking history today. they just HURT Jude: . . . Jude: But the whole point of the story is to show how systemic racism distorts the psyche!! He wrote it in the 1960s during the civil rights push!! He was making a point!! Booker: he? Jude: yes, James Baldwin! Booker: . . . so it was real fuck of course it was. RIGHTR would never have traumatized my 10th-graders Jude: ALL of them have been real!! all of them! The ones you loved too! Booker: . . . so you lied to me youve BEEN lying to me Jude: . . . I did it for you I did it for you I did it for you Booker: oh my god Jude: I didnt think it would go like this Booker: yeah no shit god my friends were right about you delete my number, I never want to hear from you again. Jude: Im sorry look Ill call the school, Ill explain, it was my fault not yours Booker: youll do that anyway if youre not a complete zero of a person Jude: Dont go, please, I really enjoyed talking to you Booker: yeah as some real author said, apparently, sometimes you have to walk away bye Jude: WAIT Booker? Booker? **** readdit.com/r_trans_lit_club Iscariot_J: old essays on Jamaica Kincaids Girl Replies: 1 lakecrawlr: I just read this story and its crazy, I feel the exact same way!! Like my inner monologue, all the ways Ive fucked up.Though for me the really interesting thing is imagining what the girl will be like when she grows up. Will she turn into her mom? Did her mom used to be just like her? And now shes just passing the hurt down, even though she knows better, even though she hates herself for it, because she doesnt know anything else? About the Author B. Pladek is a writer and literature scholar based in Wisconsin. His fiction has appeared inStrange Horizons,Slate Future Tense Fiction,PodCastle, and elsewhere. His debut novelDry Land appeared in fall 2023 and was shortlisted for the Crawford Award. You can find him at bpladek.net or on all socials @bpladek. Adamant Press Please visit Lightspeed Magazine to read more great science fiction and fantasy. This story first appeared in the December 2024 issue, which also features short fiction by Melissa A Watkins, Lincon Michel, Pat Murphy, Cressida Blake Roe, Adam-Troy Castro, David Anaxagoras, Gene Doucette, and more. You can wait for this months contents to be serialized online, or you can buy the whole issue right now in convenient ebook format for just $4.99, or subscribe to the ebook edition here. Want more io9 news? 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