“If You Were An Award, My Love”
by Juan Tabo and S. Harris
If you were an award, my love, then you would be a Hugo™. You’d be a big one, five feet, ten inches, the same height as human-you and twice the height of Regular Size John Scalzi, You’d be made of brass, and wood and plastic, and difficult to take on an airplane as carry on due to enhanced security precautions. Your eyes wouldn’t exist, because you were a rocket, stupid.
If you were a Hugo®, then I would become Taller, Stronger John Scalzi so that I could spend all my time with you. I’d bring you raw chickens and live goats, if you were into that kind of thing. I’d make my bed right under the trophy case, in the basement where my wife lets me sleep. When I couldn’t sleep, I’d sing you lullabies.
If I sang you lullabies, I’d soon notice how you were still a statue. You’d just sit there, because you were still a statue. When you thought I was asleep, you’d still be a statue, and I would still be Taller, Stronger, John Scalzi.
If I were still Taller, Stronger John Scalzi, I would rage against Puppies, Sad and Rabid, and my friends the League of Social Justice Warriors would rally to fund new research into defeating Puppies. Money would flood into the World Con. Biologists would try to figure out how to give rabbits jaws with big sharp teeth. Then I would know that I lived in a world of magic where anything was possible and a story with no fantasy and no science and very little fiction could be nominated for a Hugo©.
If we lived in a world of magic where anything was possible and a story with no fantasy and no science and very little fiction could be nominated for a Hugo™ then you would be an award, my love. You’d stand for everything progressive and PETA© and transgender and carbon-neutral and GMO/peanut free and latina and pro-Palestine and LGBT friendly and you’d miss the Soviet Union in a melancholy kind of way. Your Social Just-Us Warrior supporters would intimidate your foes effortlessly through coordinated campaigns of doxxing and public hateshaming. Whereas you—fragile, lovely, human you—must rely on threats and intimidation and troll-like slow-writing George R. R. Martin.
A Hugo©, even a large one, would never have to end up in the hands of John C. Wright or Jim Butcher or Steve Rzasa or Vox Day because they are insufficiently progressive, and are likely soaked in gin and malice. A Hugo®, my love, would eschew gin and malice and instead be soaked in Grand Marnier® and love©. A Hugo™ would bare rocket engine and liberal pedigree and they would cower. They’d hide in the Internet instead of crashing our party. They’d grasp each other for comfort and shout “Remember Heinlein and Campbell” instead of seizing the ballot and not letting anyone at all but the Puppies vote for the nominations and would then vote again in a completely democratic process on the nominated works as we slipped in the pools of our aggregated tears.
If you were an award, my love, I’d teach you the scents of those men. I’d lead a large herd of rabbits to them quietly, oh so quietly. They’d laugh, and probably not be scared since they are feelbad hurtspeak people. Your nostrils would flare as you inhaled the night and then, with the suddenness of prey, you’d run and cry. I’d cry, too.
If I cried, cried, cried, I’d eventually feel shame. I’d promise to change the Hugo rules so no one could ever do something like that again through voting. I’d avert my eyes from the newspapers when they showed photographs of the Hugo nominees, just as they must avert their eyes from the newspapers that show my crying face. How reporters adore my face, the face of the writer with his half-written acceptance speech, tickets to Washington, green chiffon bridesmaid dress. The writer who sits by the bedside of another writer who wrote about tribbles and is hurtbad because our insular community is not now sufficiently insular for my taste.
If you were an award, my love, then no one could take you, and if nothing could take you, then I would be externally validated as my persona requires. I would bloom into the most beautiful Socially Just Warrior Flower. I would stretch joyfully toward the left. I’d trust in your shiny brass and wood to keep you/me/us safe now and forever from the feelbad hurtspeech men, and the tally of the ballots and the internet, and the shuttering of my empty trophy case.
UPDATE: I just what can’t words wow just wow….
UPDATE 2: Yeah, we’re going to need a bigger harpoon.