This work is fiction.
That may be difficult to believe in places, and in others, perhaps all too easily. Nonetheless, it must be said plainly. Ten Men Laughably is a piece of fiction built from experience, anger, memory, and myth. There are truths in here — but not all of them are literal, and none of them wear ID tags.
This story was written in a feverish burst — in what you might call a younger voice, a previous mode, from a colder vantage. It carries the verve of youth: unrelenting, sometimes brutal, sometimes wicked, and sometimes too much. That is its honesty.
I consider it a continuation of a wound — one that begins in schoolyards and continues far beyond. Many people don’t grow out of being bullies. Many others live for years under the stunted shadows they cast. This is for them.
To all those who have endured — or are still enduring — the small or large tyrants of the world, whether on the street, in the classroom, the home, the State, or the mind:
This is for you.