Flash Fiction

Fantasy

On an Unusual Kind of Spatially Distributed Haunting

Dear Dr. Erzsébet Krajcsik-Nagy,

I am contacting you as a member of the general public, and not as a fellow scholar, though I must say my chosen field of art history does have certain similarities to yours. I read the interview with you in the online edition of the Plains Dispatch with great interest, and went on to seek out your research article mentioned therein, titled “On an Unusual Kind of Spatially Distributed Haunting.” I believe I have additional information which could shed light on the case study you mentioned.

In Sep. 2025 (Issue 184)

Science Fiction

The Place I Came To

by Filip Hajdar Drnovšek Zorko

The place I came from, the port across the sea of stars, the isle town edged with sturgeon scales, was built on basalt. The place I came to, the city at the centre of the field of view, the once-ringed origin of dreams, was too large and too important to answer to a single kind of rock, but the first I encountered there was an unpolished railing of coarse-grained granite—the kind that leaves little slivers behind in your palm, but when you go to investigate you find they are only imprints where stone has been.

In Sep. 2025 (Issue 184)

Fantasy

Beginning Before and After the End

by Jake Stein

I’m going to explain everything, I promise, but we don’t have much time. For now, you just have to trust me. In three seconds, I need you to raise your right hand. You know, like you’ve got a question in school. (Shouldn’t be too hard; I know you’ve got tons of questions.) Okay—wonderful. By now you must have raised your hand, or we’d both be gone already.

In Sep. 2025 (Issue 184)

Fantasy

Anti-Capitalism vs. the Man of Flowers

by Naomi Kanakia

One time at a convention I ran across the Man of Flowers, the Superman of Daffodils, a long-haired guy, indestructible (of course), who slept in his car and drank a lot of cough syrup and didn’t really fight crime, unless the crimes were happening pretty close by. He was old by then, maybe fifty years old, but with stubble and green eyes and that ageless Tom Petty So-Cal face, and we’d gotten used to the idea that this particular ubermensch was more super-hero vibe than actuality.

In Aug. 2025 (Issue 183)

Science Fiction

The Dream Tourists

by Sarah Langan

Defense Attorney John Yurasov: Earlier you referred to this trial as a circus. Can you explain what you meant? Defendant Michaela Xiao: I don’t mean it was corrupt. Though that’s very possible. I just mean that the conclusion was always foregone.

In Aug. 2025 (Issue 183)

Fantasy

Dad Went Out to Get the Milk

by Osahon Ize-Iyamu

Dad went out to get the milk and came back with two scars on his upper chin and a brand from the Druid King on his right thigh. He stumbled through the door like it was nothing; face scarred; eyes full of light.

Mum and Tega and I were eating dinner. We didn’t notice when he stepped through the door.

“Milk’s cold,” Mum said, not taking her eyes away from the TV. These days, she hardly seemed to care.

In Aug. 2025 (Issue 183)

Science Fiction

Five Dispatches from Conflict Zone W-924/B Regarding Post-Battle Deployment of A. Thanatensis

by David Anaxagoras

Dispatch #1. [INAUDIBLE] . . . but hopefully I’ve got the recorder working now. This is Dr. Nathaniel Letheford, Director, Alliance for Military Neutralization and Eradication of Sensitive Incidents and Atrocities. I have been inserted into conflict zone W-924/B for sample collection.

In Aug. 2025 (Issue 183)

Science Fiction

Finding Love in a Time Loop: A How-To Guide

by Leah Cypess

We all know, by now, how common time loops are. In less than a decade, they’ve moved from the realm of SF movies into the slightly less-realistic realm of self-help books—most famously, Moving On: How to Keep Going When Time Literally Stops.

In July 2025 (Issue 182)

Fantasy

Un-Pragmagic: A Tyler Moore Retrospective

by Spencer Nitkey

Tyler Moore’s spells strive to exist in and of themselves. They make no excuse or justification for their existence: no promise to speak to the dead, predict next year’s grain or gold prices, or read the mind of lawyers during a hostile takeover. They are simply beautiful, challenging, and awe-inducing.

In July 2025 (Issue 182)

Science Fiction

How to Win Against the Robots

by Katherine Crighton

Mom lives in a little place off the old meat-packing district, the streets full of cobblestones peeking through asphalt as hipsters turn the bones of slaughterhouses into bespoke gin bars. It’s expensive.

In July 2025 (Issue 182)