Flash Fiction

Science Fiction

The Last Thing They See Is Laika

So much for Shapcott’s harbinger of astronautical doom. He hasn’t seen her at all. Or anyone, obviously. There was a lot of chatter just after the accident—Mission Control and half the experts on the planet trying to find a solution, any solution. It’s quiet now. They’ve figured out what he knew from the moment it happened. It’s all down to physics, as usual. Force, kinetic energy, and gravity. The debris that made an unannounced appearance at his EVA.

In May 2024 (Issue 168)

Fantasy

Done Deal

by Rory Harper

As with Robert Johnson, a lot of people who believed in the devil also believed that Jack Malagan had made a deal with him. Jack was a six-string prodigy, getting pulled onstage by the likes of Grohl and Kravitz by the time he was twelve. He could swing the blues as hard as Bonamassa, but it was just the foundation for his love for rock.

In May 2024 (Issue 168)

Science Fiction

Limping Toward Sunrise

by Rich Larson

Lester swung his chainsaw, mowing a path through the mob of needle-toothed quantum parasites, while Kit batted clean-up with her Louisville Slugger. Across the plain of dark rock, their destination: a whirling, gnashing portal that could doom all humanity. It wasn’t ideal timing for an awkward conversation, but it never was.

In Apr. 2024 (Issue 167)

Fantasy

Salemo

by David Marino

There is a city called Salemo. Salemo sits atop a cliffside at the edge of a sea. The water of that sea is always clearest blue, except when it is clearest green, or clearest purple. The colors change with the tides, but the waves are always safe to swim in, with schools of luminescent fish dashing between the coral reefs. In Salemo, you can spend your days lying on its pristine beaches.

In Apr. 2024 (Issue 167)

Science Fiction

Under a Star, Bright as Morning

by David Anaxagoras

Jo drives urgently as they race toward the star, not sure how far to go, racing because the baby is coming tonight, now, and He (a He, of course) is supposed to be born under the star, that’s how the story goes. The story, the new story and the old, begins with a visitor, a messenger. Molly had just logged out for the day when the monk knocked on her door.

In Apr. 2024 (Issue 167)

Fantasy

a testament to indirection, an enigma, the sun above

by Mitchell Shanklin

So, this is awkward. We aren’t at the stage in our relationship where I’d feel comfortable revising your life-poem on the fly. Even as a backup plan . . . yet here we are. I’m sorry. I know I should have said that to you before the anesthesiologist put you under and the surgeon opened up your skull. But now the surgeon is staring at the quivering quill in my hand.

In Apr. 2024 (Issue 167)

Science Fiction

Islands of Stability

by Marissa Lingen

Author spotlight

Jeanne Calment said she was 122, but there were questions. The records from 1875 were shaky, some of them deliberately burned. Tanaka Kane, 119, was on firmer ground, and then there were loads of others in the hundred-teens. For some time 120 seemed to be a firm limit.

In Mar. 2024 (Issue 166)

Fantasy

Only Some of True Love’s Miracles

by P H Lee

True love’s kiss works miracles. Everyone knows the story: The sculptor who carved a perfect woman, his own creation, and when he fell in love with her (and how could he have failed to fall in love with her, his own creation?) and kissed her.

In Mar. 2024 (Issue 166)

Science Fiction

An Incomplete Body Has No Answers

by Angela Liu

You don’t know why you ask because you already know he can’t answer. A body is only a body when it has all its parts. And he—that beloved man you once hiked through Angkor Wat’s abandoned halls and root-choked courtyards with, who once pulled you from the dizzying edge of the Queens-Manhattan skywalk—is now just an unsightly array of incomplete parts.

In Mar. 2024 (Issue 166)

Fantasy

Fragments of a Symbiotic Life

by Will McMahon

I was born normal enough, except that I was four days late, which isn’t so much, and slightly jaundiced, which isn’t unusual, and had a raccoon for an arm, which is admittedly strange. It wasn’t my whole arm—I was human to the elbow. And it wasn’t a whole raccoon.

In Mar. 2024 (Issue 166)