Vol. 15 / Issue 56 & 57 / Fall/Winter 2021
Fiona Meng I'm Canadian and I grew up in Windsor Ontario. After going to a mediocre art school for two years, I decided that if I really wanted to educate myself, then it would be best that I stop trying to learn about painting and simply paint. As a creative person, I'm always looking for a degree of freedom within my work. Coming to my own style as an artist has been a long time in the making and a process I'm not yet satisfied with. I love to work in a wide variety of mediums, my current focuses are mainly digital, oil, and pen and ink. See more of my work at www.littlenightbird.com
Issue 56/57
Dear Reader,
Welcome to our new website! Where you'll find the best thought-provoking and character-driven science fiction and fantasy stories, poems, and artwork, as well as the scientific articles to explain it all!
In this one-time double issue, we take a many-faceted look at the effect of death on those we leave behind—often surprisingly not a time of fear and grief but of opening the door again into hope and remembering. In one story, Dickens' ghost Marley provides that key. Another story is of a ghost too—or is it? Those of us who have watched parents and loved ones succumb to Alzheimer's may recognize the widow's joy in cooking for her dead husband again and not call it a ghost story.
You'll also find a story in here of an AI mother faced with a Sophie's choice of which of her children she needs to destroy before they kill each other. And here too is a dog of hell who finds love, and a poem of all our pets waiting for us on the other side.
Finally, I have to admit, no matter how many times I've tried, I've never being able to read the poem, “The Bookstore” without shedding a fond tear at the end. I wonder how many of you can...
I hope you'll enjoy all the stories and poems and articles in this issue, and take time too to explore our new format. I think you'll find it very...”reader-friendly!”
Susan Shell Winston, editor
Table of Contents
FICTION
"Mourning Baba Yaga" by Megan Baffoe
When I think of my grandmother, I think of her eating. She ate very small portions in very dainty bites, and her eyes burned through you if she felt you were being greedy.
"Forgotten" by Vrinda Baliga
A frisson of anticipation runs through me. Kanva b has received provisional approval for future human exploration and possible habitation.They will come. Very soon, they promise. I must double down on my work. The faster I terraform the planet and make it human-compatible, the sooner will be our reunion.
"BodySitters.com" by L. H. Davis
Yvonne, blind and bedridden since birth, relied on Hovel for everything, except hearing. He'd been her caregiver all of her life and most of his own. Of course, the term "life" was still a debatable topic when used to describe the AI function of a robot.
"No Use Crying" by Dan Micklethwaite
Imelda Whitworth had been a medium for seven years and sixteen days, and as such had grown accustomed to hearing disembodied voices. But the actor she employed to make them wasn’t with her at the moment which meant these present, polyphonic whispers were a source of great concern.
"The Christmas Ball" by Angelisa Fontaine-Wood
The dancers shattered into a twirl of fragmented movement in the mirrors lining the walls. Despite the ballroom's heat, I shivered into goose-flesh at his icy hand between my shoulder blades. Though light on his feet, perhaps because he had none, my partner's chains tread heavy on my toes.
"Stay Ugly, Grow Old" by K. A. Rochnik
Some female chillan molt their forelegs' bristly fur and sharp claws. Thus begins a period of potential fertility called the q'uiescen.
Natti put down the quill... Her handwriting had definitely improved since her claws had fallen out.
She closed her eyes, stomach pinching from worry. When would the q'uiescen end, and her fur and claws return?
"Home by Dusk" by Kathryn Yelinek
Kalin rushed to me. Tears streaked her cheeks, and her grip on my hand was fierce. “You have to tell me if Tyler’s a changeling.”
FLASH FICTION
"Gunpowder and Salt" by Sharmon Gazaway
Balan leapt tirelessly, drained every last ounce of her skill. She drew on all those nights when, she’d secretly pirouetted and leapt and toed—how she had danced!
She flutter-toed across the wood. Chin to the air, neck taut, straining, straining.
“You do see, now, do you not?” Balan heard her Dear Parent say to Mrs. Atlas.
Mrs. Atlas nodded. “Did you not teach it to smile, Professor?”
"Love Drops" by Larry Hodges
The greatest and most tragic love story began with a bomb exploding on a packed plane, six miles in the air.
"Under Earth" by Mary Soon Lee
I was born a monster.
I had three heads, but no thoughts beyond those of a brute beast.
"Forty-Fourth Time's the Charm" by Martin Lochman
The planet below was a golden-brown jewel in the infinite darkness of space--mysterious, mesmerizing, alluring... and, like all of its predecessors, unsuitable.
"Stoneheart" by Jen Mierisch
She approached with her head thrown back and her mouth agape, as many did at the sight of a woman made of stone.
I smiled and reached my hand gently down. She hopped onto it without hesitation, eyes wide as I lifted her up to sit on my lap.
"Widdershins Thrice and Six-Pence" by Mitchell Shanklin
That’s what her parents always said. When she was older she would understand. When she was older they would explain the dream war her mother fought in, explain how to identify dreamers...
POETRY
"things to do if you are the air" by Sarah Berti
"invasive species" by Bethany F. Brengan
"A Satyr Mourning a Doe" by Roger Brezina
"The Bookstore" by Beth Cato
"Dark Matters" by Monica Louzon
"Worn and Unworn" by Andrew Roberts
"Over the Rainbow" by Lisa Timpf
"Plea for an Imaginary Amphibian" by Gene Twaronite
NONFICTION
"Classic American Future Stories: From Today into the Future" by Patrick S. Baker
A future history is generally used by authors of speculative fiction to build a common background for multiple works of their fiction.
"The Icy Realm" by Peter Jekel
Out beyond the planet Neptune, there are objects known as trans-Neptunian objects, made up of bodies known collectively as the Kuiper belt, the closest of the trans-Neptunian objects, and then there is the Oort Cloud not to mention a possible Planet X or even a binary star partner of the Sun, called ominously, Nemesis.
"The Messenger from Afar" by Peter Jekel
On October 19, 2017, the first known interstellar traveller entered our Solar System. The object, tumbling end over end, was actually accelerating. Scientists were puzzled.