Issue 49

NewMyths.com

A quarterly ezine by a community of writers, poets and artists.

Issue 49 - December 2019

Editor's Note

“Proof. Everyone demands proof. Like something doesn’t exist until they can see it, touch it.” --Timothy Mudie

“Peace and security are better than truth sometimes...” --Mary Ann Ramey

And from a character by our own Scott T. Barnes: “So many lies have been perpetrated that we don't know what is real and what is false. No one does, even the people telling lies.”

One question Fantasy and Science Fiction are better at asking—and answering—than any other modern genre is what is reality? Many of our stories, poems, and articles this month will bring a new twist to that age-old question and leave us to ponder once again our cultures, our governments, our multiverses, as seen “from a side view mirror.”

So to our Fantasy and Science Fiction fans everywhere, pull up your chair by the evening fire, and enjoy your reading this holiday season! And with a sip of hot cocoa and a crunch of a red crescent, take special note too of a story by first-time author Leanne Howard, a storyteller we'll all hope to hear more from in future years!

-Susan Shell Winston, Editor

Table of Contents

Fiction

The Constitution by Scott T. Barnes

Saul Beneke ...crossed his right leg over his left, taking care that the bottom of his oxford was visible to the producer. A string of MoodFilm hits afforded him a certain familiarity, and he enjoyed the frown which creased Samantha Brown's pretty face. "Five days to write an original story. Doesn't give me much time."

Derelict by Steve Forti

The spacecraft shuddered as the docking completed, the walls vibrating, groaning as the hull absorbed the impact. The hatch on the unknown vessel was the right size, but the curve of the walls made a softer joining impossible. Maybe if they'd had more than three days to prepare...

A Feast of Many Flavors by Leanne Howard

They put red crescents out just to tempt us. More specifically, to tempt me...

The Sleepless One by Mary Ann Ramey

Can you keep a secret? Of course, you can—everyone here keeps secrets...

Proof of Concept by James Rowland

Scrawled across the back [of the postcard], an inked afterthought, letters curved together to say: Even now, made me think of you. Hope you’re doing well. Erin x. My finger traced the words. There was nothing unusual about the postcard.

Except Erin didn’t exist.

Flash Fiction

Those Halcyon Days by Shelly Jones

They say I was in love with a fulmar, violent and bloated, with a pack of followers who tried attacking me. A foolish story, a way to justify my father’s brutish actions, perhaps. But it was not a jagged nosed fulmar that swooped down to me that day, but a kingfisher. My Alcyone.

Crystal and Rainbow by Mary E. Lowd

I am a cracked crystal vase holding a rainbow cloud.

To Prove the Existence by Timothy Mudie

The air tastes wrong and feels thick and gooey on my skin. Like the atmosphere inside the entire station has been replaced with melted rotting cheese...

Annalise's Grandma Rex by KT Wagner

For the next two days, the seniors take turns inhabiting the dinosaurs. Annalise creates an app to enhance their experience...

NonFiction

After All by Peter Jekel

Many scientists have looked at the universe around us and made the claim that since all the factors that make our presence in the universe a reality occurring together in the right combination is of such low probability that a Creator would have to be required. Other scientists, as they delve more and more into the weird world of quantum physics, though, seem to have come up with the idea that you can get something from nothing...

Ancestor Simulations: A Past Revisited by Ted Snyder

When Geordi and Data use the holodeck to simulate Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Victorian England, something unusual happens...

Poetry

Not Really by Jason DeHart

Why Not? by Gerri Leen

Persephone by Christina Sng

The Yellow Snake by Gene Twaronite