Flash On The Borderlands XXVIII: Britshock II
by Severity Chase, Richard Kellum, Laura Lam, Andrew Reid, Taran Matharu, & Edward Cox
A gaggle of new Flash Fiction to warm your heart and chill your bones… (Continue Reading…)
“Practially every one of the top 40 records being played on every radio station in the United States is a communication to the children to take a trip, to cop out, to groove. The psychedelic jackets on the record albums have their own hidden symbols and messages as well as the lyrics to all the top rock songs and they all sing the same refrain: its fun to take a trip, put acid in your veins.”
“Darwinism”: “I never had a gender in mind for either the narrator or the listener. Does it change the story a great deal if the narrator in particular is male or female?”
“The Last Bombardment”: “In 2013, I participated in Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam’s annual “Art and Words Show”, in which writers base new stories on works of visual art, and visual artists base new works on stories and poems. Bonnie gave me an arresting drawing by Kris Goto which showed an infant suspended by red balloons whose strings threaded through its head. This story was the result.”
Mother
by Lynette Mejía
Lucinda sniffed the air, wrinkling her nose. Another smoker, she thought, though the sign on the door was as clear as could be: a circle with a burning cigarette in its center, bisected by a thick, black line. The smell was faintly industrial, like burning chemicals. Annoying.
She lugged the heavy commercial vacuum cleaner into the room, plugging it into the nearest wall outlet and dragging it back and forth across the floor in a series of ever-widening, slightly overlapping strokes. As it slid beneath the bed, however, the ancient machine coughed and heaved, gasping like an end-stage emphysema patient. Turning it off with a sigh, Lucinda dropped to her knees and lifted the scratchy, floral coverlet hanging nearly to the floor.
Darwinism
by Rachel Verkade
Come here a moment. I want to talk to you about evolution.
Don’t be shy. It’s not that scary a subject, no matter what your local priest might tell you. It’s really very simple. The idea is that some creatures are born with “mutations”; new features that can be detrimental or advantageous to the animal. Say, for example, that at one time an antelope gives birth to a calf that has a slightly longer neck than its fellows. And because that calf has a longer neck, it is able to reach leaves that are higher in the trees. These leaves are more succulent, richer, and it does not have to fight with its herdmates to reach them. And so this animal has an easier time finding food, and thus becomes stronger and is better equipped to breed with the females. This long neck is passed on to its progeny, and each of them can reach these higher leaves as well, and so they too are better able to survive and breed. And so eventually a longer-necked male breeds with a longer-necked female, and their calf has a longer neck still, and an even greater advantage. This continues and continues through the generations, and millions of years later, you and I marvel over the beauty of Giraffa camelopardis, the African giraffe.
The Last Bombardment
by Kenneth Schneyer
Nobody noticed the first bombardment, not when it happened. It came at night without a sound. That was early in the war, and we were miles from the front; no one was watching for anything.
One morning we woke up, brewed our cups of coffee (there was coffee then), poured the cream, and took a sip while it was still hot, and went out to search the bushes and ravine for badly thrown newspapers. For most of us, that was all that happened. But a few, maybe fifty or sixty, found toddlers on our doorsteps.
“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. ”
George Orwell
Thumbwood: “While the tale itself is fictional, the structure and language of the document are lifted directly from a genuine British Ministry of Defence report I was able to get my hands on.”
Final Corrections, Pittsburgh Times-Dispatch: “I’m quite fond of Pittsburgh, and selected it as the scene of this story only for its interesting geography.”
Thumbwood
by Davin Ireland
c) The kitchen is surprisingly modern given the setting, and contains many of the domestic appliances one might expect from an equivalent family home. Dishwasher, microwave, fridge-freezer and designer espresso machine are all in evidence. In an alcove by the back door, Sisyphus struggles valiantly to push a large granite sphere up a craggy mountainside. Oblivious to our operative’s presence, the former Corinthian king puffs and strains in order to achieve his goal, jaw clenched, diminutive biceps popping beneath the fabric of his flimsy cotton tunic. The task is a thankless one. (Continue Reading…)
Dear Mr. Landsdale:
I would like to congratulate you on your story “Boys Will Be Boys” in the FenCon 2010 program booklet.
For years I have tried to write a story that gets into the head of a sociopath, and you’ve put together one that gets into the heads of not one, but two of them!
“Worm Within” was originally printed in “Clarkesworld” 2008.
“Lullabies For A Clockwork Child” is a PseudoPod Original.
“Used” is a PseudoPod Original and was reprinted in For Mortal Things Unsung.
“The strategic problem is, of course, that simulacra are reassuring only when viewed from outside. They do not provide an existential model for how to be in the world. One can appreciate the brilliance of the embalmer’s work, but one would not want to be its object.”
“Decadent Naturalism” by Charles Bernheimer; introduction to A HAVEN by J.K. Huysmans in THE DECADENT READER.
Sounds in this episodes:
“Ticks” for “Worm Within” can be found here.
“Static” for “Worm Within” can be found here
“Interstitial Clockwork” for “Lullabies For A Clockwork Child” can be found here
The LED bug kicks feebly, trying to push itself away from the wall. Its wings are rounds of mica, and the hole in its carapace where someone has tacked it to the graying boards reveals cogs and gears, almost microscopic in their dimension. The light from its underside is the cobalt of distress. (Continue Reading…)
“Why are so many people afraid of clowns and amused by mimes?”
Following careful overanalysis, I decided to treat myself for a change. I’d spent the last three years working during the day and attending school at night. You can understand why I thought I was entitled to some frivolity.
I settled on mime classes. I’d never even thought about miming, which is part of what drew me to it. I’d been living a drab, bookish life, so I wanted to go as far in the other direction as possible.
An Internet search found fewer mime classes than I anticipated. I figured in NYC there was enough interest in every artistic pursuit to support a small army of participants. Miming appeared to be the exception. If they rebranded it “mime yoga” perhaps it’d be different.
“The Lady With The Lantern” is a PseudoPod original. The lady with the lantern is a nautical folktale. This borrows the name, but re-imagines a very different spectre.
“The Bleeding Game” was first published online in the June 2013 issue of 713 Flash by Kazka Press.
“Making Paint As A Means Of Impermanence” is a PseudoPod original.
I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful—a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.
La Belle Dame sans Merci, John Keats
The mine called Callum in his tenth year. One morning, he was walking to school with the other boys; a pair of new shoes, a boiled sweet in his cheek. The next, he found a pick in his soft hand, and his feet followed his father’s to the cold, dark portal. (Continue Reading…)
“It was at WriterHouse in Charlottesville, Virginia that I founded a member group for sci fi, fantasy and horror writers to meet and support each other. It’s a fantastic group and they helped motivate me to write, edit and submit this piece. Winter holidays are usually such a happy time, I wanted to try and do something seasonal that was a lot darker. I’ve always liked the pagan tradition of bringing in evergreens to give nature spirits a place to live during the cold weather and this story really came out of that idea- manifesting the rituals into something a lot more sinister and corporeal. I find the loss of control and fear that comes with this setting quite unsettling”
It always starts when the leaves change colour. At first they’re yellow, then golden before fading to a russet brown. I like the red ones the best, even though you could say they are the most obvious sign of what’s to come. They give you a rake and they tell you to make piles of the leaves. Your parents I mean, not the leaves. Though that wouldn’t be all that strange, considering. Sometimes when they aren’t watching we play in them, making big piles and knocking them over. It should be fun and it is, when you can forget that winter’s coming.
I think they started it all off, with the weird traditions, cutting down trees and bringing them indoors. Decorating everything in red and green, something about berries. Didn’t they notice that blood’s red too? Mamma says she remembers a time when winter was exciting, decorating a tree with glitter and ornaments to make it pretty. We don’t decorate our tree. Before, people believed that bringing foliage indoors was to provide a home for nature spirits, now that’s its purpose. I guess if you believe in something strongly enough, you can make it manifest. When the ornaments started to fall off by themselves and shatter on the floor, when it happened more than once, people started to notice. That’s what Mamma says. She said it was hard not to feel nervous that something else was going on when your entire tree had thrown off its decorations like an unwanted layer of skin.