Short Fiction Fridays #11: Morality
Board games, neurotoxin, butterflies, and more...
Welcome to Short Fiction Friday! This issue’s theme is Morality. I struggled with choosing a name for the theme that connects these stories: you can also think of it as “philosophy” or “ethics” or even “the complicated and endlessly unfolding consequences of every action,” but that’s a bit long for a newsletter subject line. The following stories include neurotoxin, butterflies, knives, Time Magazine’s “Persons of the Year” for 2031, and more…
“Lena” by qntm
A wiki article about MMAcevedo, the standard test brain image. Descriptions of the characteristics and various use cases of MMAcevedo slowly reveal the extent of the awareness and distress of the very first emulated human. Clinical, vast, and relentless.
See also: Lena Forsén, Henrietta Lacks, abstraction, gig economy, and the author’s statement.
CW: Disregard for personal autonomy
This article is about the standard test brain image. For the original human, see Miguel Acevedo.
Read “Lena” on Things Of Interest
“Please Undo This Hurt” by Seth Dickinson
A burnt-out EMT tries to persuade her friend Nico that life is worth living, but she’s struggling with a breakup and falls into a suicidal spiral of her own. After a difficult rescue swim and cosmic horror game night, she receives a phone number that can unmake her. Weary, enduring, and comforting.
If you read this story, please read it through to the end.
CW: Suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, bugs/maggots, death of a pet, blood, harm to an animal (in cover illustration)
He nearly dies in the ambulance. We swaddle him in heat packs and blankets and Mary, too, swaddles him, smiling and flirting, it’s okay, what a day for a swim, does he know that in extreme situations rescuers are advised to provide skin-to-skin contact?
See, Mary’s saying, see, it’s not so bad here, not so cold. You’ll meet good people. You’ll go on.
Read “Please Undo This Hurt” on Tor.com
“The Cost to Be Wise” by Maureen F. McHugh
In this novella, an offworlder visits the Sckarline settlement. Janna and the offworlder are both young girls, so Janna’s teacher assigns her to be Veronique’s translator. Sckarline, intended as an experiment in economic development philosophy, then faces a brutal assault from neighboring outrunners who have purchased advanced weaponry. Gradual, grim, and lingering.
CW: Sexual assault (attempted), racism, eye and ear trauma, mass murder, death of family members, torture/mutilation (off page)
It was midday at winterdark, so the sun was a red glow on the horizon. The bag looked black except where it fell into the red square of sunlight from the doorway. It shone like metal. So very fine. Like nothing we had.
Read “The Cost to Be Wise” from Small Beer Press
“Anna Saves Them All” by Seth Dickinson
Anna is a translator on a poisoned spaceship. She is the only crew member who isn’t instinctively terrified of Ssrin, an alien stained with the cultratic brand of intrinsic evil. Ssrin offers Anna a terrible bargain. It’s not the first time she has been forced to make such calculations. Heavy, tense, and cruel.
CW: Graphic depictions of the Kurdish genocide, death of family members
“I need human brain tissue. I have filled the atmosphere of this ship with an operant toxin. Tell the people to bring me ten of their number to eat, or I will let them all die.”
Read “Anna Saves Them All” in Shimmer Magazine
“Just Enough Rain” by P.H. Lee
God attends the funeral of Anat’s mother. After He brings her back to life, she starts pestering Anat about having grandkids. God tries to matchmake, but His friendship with Anat has been awkward ever since He scared Anat with a butterfly prophecy years ago. Unexpected, balanced, and wryly funny.
CW: Death of a parent (temporary)
The angel pointed to me and I tried my very best to blend into the seat cushion. “THIS WOMAN, ANAT BETHESDA MEAGELE, IS SINGLE. SHE HAS A GOOD JOB AND SHE’S EMOTIONALLY MATURE AND READY FOR A COMMITMENT. YOU SHOULD ASK FOR HER NUMBER. SO SAYETH THE LORD.”
Read “Just Enough Rain” in GigaNotoSaurus
“Through the Flash” by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Ama was the Knife Queen for a long time. The nuclear Flash trapped her neighborhood in a time loop, and she is the strongest and the fastest out of all the survivors. She previously used these powers for unimaginable violence, but she doesn’t do that anymore. Things are different when you know you are infinite. Impossible, horrible, and possible.
CW: Splatterpunk-level gore and violence to the point where listing everything would also be disturbing, but a more complete list is available on Storygraph
There are no more real little kids. Even the babies know they’re stuck. Most of them don’t cry at all. Some of them never stop crying ever.
Read “Through the Flash” in Friday Black
UP NEXT
Another year is coming to a close. The next issue’s theme will be Apocalypse.
THANK YOU FOR READING
If you enjoyed any of these stories, please support their authors and the magazines that published them. I’d also love to hear any suggestions for future list themes! Just reply to this email or contact me elsewhere and I’ll use your theme (within reason) for a future newsletter.