Short Fiction Fridays #1: Time Troubles
Heist loops, fishing, apocalypse, and more...
Welcome to the first issue of Short Fiction Fridays! This list’s theme is Time Troubles. The recommendations that follow all struggle with time: as a force of nature, as a relentless tide, and as an impartial foe. One story is shorter than this email!
“Getaway” by Nicole Kornher-Stace
A fifteen-minute-long time loop surrounding a failed heist. Only the getaway driver is aware of the loop, and they haven’t been able to break it, but that doesn’t stop them from trying. Tragic, frantic, and intimate.
CW: Death, graphic violence
Getaway - Uncanny MagazineThis time you tell yourself you’ll stay put like you were told to. Sit with the engine idling and bide your fucking time. You won’t go running in there after them. Not this time. You know by now that you can’t stop them anyway. That all it’s going to gain you is a stitch […]
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“A Doorway Left Ajar” by Maria Haskins
100 words about a bike ride. Nostalgic, bright, and bittersweet.
CW: None
“Strange Waters” by Samantha Mills
A fisherwoman who sails the timestreams is caught out too long and flung into unfamiliar shores. Each time she ventures out into the past or future, selling fish from distant centuries, she carefully avoids any news from her own year. Stubborn, frustrating, and kind.
CW: Death, war, loss of a child
“The Man Who Walked Home” by James Tiptree, Jr.
Just what the title says. John Delgado is walking home: the longest walk, the furthest home. He only has enough energy for his one desperate goal. Triumphant, impossible, and inevitable.
CW: The usage of the word “holocaust” in this story refers specifically to a nuclear holocaust, as in a bomb-caused apocalypse
“The Urashima Effect” by E. Lily Yu
An astronaut traveling to a distant planet has slept in stasis for three years, bit must awaken for the second half of his journey. His ship has been prepared with audio logs from his loved ones. His wife, who was supposed to launch two years after he did, has recorded herself telling the story of Urashima Taro. Quiet, overwhelming, and introspective.
CW: War, references to Japanese internment camps
PRINT: “What Did Tessimond Tell You?” by Adam Roberts
A physicist in the field of universe expansion quits just before receiving the Nobel Prize, soon after talking to a professor named Tessimond. The POV character, a researcher on the same team, seeks out Tessimond to find out what he said. I make no promises that the physics is accurate, but this story has always stuck with me. Philosophical, suspenseful, and interesting.
CW: I don’t have a copy of this story on hand so I can’t give specifics. Most likely there are references to death and loss
ISFDB: What Did Tessimond Tell You?
Publication history of “What Did Tessimond Tell You?” by Adam Roberts
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! Drop me a message and I’ll curate a little collection for your Friday.