Short Fiction Fridays #12: Apocalypse
Snow, pirate ships, giraffes, and more...
Welcome to the first Short Fiction Friday of 2023! This issue’s theme is Apocalypse. I know it has been a while since I sent out a newsletter, and to understand why you need only look at the world around you: there is so very much of it, always. The following stories include immunity, Amazon packages, snow, memories of the year 1999, and more…
“Wormwood” by Edward Ashton
The three members of a quietly collapsing family wait, separately, for the end of the world. Wormwood was predicted to cause an apocalypse of biblical proportions, but the asteroid swings harmlessly past Earth instead. The world continues. Lonely, cautious, and hopeful, like waking up just before dawn.
CW: Suicide, medical trauma
He bursts out laughing again. It’s different than before, though. Now, there’s joy in it.
“Holy shit, Greg! I think the goddamned thing missed us!”
Read “Wormwood” in Fusion Fragment
“In the Beginning of Me, I Was a Bird” by Maria Dong
No one notices the seeds falling from the sky. They think only of disease and contagion. The narrator is struck by one such seed and wastes away, forced out of her body and into the body of a nearby cat. Cat-her finds her neighbor, and they become mouse-them and dolphin-them and deer-them, growing steadily more intertwined with each other and all things. Feverish, lonely, and connected.
CW: Death, infectious disease, harm to animals
Except—when you’re in a cat, you’re also the cat. Did you really think you could be a cat and not carry some of that away with you? Not leave some part of yourself behind?
Read “In the Beginning of Me, I Was a Bird” in Lightspeed
“It Begins to Snow” by Adam R. Shannon
It begins to snow. The narrator and their spouse try to keep things as normal as possible for their kids. It snows. The narrator digs a tunnel down to their front door. It snows, and snows, and snows. Objects and people go missing. It continues to snow. Cold, bright, and quiet.
CW: Self harm
I can tell you this right now: it never stops. Never ever. It’s the end of the world.
Read “It Begins to Snow” in Lightspeed
“Little Death” by David Farrow
The sunburst is raging through the world, but the Flower Woman is immune. She spends her days giving the small mercy of intimacy to visitors in the end stages of the disease. They bring flowers, she cooks dinner, and eventually everything wilts. Tender, mournful, and very human.
CW: Pandemic, infectious disease, sexual content, death of a spouse
“Death is small,” I said. “It’s just a moment. We can’t be so afraid of it that we miss all the other moments along the way.”
Read “Little Death” in Haven Spec
“Last Stand of the E. 12th St. Pirates” by L.D. Lewis
Dee and Bobby deliver mail in the Flood District, a walled-off section of town slowly eroding under the rising tides of seawater and gentrification. Security has increased in anticipation of a massive Amazon shipment. Dee tries to warn the young nephew of an old friend, but even though climate piracy is new, some things never change. Grim, determined, and as relentless as a riptide.
CW: Police brutality
We’d been promised a cinematic fate, drowned by a final wave, inevitable and big enough to name. The reality—that we could be undone by three inches of standing water in places no water should be—had largely registered as an affront and then became an opportunity.
Read “Last Stand of the E. 12th St. Pirates” in Lightspeed
“The Years” by Alex Dimitrov
This poem isn’t exactly speculative, but to me it feels like a tour of a liminal space: the hallway outside a house party, the time passing between the years. If you’re the type of person who feels a little bit on the outside of things, this poem is for you. Inexplicable, melancholic, and enduring.
CW: None
You could feel the shape
of their voices. You could
tell from their eyes they were
in some other place. 1999
or 2008 or last June.
Read “The Years” in The New Yorker
UP NEXT
Although I typically try to recommend both new and old stories, I want to make sure to highlight recent pieces I loved during award nomination season! The next issue’s theme will be 2022 Favorites.
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.