Short Fiction Fridays #9: Nostalgia

There was a system-wide issue with this newsletter platform yesterday, so welcome to Short Fiction Saturday!

I keep coming back to Nostalgia as a theme. It’s such a powerful feeling, so easy to evoke on the page but so difficult to get exactly right. In a way that difficulty is perfectly thematic: all pursuit of the past falls short of living in it.

What is nostalgic for me might not be what is nostalgic for you, but nostalgia is a half-remembered dream at heart, and these recommendations are more about the vibes than the details. The stories below feature oranges and online forums, megabytes and Martian skies, the end of summer and the beginning of snow.

POEM: “Summer Night” by Yena Sharma Purmasir

This poem is about summer, about being too late, about that heat-mirage knowledge that everyone else is having a better time than you, about fear and loss and beauty and hazy memories of running wild and free on a cloudless July day. Poignant, evocative, and open.

CW: None

yena sharma purmasir on Twitter

I used to bike down the boulevard. I used to fall on my knees / and cry like I invented crying.

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“All Worlds Left Behind” by Iona Datt Sharma

Priya and her father have always been able to travel to the land of Amarnath Noy through the arch of a curved tree. She returns alone while preparing for his funeral and her wedding, but begins to wonder if she belongs there when she can’t even remember the words to order a dragon-flat nimbu pani. Heavy, lonely, and steady.

CW: Death of a parent

All Worlds Left Behind by Iona Datt Sharma

In the language of Amarnath Noy, oranges were naram, or keled, or kel, depending on the place in the sentence, or if you’d seen them yourself or if they were just the oranges of hearsay, or if their pips held the power of immortality or not. Priya couldn’t remember which word was right. 

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“Snow” by John Crowley

After Georgie dies, her husband visits The Park to watch recordings of their life together. What he finds are non-chronological recordings — randomly accessed memories — and although Georgie hated winter, it always seems to be snowing in the past. Thoughtful, quiet, and softly disturbing.

CW: Death of a partner

Snow - Lightspeed Magazine

Georgie got rid of most of what she’d inherited from him, liquidated it. It was cash that she had liked best about that marriage anyway; but the Wasp couldn’t really be got rid of. Georgie ignored it.

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“Certainty in Gold” by Samara Auman

Hibiki and Renata have been inseparable since childhood. They now work on dusty Mars, where Ren longs for the ocean. Biki uses a heron-like Doppel robot to mirror experiences, so when she develops terminal cancer, she finds a way to bring the ocean back to Ren. Warm, fading, and safe.

CW: Terminal illness

Certainty in Gold

We knew, with the pale certainty of childhood, that our summer days would end. The sunlight, golden and dying, would wend its way toward dusk, and we two would sprawl among the tall grasses…

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“Abandonware" by An Owomoyela

David doesn’t want to get over his older sister Andy’s death. Instead, he finds her zip disks and runs SELDON.crn, a program she wrote that generates predictions. The predictions keep coming true… Grounded, unsettling, and fateful.

CW: Death of a sibling

Abandonware - Fantasy Magazine

Andrea was my sister. Dad wasn’t. I couldn’t share Andrea being my sister with him, but he kept asking. He kept trying to share Andrea being his daughter with me, like I could reminisce about her in her baby jumper hanging onto mom, or like I’d want to…

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PRINT: “Too Many Yesterdays, Not Enough Tomorrows” by N. K. Jemisin

The only things that still exist in Helen’s reality are a ten-hour time loop, her apartment, and an endless expanse of barren desert outside. Thankfully, she can communicate with the lonely survivors of other realities online. Most have logged off to walk forever in their desert or blizzard or grassy plains, but a new user has just made their first post. Weary, hopeful, and probably a whole lot more relatable now than it was when it was published in 2004.

CW: Rape (as a topic of academic discussion), racism, loss of a pet, suicidal ideation

ISFDB: Too Many Yesterdays, Not Enough Tomorrows

Publication history of “Too Many Yesterdays, Not Enough Tomorrows” by N. K. Jemisin

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UP NEXT

The next issue’s theme will be Self, for no reason other than “I have six recommendations on this theme that I would like to share.”

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.

I have contacted the Revue team to request the ability to add alt text for photos, since these back issues are available on the web, but until that is an option please note that all included images are non-informational cover art for linked stories.