Issue 144 September 2025

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Editorial: Literature as Shapeshifter

by Rebecca Halsey

September 4, 2025

Editorial

Our big trip this summer was to Washington State where, among other things, we hiked, swam, kayaked, and reconnected with family. And also where, on a rainy day in downtown Friday Harbor, I found the San Juan Island Museum of Art, a small collection that showcases indigenous artists. Themed “shapeshifters” and taking the trickster Raven as its mascot, their exhibit this summer discusses how we survive by changing shape.

As I sat with the gorgeous and well-curated pieces, this theme really sank in to my soul. We live in a time (and I’m of an age), where it feels like a lot of things are shifting, quickly and rather destructively. Art itself feels threatened by funding cuts and AI slop.

And yet, here is a celebration of modern artists using inherited styles or techniques to reinterpret lore, to challenge themselves and their audience, and to convey a new generation of experience.

It was inspiring and hopeful!

I feel the same about the collection of stories in this issue. Within these pages you will find examples of meta-fiction. You will find authors that are engaging in conversation with literature that has come before them. You will find characters telling their own story, not the one written for them. You will find writers playing with structure and words.

Because reinterpretation is part of the joy of creation.

Our first story this month is “Silence, in the Doorway, with a Gun” by Nadia Radovich. This piece is a retelling of Le Romance de Silence, a 13th century story known for being an early treatise on gender identity.

Leo Rein’s “Yet Another Unforgettable Luncheon” also speaks directly to works that have come before—this time that of the beloved Hercule Poirot mystery series by Agatha Christie.

In Wen Wen Yang’s “Out of Print,” characters of a story start to fade as a book is no longer read. For better or worse—that is for the reader to determine.

Beth Goder offers a setting that is a character in “Emerald Gears,” in which we see an intergalactic marketplace evolve and interact with its patrons.

In “The Things You Bought for the Robot,” Stefan Alcalá Slater uses a listing format and second-person point of view to depict a family coming to terms with their new household assistant.

Finally, we have two stories this month that continue the conversation about families and generations. In Guan Un’s “The Last Items of the Forgotten Hero or The Grandchild’s First Dragon,” a grandfather is narrating his adventures to his granddaughter as she discovers the artifacts he brought home years before.

And in our closer, “The Forest Through the Teas,” Wendy Nikel depicts a grandma struggling to connect to her granddaughter. To fully capture the disconnect, the language of the older generation is expertly laced with puns.

Just as animals adapt, art and literature can survive by changing shape. Like the weather, culture can go beyond geopolitical boundaries. Like the water, it has currents. Like the earth, it can ground, uplift, and even rumble.

* * *

Ⓒ Rebecca Halsey

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Silence, in the Doorway, with the Gun

by Nadia Radovich

September 5, 2025

Fantasy

The titular character of the thirteenth-century Le Roman de Silence is born female, at a time when women cannot inherit. To avoid disinheriting his child, Silence’s father raises him as a son. Personified Nature and Nurture quarrel over what gender Silence should be.

Silence was lost for centuries until, in 1911, a copy was discovered in a box marked “unimportant documents,” and Silence returned to the world.

***

There are two doors. The problem is, there’s a goddess in front of each.

“Settle a bet, Silence,” Nurture says. “Two doors. Choose one.”

Only moments old, the first thing you learn is that you have difficulty making up your mind.

“To help decide, we’ll each give you a gift,” Nature says. She’s digging a quill into vellum. “I give you beauty.”

“And I give you a gun,” Nurture says. There it is, heavy and blood-scented in your hand. “The gun is a metaphor. It’s also an actual gun.”

“Foul! Anachronism!” Nature cries.

“It’s not, actually,” Nurture says. “Look it up. There’s a rule about guns, though. You have to use it by the end. Do you understand?”

“No?”

“Tough,” Nurture says. “Pick a door.”

At random, you pick Nature’s door.

***

Your name is Silence. When you are old enough to understand, your father takes you to the stables. He teaches you to don the leather gauntlet, let the hawks rest on your arm.

He explains how inheritance works. How your parents kept a secret for you. How you are perfect in every way, but you will be safer in this world if you keep this secret, too.

Somewhere in your heart there are two doorways.

“Sorry,” you say. “I can’t.”

You never learn to like women’s clothes. But if you can no longer become a knight, at least you stay with your parents. For a while, anyway. Nature made you too beautiful. The king who outlawed your inheritance marries you.

You are with your husband when you learn that your father died. You think about using Nurture’s gun— on the messenger, your husband, yourself. But you don’t know that it matters anymore.

***

It takes a while, but you find yourself back in the chamber with the goddesses.

“Victory!” Nature says.

“Best two out of three?” Nurture proposes.

So you try the other door.

***

This time, when your father gives you a choice, you become a knight. You master the smart movement of horses, the impact of the lance, the clarity of the practice blade. You listen to jongleurs singing Romances and think this is what courtly love feels like.

But war, it turns out, is not like tourneys. War is sliding in crimson mud, trying not to trip onto enemy blades. You think about pulling out Nurture’s gun but fear you will drop your sword.

You wound your enemy. He does not die quickly. You wish he were dead. You wish you were, too.

***

“Women aren’t made for war,” Nature says.

No one is, you think, but you walk through her door anyway.

***

You are a lady again. But this time, you tell your father you received a divine vision and decamp to an abbey nearby. Women cannot work in scriptoriums. But you attend Mass, walk in the garden, pray.

When your father dies, you are beside him, his cool hand in your warm one. You return to the abbey. You still like the silence, music, schedule. But it feels like your life lasts for a very long time.

***

“Best three out of five?” Nurture suggests.

***

You run away with jongleurs. You miss knighthood, but you fall in love again, with the harp.

When youth no longer explains your voice, you write romances. You carve stories about female knights, give them happy endings. Your fame spreads. You wonder if your father ever hears your songs.

But like other lives, there are unintended consequences. Believing you kidnapped by jongleurs, your father bans them from his lands. With no way of passing a message, you are still in exile when he dies.

***

“Best eleven out of twenty-one?”

***

You are an anchoress.

A seneschal.

A lady-in-waiting.

An abbot.

Probably others. You have difficulty remembering, now.

“Best a hundred fifty out of a hundred ninety-nine?”

***

You are, eventually, a knight again. The king sends you on a quest to find Merlin, whom prophecy dictates only a woman can find. You make it out of court before bursting into tears.

You are grazing your horse on a riverbank, watching the hawks cut half-moon holes in the sky, when you see him.

“Merlin?” you say. “I’m—”

“Silence.” Your name, or a command. “We’ve done this before. Repeatedly.”

Probably you have. Your memory is moth-eaten.

“I would like to stop meeting you on this riverbank. So, my advice: your struggle will end when you give either goddess what they want. Do you know what you desire?”

You thought you didn’t. But as you sit there, horse wrenching up grass, you realize you do. Wandering as a knight. Meditating as a nun. You want to write songs again. You want to see your father again.

The problem has never been not knowing. The problem is that neither door leads to a life where you get to have all these things.

Merlin says, “There are never only two doors, Silence.”

***

“You have to choose!” Nature says, annoyed, quill scratching. “If you don’t choose, there’s no story. I’m writing a scribe writing this. The scribe is putting it in a box. I’m writing a lock on the box. I’m writing years passing, everyone forgetting you.”

* * *

You are Silence. There is still a loaded gun in your hand.

* * *

The box is closed. The centuries rush past. The moral of the story is: sometimes you are a knight, sometimes a daughter, sometimes both.

And sometimes, you are the bullet that splinters the lock on the box.

* * *

Ⓒ Nadia Radovich

Comments

  1. Lenora Good says:
    September 5, 2025 at 6:59 pm
    This was a wonderful read! Thank you.
  2. Honeybee says:
    February 13, 2026 at 5:41 pm
    This was amazing! So much packed into so little space. Thank you! c:
  3. Lenora Good says:
    March 13, 2026 at 12:22 am
    This was a wonderful read! Thank you.
  4. Tar Vol's 2025 Recommended Reading List (Holiday Edition) says:
    March 13, 2026 at 12:22 am
    […] Silence, in the Doorway, with the Gun by Nadia Radovich (Flash Fiction Online). A flash fiction about the constraints put on women, making wonderful use of a non-traditional format to play so many possible iterations against each other.  […]
  5. Honeybee says:
    March 13, 2026 at 12:22 am
    This was amazing! So much packed into so little space. Thank you! c:
  6. Tar Vol's 2025 Short Fiction Top Ten says:
    March 13, 2026 at 12:22 am
    […] Silence, in the Doorway, with the Gun by Nadia Radovich (Flash Fiction Online). A flash fiction about the constraints put on women, making wonderful use of a non-traditional format to play so many possible iterations against each other.  […]

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The Last Items of the Forgotten Hero, or The Grandchild’s First Dragon

by Guan Un

September 9, 2025

Fantasy

Thirty years after the War of Broken Crowns and the fall of the White-Gold King: Sun-Li had a new adversary to face.

“So what do you like to do?” he asked his granddaughter, Antha.

Antha had been riding on horseback all day with her mother (his daughter) and wisps of hair were sweat-stuck to her small, round cheeks. Instead of answering, she scowled and dashed past him into the house.

Sun-Li sighed and turned to follow, wishing for a little of her speed. He battled another enemy now, invisible, near invincible: age.

Inside, she was frowning at the food—congee, youtiao, pickled vegetables—arranged on the table.

“You can eat, if you’d like?” he began.

“I don’t wanna. I wanna play. Why did my mother leave again?”

“Well, you were both on the way to visit me, but she heard news of some bandits. So she dropped you off and she’ll be back soon.”

“Will she cut off their heads?” Antha asked eagerly.

If there was an appropriate age for stories about beheadings, Sun-Li couldn’t remember it. “She will, ah, do what is right.”

Antha glared at him—the look of a child who can smell a diplomatic answer.

“Maybe she’ll catch them and smack their bottoms,” Sun-Li said lightly.

She giggled at the joy of a grown-up saying a forbidden word. Then she remembered she was sulking, scowled again, and scuttled into his bedroom.

When she emerged, Antha had found a robe and was busy trying to wrap herself in it.

No, not just a robe.

The Robe Invincible. The one he had worn when he had captured the White-Gold King.

Sun-Li entered the throne room.

The White-Gold King on his throne, looking down. “But how did you get through the traps?” And then he saw the Robe and he glared. “Not even that can protect you forever.”

Antha’s little hands lifted the edge of the robe as she ran outside.

“There’s something wrong,” she said, when he caught up to her. “The robe is broken. It’s too heavy.”

He laughed. “No, not broken, little one. It’s Crafted. Magical. It doesn’t let things get close.”

She looked at him like this was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard. “Why?”

“So you can’t be hurt.”

“But you can’t get hugs.”

“That’s a fair point,” he conceded.

“Lemme try,” she said, then before he could catch her, she hurled herself at the katsura tree that bloomed crimson up and over his house. The robe bounced her back from the tree unhurt, and she rolled on the ground.

She looked wide-eyed at him.

“Did you know it could do that?”

“I … I did not,” he said.

“Do you have any other toys?”

The White-Gold King gripped his blade, half-astonished, half-anguished as Sun-Li deflected another spell.

“Do you truly believe these toys can defeat me?”

Sun-Li grinned back, cocky. “Yes, I think they can.”

He led her into his storeroom.

“It’s a little dusty,” he said.

She looked around wide-eyed at the assembled things. Each one had a story from his adventures—

“Junk,” she said.

“Would any of this be okay to play with?” he asked.

And then her eyes lit up. She reached over to the bottom of a stack and pulled, sending the rest clattering to the ground.

He winced then helped her to unearth it. It was the Shield.

He had never quite been sure if it was Crafted. Its reputation was that every blow that it took split open reality like a melon, and the Shield led you to the best outcome, the best world. Had it worked? It was difficult to tell.

The girl pushed her sleeves up and with a grunt, lifted the Shield with both hands. He helped her with the other side.

“What do we need a Shield for?”

She gave him another look. “It’s not a shield.”

“It’s not?”

“Help me outside and I’ll show you.”

Outside, she put it onto the grassy hill and then plomped herself down upon it.

“See? It’s a dragon slaying sled. Now I just need a lance to slay the dragon.”

“Hm.”

Her eyes narrowed again. “Have you ever even slayed a dragon?”

The White-Gold King on the floor, his helmet shattered. Spitting blood at him. “What next after you defeat me? You can only become what I’ve become. Then you will see.”

He blinked himself back to the present. “I … haven’t, I admit.”

“Well you obviously need a lance.”

“Obviously. One moment, little mistress.”

Sun-Li went back to the storeroom and took the Spear of Sorrow. He unscrewed the spearhead, then took it the staff in his hands. For a moment muscle memory took over and it windmilled through his hands, spinning end over end. And then memory faltered and it fell, clattering to the floor.

He chuckled to himself and took it outside to his granddaughter.

She took it, dubious.

“Are you sure this will work?”

“I thought we could try.”

“It looks too old.”

“Are you talking about me or the staff?” She looked at him, unsure if he was joking.

He let it go. “But aren’t we still missing one thing?”

She furrowed her brow.

“Where is the dragon?” he asked.

“Oh, that’s just pretend.”

“But we could use my dragon.”

“What?” For a moment, her jaw dropped and then suspicion crept up her face. “Wait, that’s not true.”

“Yes, it’s just down here.” He walked to the bottom of the hill, and pretended to look one way and then the other, his back towards her.

“Well, where is it?” Suspicion gave way to a haughty pretense.

“It’s right … here.” Sun-Li turned and growled as loud as he could, hands outstretched into claws, robe pulled over his head.

Despite herself, Antha gave a shriek that turned into a giggle, and kicked off the ground and slid on the sled down the hill towards him, the staff pointed at his heart and her laughter reaching to the sky.

* * *

Ⓒ Guan Un

Originally published in Worlds of Possibility, August 31, 2023. Reprinted here by permission of the author.

Yet Another Unforgettable Luncheon

by Leo Rein

September 12, 2025

Literary

Agatha Poyrot watched the policemen pack the murderer into their funny little car and speed off to the station. Another brilliant series of deductions, inductions, and preductions. She uncovered the culprit who daringly murdered Tweety Post during the very luncheon Tweety hosted for an exclusive list of almost fourteen guests. Not only that, but she uncovered three affairs, two embezzlements, and an international spy (Ian Tondens, alias James Phlegm, retired), reunited a mother and daughter estranged since birth, and rectified the erroneous passing of an estate to a second-oldest child when the oldest child’s true identity was revealed. By her.

She wanted a cigarette and lunch. Through all the commotion, no one remembered to serve lunch. Except the butler, but the butler didn’t serve lunch on account of being an accomplice to murder, so.

She got a stick of nicotine gum from her purse and tossed it in her mouth, wrapper and all. Again, and for the hundredth time, she wondered if the best thing for everyone would be to just stop seeing people. God, it was exhausting. This month alone she attended a friend’s wedding, drove to the suburbs to visit a great aunt her mum recently discovered (turned out to be a con artist), took a weekend flight to Paris, had a lovely meal with friends at The French Garbage (booked six months in advance, her reputation let her jump the list), and went to the gym regularly. At every one, every single one, there had been at least one murder closely trailed by juicy tangled intrigue. She had to keep switching gyms. And that’s not including the funerals she skipped. She stopped attending funerals because it risked recursion.

The police chief, Hamish MacMillian, sauntered over and gave her a pat on the back. “Another mystery solv—”

“Don’t touch me.”

“M’apologies, m’lady—”

“It’s fine. How goes bringing down the crime rate?”

He chuckled. “Your reputation grows with every case, and soon I am sure the scoundrels and would-be murderers will run from the city like rats from—”

“I’m going home. Don’t call for a consult.”

He doffed his hat with a cheeky grin. When she walked half a block away, he called after her, “Another mystery solved!” which made her spit out her gum.

She passed an apartment building where the sounds of a heated argument drifted to the sidewalk. An older gentleman taking out rubbish watched the window from which the ruckus came until a gunshot cracked and glass shattered. A dog howled, someone screamed, and Agatha Poyrot knew, knew that dog would be that last clue that made everything fit.

The older gentleman gaped at her. “Call the police! Tell—”

“No. No, goddamn you, I’m going home. Don’t I get a day? Haven’t I earned one day off?”

“But—”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, the chauffeur did it, okay? Tell the police the chauffeur did it.”

By the time the gentleman de-doffed his cap, she was speedwalking the hell home.

When she checked her mail, it was invitation, invitation, invitation, invitation. If she burned the lot of them, her landlord would inquire about the smoke, he’d just happen to have a new tenant handy to introduce, who’d just happen to have a housewarming coming up, and so on. She would know. It’s happened twice.

Once she returned to her flat, she realized there wasn’t a thing to eat. She closed her eyes, envisioning going to the store, bumping into an acquaintance, and then in a week their body would be discovered, and so on.

She sat at the dining table for minutes, staring at the wall, hands enclosing her mouth and nose, before deciding that ordering delivery was safest.

“Hello, China Express, can I take your order?”

“Yeah, are you still doing lunch specials?”

“Ohh, you’re lucky. Our new manager, the brother of the old manager who died under mysterious circumstances, extended our lunch hours, even though business has been bad and also our head chef somehow bought a huge insurance policy—”

She hung up.

She stared at the wall then moved to stare out the window. A couple walking along. A street vendor selling ice cream. Several friends laughing on a balcony with a yappy dog. Dozens, hundreds of people. Every single one could be a murderer. Especially the dog. She drew the blinds and went to bed early.

She dreamed everything was perfect. No murders, no robberies, not a crime to solve anywhere. Every problem talked through, not a shred of intrigue to uncover. It was the first time she ever bored herself awake. It was nice.

She got up to shower, holding onto that beautiful, indescribable mundanity. It shattered when a rat scurried out of the tub. That was her limit. She would risk a murder if it resolved a rat problem. She dialed her landlord as she picked up the newspaper, shaking out the front page to reveal the headline, “CHAUFFEUR CONFESSES TO ELABORATE MURDER PLOT.”

Her landlord agreed to come by at 9:00 sharp, by which time Agatha Poyrot was properly starving, and at 11:48 sharp, her landlord turned up with a box of rat poison and, wouldn’t you know it, a new tenant to introduce.

While the landlord fervently introduced the tenant, “Bert,” she watched the box and thought of hosting her own luncheon.

“…so, yeah!” finished Bert.

“Look, I’m sorry, I’m so busy lately, my schedule is packed for months, I can’t come.”

“Sorry, what?”

“You just invited me to something?”

“No? No, I don’t really know enough people for parties and stuff. I’m kind of boring, actually. I have a friend who says I can make any situation less interesting.”

Only then did she see him properly. He was… indescribable. He lacked even a single memorable characteristic.

“Seriously?”

Bert nodded vigorously.

“Are you rich with conniving next-of-kin?”

Bert paused, then wobbled his hand.

Agatha Poyrot weighed her options until her stomach growled. Then she threw up her hands. “Let’s put this to the test. Wanna get lunch?”

* * *

Ⓒ Leo Rein

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Out of Print

by Wen Wen Yang

September 16, 2025

Fantasy

When the last copy of Little Jasmine at the publisher’s warehouse was pulped, the color bled out from our world. My ruby red cheongsam and my husband’s officer’s uniform dampened into gray.

“Is this the end?” My American husband steadied himself against the wooden doors. His white skin looked even more pale in monochrome. In the final chapters, he had worn his officer’s uniform, to remind me of his country’s authority over my city.

I hoped it was the end. I glared at the noose in the far corner. At the end of the book, I killed myself when he returned with his new, more age-appropriate American wife. I, his eighteen year old bride in Shanghai, have died in front of readers over a hundred thousand times in the past forty years.

* * *

When my husband’s second wife arrived with him, the writer described her loveliness to the point of obsession. She was everything I was not; tall, wealthy, white. But she never spoke. The moment we went out of print, she became flat and unmoving.

I never knew if she wanted to raise my son. Did she plan to raise him on hamburgers instead of dumplings?

When fewer than three people read the entire book in a year, our six-months-old son tipped over like a forgotten doll. I never learned his first words.

Because they only appeared at the end, my baby and the second wife were the first to disappear.

My husband of the final chapters blew away, autumn leaves caught in the wind.

* * *

Tides and the readers’ tastes changed gradually. Readers stopped reading earlier and earlier. Some never reach my death. My neck was never broken, my dress never soiled.

American Literature students placed yellow post-it notes when my husband disappeared for the middle chapters.

Why can’t she go with him when he goes back to California?

Coward! When my husband sent his friend to tell me that he had remarried, my declarations of love, which I have recited two hundred thousand times, brought tears to his friend’s eyes. He swallowed his message, delaying my heartbreak.

Teenage readers didn’t even bother to witness my husband’s return. They stopped when they learned my husband was twice my age. Students skimmed the summary they found online or watched the movie.

The newspapers wrote that the “naturally Chinese” actress who played me carried the film. I started to look like her with more viewings.

* * *

I tried to comfort myself. I am not the mother who dies in childbirth at the beginning of the fairy tales, or the woman ravaged in the first chapters so our hero will avenge her mistreatment in his own story. My suffering was on every page.

Thirteen years ago, someone wrote a fanfic of me and my maid. It got more reads than the book did that year.

Bless that writer.

It has since fallen into obscurity but it granted me comfort and reciprocated love that the original text did not.

* * *

My body returned to the swollen, heavily pregnant stage of Chapters Three and Four. I ached for my maid more than my child.

My maid whispered in my ear, “We’re nearly free.” Her breath warmed my unbroken neck. My skin erupted in goosebumps.

I hugged her. She felt hollow, collapsing. “I will miss you.” The writer had only written her as someone for me to talk to while my husband was gone, someone I could pour my hopes and dreams into but she had none of her own.

She turned her watery eyes to me. “Stay with me until I go. Maybe we will be reborn into the same book.”

I was not sure of the rules. I hoped to never return to any pages. They hardly wrote disposable women anymore, but what if I was the unlucky character?

“I will find you,” I promised her anyway. Perhaps she will be a middle-aged wife, battling off suitors with elaborate games to test their strength, wit, and kindness until her true love returns.

In a house full of maids.

* * *

Finally, my abdomen collapsed into slimness and my husband reappeared, taking my maid’s place beside me. He was the adoring officer of Chapters One and Two. The home he had brought for me began falling apart. The roof dissolved into clouds. His legs started to become transparent, the pale pattern of the bedspread appearing underneath. He grasped my hand and stared at me, imploring, as if I could stop this.

Despite my tragic end, I spoke the most lines. I expected to be the last character standing, but I certainly was not the God-Writer.

“I love you.” He pressed his dry lips to mine. My nose flattened under his. His hand was entangled in my hair as if he could take me with him.

The paper signs from our wedding in Chapter Two fell like cigarette ash.

Then my husband was gone.

Finally, the last out of print book was destroyed, a casualty of a flooded basement.

No more broken hearts from unkept promises. No more turning myself into a grotesque mobile above my blindfolded child.

No more.

* * *

Ⓒ Wen Wen Yang

Originally published in Apex, May 2024. Reprinted here by permission of the author.

Comments

  1. Yes says:
    October 12, 2025 at 2:31 am
    Wow! Such an interesting point of view. Really enjoyed it.
  2. Yes says:
    March 13, 2026 at 12:22 am
    Wow! Such an interesting point of view. Really enjoyed it.

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Emerald Gears

by Beth Goder

September 19, 2025

Science Fiction

Before the start of market day, the Market unfurls its ribbons in the tender light of dawn. Today, it’s nestled in a seaweed forest on an unnamed planet. Yesterday, it was hidden behind an asteroid bright with unmined ore. Tomorrow, it will be elsewhere, finding the place it fits among stars and galaxies and superclusters.

The stalls are full of artifacts from across the universe. So many wonders—discarded spoon-ears and vine-laced tea cozies, emotion cubes, visions of the future wound up in string.

Together, these artifacts give life to the Market, and the Market thinks, schemes, decides, dreams, and wanders.

* * *

Kalive dashes into the Market as soon as the sticky, translucent gates open. Her backpack is filled with precious gems. She doesn’t know what the Market will want, only that she will give whatever it asks.

She nears a table of emerald gears.

“I need to change my past,” she says out loud, because she doesn’t know that the Market can read her mind.

With one undulating motion, the table presents her with an emerald gear-thing. Underneath, a paper says, “Two years of your future for two seconds of your past.”

“I will pay it,” she says.

The Market knows she has already paid much–in grief, in guilt, in true remorse–so the Market will help her, if it can.

The gear twists. She chooses where to go.

She doesn’t transport herself to the flyer accident (how stupid she was, to fly without a license, so young and filled with hubris), but to the hour before, the choice. Into her past self, she pushes her memories. Her younger self hops back from the flyer, trembling.

Back in the Market, Kalive’s scars disappear, and new scars form.

She exits, shaking, her relief and the strangeness of a newly-remembered life melded together. The Market can change her past, but it cannot take away her guilt.

The Market tucks two years of the future into an emerald gear.

* * *

Tanler saunters into the Market wearing the brocaded coat that was awarded to him upon his 20th year as a professor. He browses the offerings, unimpressed by the skyful of ribbons or the stalls that stretch out forever.

Golden beetle rinds glisten on lace tablecloths. Water-bundles swirl before him. Clockwork eye-legs skitter over tables lush with iridescent foam.

“Tell me of star civilizations,” he says.

The Market can see Tanler’s pride, his arrogance, the research papers he has written, the awards he has won, the ideas he has stolen from his students (who were so fragile, so ripe for plundering). His desire is not for truth, only fame and academic splendor.

The Market leads him farther into the stalls, until he is lost. Tanler will never learn of the Tassel-minds of the planet Iodol, who gallop with their tessellated legs over lime-soaked mountains, or the reeds of Mir, who sing discordant melodies when the rains run silver. He will never know how to coax the fox-like creatures of Zin from their dens, or the right gift to offer an Alodian.

Frustrated, Tanler scatters emerald gears, and one catches on his coat, melding to his hand. His screams are swallowed by the gears that fly at his face and attach to his mouth and nose. Soon, he is covered completely, his skin a living mess of metal teeth.

A gear whispers in his ear. “Give me your fine coat.”

He shucks it off quickly.

The gears dump him outside the gate, then detach. The imprints of their teeth will stay with him for days. His rage will stay with him for longer. Although he’ll spend years searching, he’ll never find the Market (or his beautiful coat) again.

Emerald gears fold up the coat and set it among the wares.

* * *

Yuel finds the Market by accident. The only thing he has to trade are three buttons.

The Market shuffles through Yuel’s brain. He is a poet, his mind a symphony of words.

A sign from a stall unfurls, asking what Yuel wants, but he doesn’t answer. He doesn’t even think of something he desires, so the Market cannot glean the information from his mind.

Instead, Yuel wanders.

First, Yuel finds the holy anchor, which gleams wicked in the sunlight. The Market brings to him the whispering orb, the tusk of a discarded spaceship, the memory of a starfish submerged in an ocean thick with waves.

Yuel is awed by these artifacts; the Market can see wonder blossom in his brain. But when Yuel speaks, it is not to ask for an exchange of goods.

He turns to the emerald gears. “What is it that you want?”

No one has ever asked the Market this question.

The Market exists to trade one thing for another—to give, to take. It has never had the capacity for introspection. Yuel’s question is like asking a pond to reflect itself. The Market is an amalgam of disparate desires and sentient ripples, so much joyous aliveness. For the first time, the Market wonders if it could be more.

The Market remains silent, but Yuel doesn’t seem to mind.

A poem starts to form in Yuel’s mind, bright as seafoam and just as ephemeral. Even the Market cannot know what the poem will be, for it shifts too much in Yuel’s brain, a thing not yet created.

Yuel pulls three buttons from his coat and places them on the gears. In winter, he’ll suffer from the cold, from cruel and chilling wind, for on his poet’s salary, he cannot afford to replace them.

The buttons are gifts. He asks nothing in return.

* * *

It’s the end of market day. The ribbons wrap up the stalls. The translucent gates close.

To barter is transactional, the only mode the Market has ever known. What does it mean, to give, to ask nothing in return? The Market does not understand, but perhaps in time, it might.

The Market wanders across the universe, cradling three buttons in the center of itself, like three beating hearts.

* * *

Ⓒ Beth Goder

Comments

  1. Anupam Rajak says:
    September 19, 2025 at 1:19 pm
    A culmination of symbolism and science fiction intertwined with each other.
  2. Anupam Rajak says:
    March 13, 2026 at 12:22 am
    A culmination of symbolism and science fiction intertwined with each other.

Leave a Reply

The Things You Bought for the Robot

by Stefan Alcalá Slater

September 23, 2025

Science Fiction

Extension Cord.

The robot was secondhand. Because its solar unit was too complicated to fix, it was just easier to plug it in and forget about it.

Cleaning supplies.

It had a job to do, you needed the help.

Tape.

Your daughter screamed one night at 2 a.m. She just wanted a glass of water. The machine’s eyes, red like brake lights, never turned off, even when it was charging, so you taped over them at bedtime to prevent the nightmares again. It let you do so without movement.

Slippers.

To muffle the stomping of those metal feet, especially when it cleaned at night while you tried to sleep.

Parts for a solar unit. How-to repair guide.

There were times when it just seemed to stare at you while it cleaned. You thought it might be best for it to stay outside.

Paint set. Paintbrushes.

There was a moment when the robot paused its dusting and your daughter stopped watching TV. They stared at one another. An evaluation of some kind passed between them. You tensed, waiting for the snap of a drinking glass to break, but she looked to you casually and said, “It needs a face.” It did have the vague impression of one, ridges and bumps, like something buried under snow. But the acrylic faceplate wasn’t well defined. This wasn’t an expensive unit. You bought the paint for her, but she took the kit to the robot, asking it to pick out the colors. It did so slowly, with no discernable pattern. She gave it violet eyebrows, a nose of sun yellow, a slight mouth with a little smile, Mediterranean blue.

Stick-on Nametags.

Because if it has a face, it needs a name. Your daughter wore one nametag, illustrating the concept for the robot. The tag said, “Hello, my name is Dylan.” Your daughter and the robot studied names. It couldn’t speak because you didn’t pay the monthly subscription price, but it went through the names and pointed to one. It will also be Dylan. Dylan nametags were pasted throughout the house for a week, on the fridge, on the front door, on three different chairs.

Fake wings. Green paint.

Halloween. The robot was a dragon, covered in crooked scales and construction paper fire. Your daughter was a knight in crinkled tin foil and chrome cardboard with an authentic plastic sword. You stayed up late on a Wednesday, building the costumes for them both. The robot watched from the corner.

Birdfeeder. Birdwatching book.

Sometimes, in between cleaning sessions, it stopped at the living room window and went still, looking out at the pepper tree and maybe at the birds as they sang. Sharp gears whirred in its neck like it was building up to something that never arrived. Its days must be long, so you thought that maybe it likes birds, the way they fly and hop, their tiny distractions. You picked up the book used online and found the birdfeeder for cheap. On your way out the door to pick up your daughter Dylan from school, you said over your shoulder that the book in the bag on the table was for it. You never saw it read the book, but the book did reappear in different parts of the house, dog-eared and a little worn. The birdfeeder was always full of bird seed.

Pre-loaded voice unit.

Not a costly one. No subscription, so it could only really say its name, and also hello, good night and goodbye. It hummed when it cleaned. Tunes you didn’t recognize, nothing copyrighted, of course. You didn’t call it Dylan. But Dylan called it Dylan.

“Good night, Dylan.”

“Good morning, Dylan.”

“Sleep well, Dylan.”

“See you tomorrow, Dylan.”

Maintenance kit. Replacement parts for hands, feet, neck. 

It wasn’t expensive. It was made to be disposable. But you wouldn’t want to explain it to Dylan if the machine disappeared one day. So you tried your best to fix the robot when it wore one of its parts out, which was challenging after work and making dinner (which the robot never quite figured out). You hummed to the house, and maybe to it, as you tinkered, out of habit.

Birthday candles. Birthday cake.

Even robots have birthdays. But you didn’t know the exact build date, so your daughter just went with the day the robot was delivered. You knew the exact date and time from your order history. It wore a paper hat, bought in bulk.

Sandbags. Trash bags. More tape.

Flooding on the news, but there’s always talk of flooding. It’s just good to be prepared, and the robot helped. Dylan worked with Dylan to fill sandbags. It was a good grey afternoon. Your daughter took a long nap afterwards.

Waterproofing spray.

A last-minute buy. You thought you could use it on the wiring, on its joints.

Plastic Urn.

You and your daughter weren’t there. Out running errands when the warning blared. When the flood came, the house slipped off the foundation.

When the waters finally receded, you searched but couldn’t find anything, no sign of the machine. So, you dug up a muddy scrap of metallic something from what was left of your backyard. You did this all to stop your daughter from crying, from asking questions you couldn’t answer. You put everything in the urn, and your daughter, after a long silent moment, put the waterlogged birdwatching book in there too. You could’ve paid extra to inscribe the urn, but putting “Dylan” on there was strange. There was no inscription. You buried it in the mud.

Slippers.

It was an accidental re-purchase, made late at night. When they arrived at your door you looked at the box and remembered how the machine shuffled at night. You left them in your closet, unopened, telling yourself you’ll return the shoes later.

But you never did.

* * *

Ⓒ Stefan Alcalá Slater

Comments

  1. Lauren says:
    September 30, 2025 at 11:42 pm
    This actually evoked bittersweet emotions for me in a way few things manage and i really appreciated it
  2. John Arthur Lee says:
    October 6, 2025 at 6:41 am
    The repaired solar unit and the waterproofing spray left me clinging to hope. The list technique was brilliant, and my brain is spinning with possibilities. There’s genius throughout this piece, critical little decisions everywhere. A fantastic Gestalt result. Loved it. Already looking for more from this author.
  3. Katie says:
    October 17, 2025 at 10:46 am
    This story made my heart sing.
  4. Lauren says:
    March 13, 2026 at 12:22 am
    This actually evoked bittersweet emotions for me in a way few things manage and i really appreciated it
  5. John Arthur Lee says:
    March 13, 2026 at 12:22 am
    The repaired solar unit and the waterproofing spray left me clinging to hope. The list technique was brilliant, and my brain is spinning with possibilities. There’s genius throughout this piece, critical little decisions everywhere. A fantastic Gestalt result. Loved it. Already looking for more from this author.
  6. Katie says:
    March 13, 2026 at 12:22 am
    This story made my heart sing.

Leave a Reply

The Forest Through the Teas

by Wendy Nikel

September 26, 2025

Fantasy

Walking into the Ninety-Fifth Annual Ladies’ Mysticality Society Tea Party with her granddaughter at her side, Hyacinth Gartner had never felt prouder.

Her granddaughter had never looked more miserable.

“Why so nettled, Calanthe?” Hyacinth whispered.

“It’s Callie.” The thirteen-year-old scowled. “And I look like I’m wearing a salad on my head.”

“Poppycock.” Hyacinth surveyed the kettle brim hat decked with looping, broad-leafed vines. “It’s a fine representation of our art. Every Herbologist is wearing one.”

“And they all look like salads.”

Hyacinth refused to let Calanthe’s withering attitude soil her enjoyment of the event. She picked her way through the forest of feathered bonnets, clockwork bowlers, vanishing top hats, aura-illuminated pillbox hats, and all the other magic-laden head coverings, waving hello to friends and rivals alike. Calanthe trailed droopily behind.

The girl had been so acrid lately, so thorny about every attempt Hyacinth made to connect with her. They used to be peas in a pod; Calanthe had loved playing in her grandmother’s garden, admiring the flowers and marveling at Hyacinth’s ability to prod open a bud or weave a vine. As she grew, Hyacinth had tried to teach her the secrets of the art—secrets that Hyacinth, who’d only produced sons, had never had the joy of cultivating with a daughter of her own—but rather than blossoming into the skilled Herbologist Hyacinth knew she could be, Calanthe’s interest in anything botanical had inexplicably… gone to seed.

The Annual Tea Party, though, was just the thing to nurture their once-strong connection and nip this negativity in the bud. Who could possibly attend such an event—set in a breathtaking ornamental garden, with the most aromatic floral decor—and not come away with a more deeply-rooted appreciation for botanics as the loveliest and most fruitful—not to mention the fastest-growing—of all magical arts?

“This can’t possibly be little Calanthe!” Violet Weatherbee rose from the table and planted a kiss on Calanthe’s horrified face. Hyacinth cringed in sympathy as her old friend exclaimed, “Why, you’ve grown like a weed! Now, I was just telling Heather and Jasmine, you’ll never believe what I heard through the grapevine…”

As the ladies sipped their tea and Violet propagated her gossip to those around the table, Hyacinth tried to cultivate a whispered conversation with her granddaughter.

“Did you notice the garlands when we came in? Lovely, don’t you think?”

Calanthe nodded vaguely. “Grandma, what are those ladies doing?”

Hyacinth followed her gaze toward a group of ladies wearing fascinators shaped like teacups.

“Tea-Leaf Readers.” Hyacinth rolled her eyes. “It’s an offshoot of divination, but because we both use plants, they always stick their table beside ours.”

“A perennial thorn in our side,” Violet interjected.

As the party went on, one of the Leaf-Readers must have seen Calanthe staring, because next thing they knew, she’d sprung up behind them. “Would you like a demonstration?”

Hyacinth’s “NO!” was choked out by Calanthe’s enthusiastic “Yes, please!”

The Leaf-Reader picked up the teacup to the left of Calanthe’s plate and examined it. The silence dragged on, and Violet scoffed. “You’ve stumped her!”

“It’s just peculiar, for one so young.” The Leaf-Reader shrugged. “It says you have great gifts, strongly rooted in your past. But with such strength often comes inflexibility. A tree that will not bend in the wind will risk being snapped in pieces.”

Laughter rustled around the Herbologists’ table. The Leaf-Reader returned the cup to the edge of the table, offering Calanthe a smile. “You’re welcome to join us at our table to learn more, if it’s all right with your guardian.”

Calanthe nodded politely, but Hyacinth could see that her enthusiasm had been stunted by the perplexing reading. Yet how long had it been since Hyacinth had seen such a bright blossom of interest in her granddaughter’s face?

Moments later, cake arrived. Hyacinth thought the sculpted roses of buttercream might brighten Calanthe’s mood, but the girl only poked at the dessert, occasionally glancing over at the next table. Finding the Kitchen Magicians’ decorative rosettes too sweet, Hyacinth reached for the teacup on her left to cut the sweetness.

“That’s my cup, dear,” Violet said crisply before launching into another flowery speech on how the Mysticality Society ought to prune some of the more menial arts from their membership.

Hyacinth looked to the right, where another teacup—her teacup—sat on the table’s edge between herself and Calanthe. A seed of doubt germinated in her mind.

Perhaps it’s time to turn over a new leaf.

Hyacinth took the teacup between them and pointed Calanthe to the one on the opposite side of her plate. “Looks like your friend read the wrong cup. Why don’t you see what she has to say about yours?”

“Really, Grandma?” Calanthe’s eyes sparkled.

“Hyacinth!” Violet exclaimed. “Are you off your gourd?”

“Go on, Callie.” Hyacinth removed the vine-wrapped hat from her granddaughter’s head and winked. “I’m rooting for you.”

* * *

Ⓒ Wendy Nikel

Comments

  1. Lenora Good says:
    September 26, 2025 at 1:42 pm
    /groooooaaaaaannnnnnnn/ 😉
  2. Malina Douglas says:
    October 6, 2025 at 6:13 am
    This story was sweet, charming, and crackling with tension! Love the worldbuilding. The world seems to stretch far beyond the confines of the story.
  3. Lenora Good says:
    March 13, 2026 at 12:22 am
    /groooooaaaaaannnnnnnn/ 😉
  4. Malina Douglas says:
    March 13, 2026 at 12:22 am
    This story was sweet, charming, and crackling with tension! Love the worldbuilding. The world seems to stretch far beyond the confines of the story.

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