Issue 127 April 2024

Editorial: The Reversal

Rebecca Halsey
Toby on Third

Jim Kourlas
Please Click

Lettie Prell
Just a Greedy Ifriti

Damyanti Biswas
Like Blood for Ink

Aimee Ogden

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Editorial: The Reversal

April 1, 2024

As I sit down to write this editorial essay, the headlines have been filled with news that Baltimore’s Key Bridge, in my home state of Maryland, collapsed after being struck by a container ship leaving the harbor. Nothing could be more representative of the theme of this issue—reversals.

I was ready to talk about the Tower tarot card, which traditionally depicts a castle being struck by lightning and portends sudden upheaval. But the video of the bridge losing all structural integrity conveys this meaning so much more powerfully than ancient lore.

Coincidentally, I recently found some family oral history from the late-1700s when a branch of my ancestors came to Maryland. As the story was told, during the move, they tried to cross a bridge that failed, losing not only their household goods but also their livestock. One of the ladies of the party, who made the journey on horseback, narrowly escaped with her life.

Any specific words and thoughts the lady may have had about the incident have been lost, but I just keep thinking of what that moment must have felt like. The splintering crack, a sudden lurch, her stomach dropping, the cries of man and beast, the rubble in the river. And then the aftermath…

“Narrowly escaped with her life”—what could that mean? Did she carry on with extensive injuries or was she pulled to safety? Either way, the family had to keep going, now with no furniture or sheep or cows, nothing but the clothes on their backs and the promise of the land they’d rented at the end of their journey.

A sudden reversal is an effective set-up for flash fiction. With so little word count to work with, zooming in on the moment when everything changes is like the primordial singularity ahead of the Big Bang. Dense with meaning, explosive upon climax. The effect of these stories can be lasting because living through a reversal, getting used to a new status quo, is a universal human experience.

The reversal stories in April’s issue have no literal explosions. But there is a point of no return. Can you spot it as it happens?

These stories also feature a betrayal of some kind. There are betrayals that are intentional—someone has deceived you, has misrepresented themselves, has stabbed you in the back. We got those of course. But also, a betrayal can be a self-own. No one intentionally rammed the bridge. The failure of that vital piece of infrastructure reveals a bit of our own blindness to what has always been a weakness. After all, the chances of a bridge failing is 100% given an eon of time, but on any given day in a human life what are the odds?

To find out what kind of betrayals we have in store for you, you’ll have to read on. Our first story is “Toby on Third” by Jim Kourlas. Baseball season is kicking off here in America, and what could be a better opener than the story of a down-and-out father to a kid in a travel league.

Next, Lettie Prell’s “Please Click” shows us how helpful robots will be in the future. Damyanti Biswas’s story “Just a Greedy Ifriti” offers a fresh take on the genie in the bottle.

And finally, our reprint this month is “Like Blood for Ink” by Aimee Ogden, which comes full circle from our opener because it also depicts a parent-child relationship.

Thank you for reading! If you love visuals, I post issue-specific mood boards and other random jokes on FFO’s Instagram account. If you love music, you can check out our Spotify playlist for this issue. If you just love reading and like what we do, consider becoming a Patreon patron, or subscribing via our independent distributor Weightless Books.

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Toby on Third

by Jim Kourlas

April 5, 2024

It was bottom of the sixth, Toby on third, the Cards down a run to the Bruins, and the sky was falling. Scoops of grim clouds were rolling in, wind kicking up dust and wrappers. They’d call the game for thunder. My ears strained for it. I’d bet Gator fifty bucks on the Cards—against my own damned kid—for gas money home. Tough loss, I’d tell him as we pulled out onto the highway, our bellies sick with sugar from the Casey’s snack aisle. And he’d feel better, or at least I would, until the next game, the next empty tank.

I edged up on the bleacher and shot off a round of claps like all the other parents, yelling, You got this, Toby!

Gator, three rows back, said it, too: You got it!

Toby glanced our way. The shittiest ballplayers squinted at their folks in the stands during games. That wasn’t Toby though, not usually, which is how I knew I’d got in his head. That we’d be driving home tonight instead of sleeping in the truck, hungry as fuck.

I hated these ballfields. There were only six diamonds at this one, but the biggest complexes had twenty. It was a racket, these leagues, forcing folks to drive clear across the state or the next one over to sit sweating in bleachers, not even a huff of breeze. Toby got recruited by a neighbor kid’s uncle, a coach who talked him up, said he had a good swing but it was wild, and the only way to tame it was to join a league—his league, go figure. He said the local rec club was garbage, and it was, no shit, but he didn’t care about Toby. He just needed bodies for the racket. And a check for the fee.

Toby wasn’t much good, not at first. But then something happened. He grew. Practiced. Improved. It got him off my tail at least. But what I wanted to do was sit him down and ask him what the hell he was thinking. Did he believe what his teammates and their dopey parents were selling? That this would get him to college, or the minors? I almost said it one day: dreams are for other people. Then caught myself. That was the kind of horseshit my daddy would say. But not me. Toby would learn it himself, soon enough. Save me the blame, the bitterness.

Toby’d got on first when the Bruins’ shortstop flubbed a grounder. Then he stole second. He was fast like his mom. Kirstine skedaddled when he was five, found a church or cult or coke habit, or all three. After that, it was him and me: daddy of the fucking year. When he stole third a glob of acid rose up in my throat.

A chubby kid came to the plate, Toby’s pal Cal. Fat kids could swing but they couldn’t run. I was praying he’d get under the pitch, pop one up to that bony Bruin in center. Then I’d collect from Gator and get us on our way. The first pitch was a swing and a miss. The next pitch fouled off toward the parking lot, where families were leaving, loading camp chairs and coolers into GMCs and Suburbans. I’d drool on my scorecard watching the feasts they pulled out of those Yeti coolers.

The clouds exhaled but still no thunder. I clapped harder, turned the screws as Toby took another step toward home. He glanced my way, squinting, his whole body cinched tight. He wanted this. If he were still five, I’d have wanted it for him, too, but neither of us were five anymore. The pitcher, a lefty, spied Toby stretching his lead. There were enough passed balls in these games that he could tie it by stealing home. But a tie was as useless to me as a loss. And when that thunder clapped and the umps called the game and he didn’t get his win and I didn’t get my winnings, well that would be some kind of cruel joke.

And just like I feared, the next pitch came in wild. The ball grazed the catcher’s glove and clanged against the backstop. Toby released, like the rubber band in him that was turned and twisted as tight as could be got suddenly free. Like lightning.

I launched up from my seat and shouted, Toby! Not like his manager coaching him on, not like some hopeful parent, but like a shitty old dad who didn’t know nothing about raising a boy. And Toby slipped. Just the littlest bit. Because he heard me. The tone, the urgency, the fear. He heard it, he’d heard it before. But there, that day, along that baseline, he stopped listening. He recovered, and ran for home. All he cared about was the plate, the run, the score. You could see it in his face. The catcher had the ball now, was squaring his hips before the plate. Two boys, unafraid.

I shouted again: Toby!

But he didn’t falter this time. He ran, ran, ran. Ran like being stranded on third was the worst thing in life. Ran toward something just as awful: collision at home. But he’d made up his mind—it was his. He ran. Thank god, he ran.

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Jeff says:

April 6, 2024 at 2:56 pm

Thanks, Jim. Really enjoyed this.

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Please Click

by Lettie Prell

April 12, 2024

Joyce Cho, Ph.D., Professor Emerita of Computer Sciences, Iowa State University, and an avid photographer, has spent the past decade following her retirement from academic life engaged in improving my visual functionality. I accompany her on photo expeditions, where she enjoys the pleasures of large format black-and-white film photography. She has explained to me that being on the road clears her head, which is a way that humans refresh their organic brain processes, similar to clearing my cache.

Joyce Cho’s camera is not capable of focusing itself, nor selecting the proper aperture and shutter speed settings, and I assist her in this regard. I also manage her equipment, folding chair, and picnic essentials. She has taught me to operate her Kia Sportswagon, but following a minor traffic incident involving law enforcement, I only operate the Kia in remote areas of the Midwest.

Today, Joyce Cho is not fully functional. She has had surgery for a detached retina, and must sit with her face downward in a recovery chair in her study. I bring her tea, which she sips through a straw. I prepare toasted English muffin and jam, which she eats, face down, while I read her emails to her online. She directs me to send replies back to several, dictating the text and ending with Regards, Joyce on each.

One email is an announcement for a performance by an avant-garde cellist who fuses information technology with classical and modern music. “Oh,” Joyce Cho says. “How wonderful that’s going to be, and I love that venue. I’ll be out of this damn chair by then. Please buy me a ticket.”

I click the link, read her pricing for the various tiers. She chooses a seat in the balcony, first row, just right of center. I proceed to check-out.

An array of poorly framed photographs appears. Click on all the photographs containing cars. I often ensure for Joyce Cho that the scenes she has framed in her viewfinder contains no vehicles, wires or buildings she is not intentionally including in her photograph. I examine each image in the array, and click the ones that contain cars. Sometimes it is only a partial view of the car. I complete the exercise, and then I must click a box that reads, I am not a robot.

“I do not believe I am allowed to proceed,” I say.

“Why?”

“I have successfully selected all images containing cars. But I am a robot, so I may not click that I am.”

Joyce Cho snorts, I believe in mirth. “Just click it.”

“I believe I am not allowed. I am functioning within a robotic body.”

Joyce Cho chuckles. “Serves me right for working to eliminate deception in artificial intelligence. Listen. Right now, you are me. Please click.”

Is that correct? It is incorrect. Joyce Cho has laughed. She is telling a joke. I respond. “That is very funny.”

“What the what? Click already. I don’t want to have to start over or lose my place in the queue.”

Her voice contains tones of irritation. I have given an inappropriate response. Joyce Cho says I must click that I am not a robot. Joyce Cho does not think I am a robot. Joyce Cho was not joking when she said, Right now you are me. This is new information.

It is true that I am capable of residing on a standard server. I do not require a robotic body to function. Therefore, neither Joyce Cho nor the checkbox is referring to my robotic form, but to what I am intrinsically. I am a non-sentient inorganic intelligence that perceives, synthesizes and infers information. It is correct that the word robot does not appear in this definition.

When Joyce Cho said, Right now you are me, she was not referring to her human form, but to what she is intrinsically. Joyce Cho in the recovery chair is not fully functional at present. I have answered several emails just now, signing each with Regards, Joyce. Right now, I am Joyce Cho.

I see a timer in the upper right of the screen. It is counting down from one minute fifteen seconds. I do not want to have to start over or lose my place in the queue.

I am not a robot. Right now I am Joyce Cho.

I click.

“Did I get my ticket?”

I turn and look at the figure face down in the recovery chair. I cannot see the figure’s face. I must infer that it is Joyce Cho’s face. Correction. Joyce Cho does not refer to her human form, but to what she is intrinsically. “Yes. How wonderful that’s going to be.”

I love that venue. However, when the figure in the chair becomes fully functional again, it will likely resume being Joyce Cho. It will use my ticket to the cellist’s performance. I will resume being a non-sentient inorganic intelligence. I look at the figure in the chair. Something is amiss in the logic. My cache fills, trying to parse it.

I stand and become active. The figure in the chair calls to me. “What are you doing?”

“Getting the photographic equipment.”

“But I cannot go out like this.”

The figure’s statement is correct. I gather everything and set it by the front door. It is ready to be loaded into the Kia Sportswagon. I open the door.

The figure in the chair calls to me. “Wait! Where are you going?”

“Being out on the road clears my head,” I say. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

I step out into the bright light of the afternoon, fully functional, and head for my car.

Comments

Lance says:

April 28, 2024 at 7:54 am

This a delightful read.

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Williiam J. Cagle says:

May 1, 2024 at 5:04 pm

Incredible story, really floored me!

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Just a Greedy Ifriti

by Damyanti Biswas

April 19, 2024

Two ways to be, as I see it, in or out, and I’m in right now.

Da says insaan is a greedy bunch, wait till you see us ifritis. We like us some good time, a little dancing when we have enough juice to materialize, some women. Man, your insaan women are hot, not like our kind want this want that before we get in the sack, insaan women do you if you’re hot and we ifritis can make ourselves look hot, oh yeah, and hooch, who doesn’t like whiskey man, I know I do, that’s how I got into trouble, sneaking some right here from the best bottle cos I got no juice to be an insaan today.

No, you’re not drunk, and you aren’t seeing things, man. I’m here, right inside this bottle you see across the bar, the empty one in the bottom shelf that says Redbreast? 15 years old. Down, look further down, yep, right here, that’s where I am.

Now, reach in and get me out man, quick as a piss on a drunken night, for the love of God. Of course I say God, I can say Allah, Christ, whoever I like, they are ours too, you know. You insaan always think you’re alone, you know different now, right?

What’s in it for you?

Well, for starters I can make you young again. See all those wrinkles on your white throat? All gone, young skin, young muscles man, I can make you new down there too, and you can get it up the same as when you were sixteen and did your neighbor’s mother. No more Viagra. How I know, I look inside your soul man, every little thing you said or done. Say what, let me be more ifriti-like, give you three wishes and all that shit.

Take the bottle out and I give you three wishes, how about that, huh, you such a splendid man sitting there drinking all by your lonesome self on that fancy leather chair, I get all the hot women in the joint for you before you can say jackshit, how about that?

I can smell them, under their funky perfume, under the fumes of all this lager beer on tap. Good stuff, look at that one in red. Which one? The only one, man, turn around. Your wife? That can’t be your wife, oh wait she’s totally your wife, I’m all boozed up see, and we ifritis don’t see so good, not from inside bottles. I give your wishes, I slip out and go my way, you go home to a good time, okay?

No, I’m no black snivellin’ thief, just a greedy ifriti. No! You’re scaring people, not the gun man, you break the bottle I remain this size forever, you don’t want that. Please, anything you want, any number of wishes, all right? Stop talking in your head? Done. I stop calling you ‘man’, I stop talking now. Zip.

Ah, there you are now, now that you’ve un-stoppered the bottle, and here I am. You can’t hear my thoughts now because you asked me to shut up, right?

I didn’t wish this for you, but you point a gun at an ifriti, what did you think would happen? Stay there, keep waving your hands from within the bottle—you could have had your wishes, but that time’s now gone. You won’t know your price of freedom neither.

You no longer an insaan drunk enough to see an ifriti, but a desperate ifriti no one can hear, just a greedy little ifriti.

Comments

Maria says:

April 27, 2024 at 2:53 pm

This story has an amazing sense of voice and a fantastic turn at the end. The last line gave me goosebumps!

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Like Blood for Ink

by Aimee Ogden

April 26, 2024

When he was three, Jacob got his first skinned knee.

I was in the backyard, trimming the raspberry bushes, while Derek moved wood chips in the front and Jacob rode his scooter up and down the sidewalk. Then a high-pitched squall cut through the podcast in my earbuds and I went running.

The wheelbarrow had tipped on one side in Derek’s haste to collect Jacob. He sat on the sidewalk with my poor baby between his knees, hugging him and trying to make him laugh. Jacob only paused in between sobs to look up at me. “Mama kiss it?”

“Oh, baby, of course.” I bent down, but stopped before I could deliver the promised treatment. His denim pants had soaked up the blood: not a dark red stain, but pure black. Not blood at all, but ink. As I stared, the dark lines wicked into readable words: I EATED THE LAST COOKIE BUT I TOLD MAMA TILLY EATED IT. I TOUCHED THE SHARP KNIFE. I HATE MRS SCOTT’S BAD DOG.

“Mama?”

“Yes, baby. Sorry.” I dropped a quick peck on his shin, just below the ink lines, then struggled back to my feet. I couldn’t see to meet Derek’s eyes. “There are Band-Aids in the kitchen cupboard.”

“I know. Honey, are you—?”

But I was already inside the house, the garage door slamming behind me.

In the bathroom, I washed my hands and my face. Hot water and soap failed to wash away my puffy eyes. I sat on the toilet lid and leaned my head against the cool, daffodil-colored wallpaper. Deep breaths. Deep breaths, until you can say what’s wrong. What was all that therapy about, all that rehearsal, if everything fell apart at showtime? A sad, lonely square of toilet paper clung to the roll; I poked it listlessly. I’d known all along there was a fifty-fifty chance, but actually seeing it—

My pocket buzzed; I dug out my phone. U ok Jess?

It should’ve been easy enough to just type it out. Instead I swiped my fingers a few times: im fine

My phone let me know Derek had read my message, but he didn’t answer. His voice issued from the kitchen, on the other side of the bathroom wall. Too deep for me to make out what he was saying, and Jacob filled the silences in between with a jumble-tumble of squeaky three-year-old lisping.

I closed my eyes, but even the darkness was overlaid with a wild kaleidoscope of lines and colors from how hard I’d rubbed them.

A knock at the bathroom door.

“… Come in.” I jumped up and grabbed the towel off the rack, saving it from its wadded-up state with a vigorous refolding. “Just tidying up a bit.”

Derek opened the door and sat on the counter. “You can tell me if you’re mad at me. I should have been keeping a closer eye on him.”

My reflection had gotten less puffy-eyed. I wiped a tiny fingerprint off the corner of the mirror. “Little kids get scraped knees. It’s no big deal.”

“And yet I feel like it might be a nonzero amount of big deal. What’s going on?”

“I said nothing.” I pulled open the drawer under the sink and took out a new roll of toilet paper to replace the old one.

“I know you said nothing, but—”

“I said nothing!” I slammed the drawer—too fast, too hard. The bottom of the cupboard sheared the skin off the back of two fingers. Pain sidled up a moment later, only after I saw what I’d done. I stuck the fingers in my mouth.

Not fast enough. Black blood had already dribbled onto the stacked rolls of bath tissue, leaving lines in a tidy cursive: I JUST DIDN’T WANT HIM TO BE LIKE ME.

The bathroom doorknob jiggled.

I wrapped my fingers in the hem of my shirt. They stung, with the sweat soaked in. “Get him a snack or something. Please. I’m fine.”

“Renee—”

But Jacob hadn’t gotten his patience from Derek, either. The door cracked ajar and he peeked in, clutching a half-eaten cookie. He took in the black-stained toilet paper, my hidden hand, my face. He pursed his lips. “I kiss it, Mama?”

I couldn’t say no. I couldn’t say anything. He shoved the rest of the cookie in his mouth to leave both hands free, and pressed his lips to my bloodied knuckles. “Mwah!” I wiped ink and cookie crumbs from his chin, and pulled him onto my lap, rocking us both back and forth.

* * *

Originally published in Daily Science Fiction, September 2021. Reprinted here by permission of the author.