Tuesday, November 12, 2024

Six Questions for… Gretchen Tessmer


Gretchen Tessmer lives in the deep woods of the U.S./Canadian borderlands. Her short stories and poems have been published in many places, including Nature, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Bourbon Penn, and Fantasy & Science Fiction (and Stupefying Stories, of course!).

Gretchen’s poetry has been nominated for Rhysling, Dwarf Stars, Best of the Net and Pushcart prizes, and she recently edited Eye to the Telescope 53, on the theme of “Strange Mixology,” which, in her completely biased opinion, is wonderful and you should read it, too.

Gretchen is a relative newcomer to Stupefying Stories, who came in here (as so many new writers do) by way of the Pete Wood Challenge, with “Two All-Meat Zombies,”  “My Fair Claritin Lady,” and the gold-medal winning story from which we lifted the above illustration, “Ivy’s Tower.”

Recently we had the chance to catch up with Gretchen, and ask her our usual batch of half-silly, half-serious questions.

§   §   §

 

SS: What is the first SF/F book or story you remember reading?

GT: I’ll give you two, one from my sci-fi shelf and the other from fantasy. So in third grade, when they first gave us library cards, I went straight for A Wrinkle in Time. No idea why. Loved the names Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which, even if I didn’t really understand anything of what those eccentric old ladies were saying. Loved Meg and Cal and Charles Wallace. Had almost zero idea of what was going on plot-wise because I was eight years old and it was about four years beyond my reading comprehension. But I revisited it later and it was wonderful. Still one of my favorites.
First fantasy was The Magician’s Nephew, and I stand by the opinion that it’s the best (if most overlooked) of the Narnia books. The Pevensie children are great, but Polly and Digory are so much better. And there's a wood between worlds, and pond portals, and magic rings, and crazy Uncle Andrew, and crazier Jadis, and the deplorable word, and the friendly cabby and his wife, and Fledge the Pegasus formerly known as Strawberry, and…

SS: Of everything you’ve had published, which book or story of yours is the one you are most proud of? Where can readers find it?

GT: I’m very happy with “Oslo in the Summertime,” which was published in Bourbon Penn 29. I'm also proud of “See You On the Other Side,” which originally appeared at The Arcanist but was recently republished in Small Wonders, because time travel is tricky and I think I (almost) pulled it off. To be honest, my mini-zombie story (“Two All-Meat Zombies”) and my outpost story (“Ivy’s Tower”) here at Stupefying Stories are a good sampling of my work, even at under 100 words, because I think they succinctly show the two sides of my preferred storytelling. 

For poems, I’ll choose “Hey Man, Nice Shot,” at Strange Horizons. Yes, both “Oslo in the Summertime” and “Hey Man, Nice Shot” are shamelessly stolen (ahem, borrowed) from song titles. But, in my defense, they are both really good songs.

SS: Is there one story you’ve published that you wish you could call back and make disappear?

GT: Haha, not really. I mean, some of my early poems are ridiculously melodramatic (but most of those are hidden away in old college magazines and I’m not telling which) and yeah, I think we all look back and cringe at old habits sometimes. But the older I get, the more I find myself cutting the younger writer-girl-me slack and just enjoying the growth and change in my style. And because I’ve been publishing poetry consistently-ish since I was 18 and I’m now approaching [redacted for extra mysteriousness], the poems act as little bread crumbs of my life events and memories through the years, some lovely, some painful, but I really don’t think I'd want to lose any of them.

SS: If you had a theme song that played every time you came into a room, what would it be?

GT: “Short Skirt/Long Jacket” by Cake. Except that I’d never change my name from Kitty to Karen and my voice isn’t as dark as tinted glass. But my fingernails definitely shine like justice.

SS: If you could have just one mutant superpower, what would it be?

GT: I’ll take whatever superpower makes having all the other superpowers superfluous. The old-time Elder magic, the Tom Bombadil and Goldberry style of living, where you’re in the story but not part of it. Where you just hang out on the porch steps in the lazy afternoon, drinking tea or smoking a pipe, and going “hmm, I wonder what’s up with those storm clouds around Isengard?” When you can flip the One Ring into the air, make it disappear, make it reappear and spin it on the kitchen table with a long-suffering sigh, you’ve won the game. So yes. Baking pies, singing songs, tending gardens, washing dishes, and scolding willow trees who wake up too early. This is the life for me.

SS: If you could snap your fingers and make one cliché, trope, or plot gimmick vanish, which one would it be?

GT: The Jon Snow of it all (I just don’t like obvious chosen ones)…unless he turns out to be an actual nobody (or alternatively, Meera Reed ends up as his secret twin and the true chosen one all along), in which case, that could work for me.

 

§   §   §

 

The Pete Wood Challenge is an informal ad hoc story-writing competition. Once a month Pete Wood spots writers the idea for a story, usually in the form of a phrase or a few key words, along with some restrictions on what can be submitted, usually in terms of length. Pete then collects the resulting entries, determines who has best met the challenge, and sends the winners over to Bruce Bethke, who arranges for them to be published on the Stupefying Stories web site.

You can find all the previous winners of the Pete Wood Challenge at this link.

Challenge #36 has been issued! The deadline to enter is December 1st! To learn what the challenge is this time and how to enter the contest, click this link. 


Monday, November 11, 2024

“Monkey See” • by Chana Kohl


You do not fear what you can not see, so I shut my eyes and see no evil. In my mind’s field of vision instead: a single, coral rose, remarkably bright against the darkness. The petals undulate in an endless spiral, inviting me to delve in its perfect asymmetry.

Not physically in front of me, fragrance fills my mind with suggestion. A field of meadow honey, damp moss, green tea…and banana? Maybe I’m hungry.

I open my eyes.

Inside a stark, MRI chamber, engulfed by cold, harsh chirping, my head is enclosed in a helmet and suction-clamped to a vibrating bed. A touch screen shows a ball, an apple, a flower, a tree. If only I could articulate what my mind perceives: infinite…indiscernible…beauty.

I touch the flower.

‘Your mind’s not playing tricks, Sazerac.’

Cristal’s thoughts waft, faint but clear, like an ocean breeze, ‘I do smell banana.’ In a study room across the hall, my fellow simian presses a rose to his nostrils and inhales, ‘These top notes are delightfully tropical.’

‘Try not to project your thoughts using words,’ I remind him. ‘It might confound his results.’

‘And what do you care if it does??’ My partner’s impatience snowballs each day, ‘The nude-skin hasn’t the faintest clue what he’s toying with!’

The experiments at the Quantum Neurophysics Institute were the brainchild of Dr. Anton Duperré. In a daring assertion of quantum information theory, he theorized that direct communication between sentient minds was possible if their oscillations, specifically their delta waves, were entangled. Although the implantation of the ‘quantum trigger’ he designed would be unethical in humans, nonhuman primates were a different story.

What Duperré never imagined was the height of telepathic rigor and intelligence our minds would attain as a result. Not only do Cristal and I teleport our thoughts, we can readily transceive emotions, memories, and insight from any sentient creature within proximity.

When Cristal and I return to our cages, Lenka, a negative control subject, lies in a corner. The mock implant inside her skull isn’t meant to work, but we feel her excruciating agony. Her labored breaths require medical attention but Duperré doesn’t heed our warning screeches.

‘Tell boss you think Lenka perfect, like you…then maybe he treat me nice.’ She clings to a toy crocodile. ‘It give me great pleasure.’ Soon she dreams of muddy streams and crooked trees.

By morning, Lenka’s dead.

‘It’s time to face facts, Sazerac,’ Cristal’s fury slams cold against my head, ‘We’re not getting out of this place alive!’

Maybe I’m the deluded one. Believing we were partners with the humans, dreaming our sacrifices would some day, somehow, grant us the means to speak. I watch as Lenka’s body is callously removed from her cage, and I know the humans to whom we’re yoked are incapable of even considering the possibility.

‘So what do we do?’

§

The attendant in charge of our enrichment doesn’t notice how we watch him now, study his movements, wait for opportunity. Cristal distracts him with loud pant-hoots while I unhook the bright, yellow key from his belt. The master. The one required to open, but not close, every padlock in Duperré’s lab.

Nobody said it would be easy, but Sweet Mercy…it’s as if the nude-skins wish for us to escape.

Back in our cages, we plan. Cristal suggests we wait for night and the change of shift.

I agree, but there’s something I must do first.

§

I climb through the open window in Duperré's office, a room I’ve seen a thousand times in his mind. I stare at the bottles of amber liquid in their glass cupboard and move closer to discover for myself the courage and comfort stored inside. Instead, I see his reflection, staring back at me.

He’s surprised, offended even, that I’m there. “What do we have here?” Clearly, a rhetorical question. “How did you manage to escape?” Followed by an obtuse one.

Across the small room, we track each other, maintaining eye contact and careful distance. Like chambers inside a combination lock, I hear his thoughts tumbling, assumptions reassembling.

“I think you understand what I’m saying,” his eyes cast towards the shelf and the box where he keeps a dart gun.

A small, threatening screech.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you. I think you’re a smart, little monkey. Let’s go back to the lab.”

Even now, he doesn’t understand. I know what he knows: the adjuvant therapy for humans, the covert financiers, the code to that wall safe…what he keeps inside.

So instead of trusting his facade of benevolence, I jump onto his desk. Screeching from the limit of my lungs, I want my wordless voice to bounce from the walls and smash these windows.

Duperré stumbles back, then suddenly forward. For a brief moment it doesn’t dawn, but slowly, he feels the burning inside his neck as the room begins to tilt. Eyelids like hummingbird wings, he slumps to the floor.

For Cristal, standing behind him, dart gun in hand, it’s pure catharsis, ‘How’s that for a smart, little monkey, you damn dirty ape!’ Then making a straight line to his cabinet of cuvées de prestiges, ‘Do you see a monkey $#%@! tail?’

§

In a darkened parking garage, we hide in the back of a truck, wedged between biohazard containers and canisters of nitrogen. Once we safely pass the gate, we jump and flee into the woods.

To me, freedom feels better than the most eloquent words can express. For Cristal, the golden bottle of delicately aged intoxicant snatched from Duperré's cabinet is sufficient reward.

After a day's walk, we find an empty cabin beside a copse of fir trees and a fast-flowing stream. Lenka would have loved it. It’s littered with garbage and tiny pellets of burned tobacco, but there’s a fireplace with blocks of wood and matches.

We watch Duperré's external drive melt as it burns.

It feels strange to open my eyes each morning and see the natural world again. Each day I wake, I sidle to the stream, dip my hands in the icy water then raise them to the sun.

For the first time in a long time, I fear nothing evil.




Chana Kohl works in Jerusalem in clinical trials and research, traveling and writing speculative fiction in her spare time. As winner of the 2022 Analog Award for Emerging Black Voices, her professional debut appears in the May/June 2024 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact. She’s also a grateful recipient of the 2024 Fresh Voices Grant for Odyssey Workshop. For updates, you can catch her flying ‘Bluer Skies’ or on her blog chanakohl.wordpress.com

Chana’s first appearance in our pages was “A New Emancipation Proclamation,” in Pete Wood Challenge #22. More recently, her story, “Murder in the Shuk,” appears in Stupefying Stories 26, which is free for Kindle Unlimited subscribers. If you enjoyed this story, check it out!




STUPEFYING STORIES 26

DOUBLE ISSUE! TWICE THE STORIES! TWICE THE CHILLS!

  • Jamie Lackey - “Blood Apples”
  • Gordon Grice - “Stone”
  • Allan Dyen-Shapiro - “Midnight Meal at a Kobe Noodle Joint”
  • Karin Terebessy - “Bandages”
  • Jorge Salgado-Reyes - “Neon Blood”
  • Julie Frost - “Beverly Hellbunnies”
  • Kevin Berg - “Faceless”
  • Anya Ow - “Hungry Ghosts”
  • Jesse Dyer - “Losing Things”
  • Richard Zwicker - “Possession is Ten/Tenths of the Law”
  • Made in DNA - “Something CUTE This Way Comes”
  • Cass Sims Knight - “Slugging”
  • Nick Nafpliotis - “The Cerberus Protocol”
  • Beth Cato - “Water in the Bones”
  • Don Money - “Department of Murderous Vixens”
  • Chana Kohl - “Murder in the Shuk”
  • Patricia Miller - “An Absence of Shadow”
  • Robert Hobson - “Watershed”
  • Ray Daley - “The Haunted Spaceship”
  • Roxana Arama - “All Those Monsters”
  • Evan Dicken - “Sunk Ghosts”
  • John Lance - “The Mob”
STUPEFYING STORIES 26 — FREE ON KINDLE UNLIMITED!

Sunday, November 10, 2024

The Week in Review • 10 November 2024


Welcome to The Week in Review, our regularly scheduled Sunday wrap-up for those too busy to follow Stupefying Stories on a daily basis. As threatened promised in last Sunday’s Week in Review, today’s gratuitously cute photo is of a young boy with a kitten. 

Actually, it’s not a photo, it’s an AI-generated image. We tried to find an actual photo of a living boy with a real kitten in a suitably adorable seasonal setting, but unlike dogs, the cats were not cooperating. Instead, we found a lot of photos like this one.


In which you can practically read the cat’s mind. It’s thinking, “If I was just a little larger, monkey boy, I’d bite that smile right off your face. Like this!”


§   §   §

Moving right along, this was another Pete Wood Challenge Week, so all the publication slots this week were filled with the winners of Challenge #35, “The Offseason.” In order of publication, from Honorable Mention to the Gold Medal winner, the stories are as follows.

And then, because Pete couldn’t resist the temptation to write a story for his own challenge, we published one more.

§   §   §


“Footprints” • by Robin Blasberg (Honorable Mention)

The air still smelled of salt and the waves still crashed in rhythmic succession. But the boardwalk was empty and the beachgoers had all but disappeared. It had been a long journey. Nothing had gone as planned, the trip itself having been one of last resort.   Finally, he could have some peace now. He set out across the sand, leaving behind footprints that would...

“Planting” • by C. L. Sidell (Honorable Mention)

“It’ll be the offseason soon,” Pop announces. Badger’s Bend has one every thirteen years. Winter recedes in February and the ground thaws. Things we plant grow differently—taller, thicker, more nutritious. “Behave yourself,” Mamma says when the time comes and they head for the gardens. “We’ll be home by sundown.” Left unsupervised, I consider my favorite doll. “Maybe you...

“Tonight, We Embrace the Dark” • by Gideon P. Smith (Honorable Mention)

We hated the off-season. Cold, pickled fish, salted meats, hardtack. Fumbling in a year-long frigid night. Fearing what lurked in the dark. Until, like a drop of viscid honey, our planet’s Sun slowly rotated into view. At on-season’s dawn, we threw aside furs. Iridescent flower’s perfumes exploded. Seed pods popped and sweet, pungent fruits hung from every tree. Fresh juices...

“Efficiency Optimization” • by Jeff Currier (Honorable Mention)

Mrs. C’s newest passion? A.I. data analysis. First, she tackled elf toy-production workflows. The warehouses were filled by Labor Day. Santa grumbled. “More time to spend with me, dear,” she said. Next came reindeer breeding and reindeer game reorganization. The team was selected by Halloween. Santa fumed.Nice/naughty discrimination was done in a jiffy, lists double-checked...

“Dangerouser and Dangerouser” • by Sophie Sparrow (Bronze)

“I wouldn’t visit Wonderland in the off season. Why not try somewhere less unstable instead?” says the travel agent, sliding a Visit Mordor brochure towards me across the desk. “It’s changed a lot since they abolished heirloom-jewellery-based governance…” I will not be persuaded. If people only stuck to what was safe, what would be the point of even leaving the house? Most...

“Reflections on Carnival-by-the-Sea” • by Christopher Degni (Silver)

The ghosts only come out on Carnival-by-the-Sea during the offseason, when the beach is covered in the fine silt of the first snow of the year, and the sea, choppy and drear, reflects the silent dullity of the rolling winter clouds. The carousel, its central column faded and chipped, lies still; in the magician’s hall, the mirrors reflect only one another in infinite dark...

“The Offs” • by Ted Macaluso (Gold)

How many times do you get up to pee in the night? Even if it’s just once, you’ve seen them. The Offs. In the season twixt November and death, they hang on bathroom doors in the grayness. An old crushed hat with shades of straw and brown. Your favorite aunt’s gossamer scarf with pink and lavender swirls. They seem familiar but not quite visible. There’s no door hook where...

“Not a Fan” • by Pete Wood (Questionable Mention)

Tara’s stomach lurched. The chili’s seasoning felt off. Acidy. Sour. Jeremy, her blind date, smiled. “Well? “Interesting.” “It’s the sauerkraut.”  She pushed the vile crock away. He’d picked the Raleigh chili parlor for dinner. A burly man wearing a Chicago Bears jersey set a platter down. “Limburger Tofu Wings. You staying for Bears trivia, man?” “You bet.” Jeremy...

§   §   §

 

The Pete Wood Challenge is an informal ad hoc story-writing competition. Once a month Pete Wood spots writers the idea for a story, usually in the form of a phrase or a few key words, along with some restrictions on what can be submitted, usually in terms of length. Pete then collects the resulting entries, determines who has best met the challenge, and sends the winners over to Bruce Bethke, who arranges for them to be published on the Stupefying Stories web site.

You can find all the previous winners of the Pete Wood Challenge at this link.

For Challenge #35, the objective was to write a flash fiction story of no more than 150 words in length that played off the key phrase: “the offseason.”

Challenge #36 has been issued! To see what the challenge is this time and how to enter it, click this link. 


Saturday, November 9, 2024

“Not a Fan” • by Pete Wood


Tara’s stomach lurched. The chili’s seasoning felt off. Acidy. Sour.

Jeremy, her blind date, smiled. “Well?

Interesting.”

“It’s the sauerkraut.”

 She pushed the vile crock away. He’d picked the Raleigh chili parlor for dinner.

A burly man wearing a Chicago Bears jersey set a platter down. “Limburger Tofu Wings. You staying for Bears trivia, man?”

“You bet.” Jeremy picked up a limp gray wing.

The waiter high-fived Jeremy and left.

Tara avoided looking at the appetizer.

“Food’s amazing,” Jeremy said. “But I’m here for the Chicago fans. Bears events all year.”

“You go anywhere else?” she asked. The NFL’s offseason lasted  for five more months.

“Why would I?” He grabbed another wing.

She tapped her phone and soon confirmed Chicago’s mortal enemy. “Did I ever tell you I love Minnesota?” she lied.

Jeremy’s face went ashen. “You’re a Vikings fan?”

Tara edited her dating profile as Jeremy let her down gently.

___________________________


 Pete Wood is an attorney from Raleigh, North Carolina, where he lives with his kind and very patient wife. His first appearance in our pages was “Mission Accomplished,” in the now out-of-print Stupefying Stories #6. After publishing a lot of stories with us he graduated to becoming a regular contributor to Asimov’s, but he’s still kind enough to send us things we can publish from time to time, and we’re always happy to get them.

For the past few years Pete has been in the process of evolving into a fiction editor, God help him, first and foremost with The Pete Wood Challenge, then with Dawn of Time, The Odin Chronicles, Tales from The Brahma, and on, and on. Along the way he’s introduced us to the creative work of Roxana Arama, Gustavo Bondoni, Carol Scheina, Patricia Miller, Kimberly Ann Smiley, Kai Holmwood, Brandon Case, Jason Burnham, and many, many more. We suspect Pete’s real love is theater, though, as evidenced by his short movie, Quantum Doughnut — which you can stream, if you follow this link.

[Pete Wood photo by Lee Baker]

Friday, November 8, 2024

“The Offs” • by Ted Macaluso


How many times do you get up to pee in the night?
 

Even if it’s just once, you’ve seen them.

The Offs.

In the season twixt November and death, they hang on bathroom doors in the grayness.

An old crushed hat with shades of straw and brown. Your favorite aunt’s gossamer scarf with pink and lavender swirls. They seem familiar but not quite visible.

There’s no door hook where they hang. You know it. You’ve seen that door in sunlight. But tonight, your mind is off somewhere in dreamland.

Your inner alarm, that chill that senses leopards lurking in the black spaces, is off too.

Most times you walk by, not touching, but sometimes your gait is off and your shoulder brushes through one. The next day, the cream in your coffee is bad, or you miss the bus. The big presentation fails.

It’s the off season.




Ted Macaluso writes adventure stories for children and adults. He studied creative writing at The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland, taking courses on writing for children, writing science fiction and fantasy, plot development and much more. His short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Little Old Lady Comedy, Witcraft, Fabula Argentea: The Venue of Good Writing, and the Washington City Paper. He lives in Reston, Virginia. When he isn’t writing, reading or hanging in cafes with other writers, Ted loves hiking, travel, and photography.

 

 

 

 



 

The Pete Wood Challenge is an informal ad hoc story-writing competition. Once a month Pete Wood spots writers the idea for a story, usually in the form of a phrase or a few key words, along with some restrictions on what can be submitted, usually in terms of length. Pete then collects the resulting entries, determines who has best met the challenge, and sends the winners over to Bruce Bethke, who arranges for them to be published on the Stupefying Stories web site.

You can find all the previous winners of the Pete Wood Challenge at this link.

This time the challenge was to write a flash fiction story of no more than 150 words in length that played off the key phrase: “the offseason.”


Thursday, November 7, 2024

“Reflections on Carnival-by-the-Sea” • by Christopher Degni


The ghosts only come out on Carnival-by-the-Sea during the offseason, when the beach is covered in the fine silt of the first snow of the year, and the sea, choppy and drear, reflects the silent dullity of the rolling winter clouds.

The carousel, its central column faded and chipped, lies still; in the magician’s hall, the mirrors reflect only one another in infinite dark corridors. There I emerge, to wait by her favorite segment of the sea-wall, where we used to linger while watching the seagulls and the sunset.

When spring arrives, colors wash over the landscape; grays bleed into blues across the horizon, and the maintenance men repaint the attractions, the carousel’s ponies springing back to life; and tourists and teenagers seek a momentary distraction from the heat.

She sits on the sea-wall, but I never meet her, for the ghosts only come out on Carnival-by-the-Sea during the offseason.


 


Christopher Degni writes about the magic and the horror that lurk just under the surface of everyday life. His short work may be found in 99 Tiny Terrors99 Fleeting FantasiesDeadman Humour: Fears of ClownSherlock Holmes and the Occult Detectives, and right here on Stupefying Stories, and his debut novella, Ghostshow Live!about a reluctant reality show ghost hunter, is now available from your favorite online bookseller. He was part of the editorial team for the Stoker-nominated MOTHER: Tales of Love and Terror and the music-horror anthology Playlist of the Damned, and he is a graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop. He currently lives south of Boston with his wife. You can follow him on FB and Instagram.

For reasons unknown the search function on this web site has lately decided to sort search results by “relevance,” whatever that means, and while we have published quite a few of Christopher’s stories in the past two years, the search function likes to hide them. Therefore, here’s a quick guide to the Christopher Degni stories we’ve published, sorted by… some arcane criterion we don’t understand.   


“Jimboree” • by Christopher Degni

“Morning, Jim.”“Morning!” Full house today at the copy shop, two guys working the front, three in the back. “Who closed last night?” asks Jim. “They left the lights on.” “I know who it was,” comes a voice. It’s Jim. “It was Jim.” “Team meeting, now.” Jim sounds mad. The five gather in the back. “Do we need some new blood around here?” says Jim. Jim scratches his head,...

“Green Shoots” • by Christopher Degni

They give us all false hope: tickets, with barely one in a hundred making the punch line. I focus on the screen flashing the winning numbers—I’ve already memorized my daughter’s and my own. The prize? A new life, away from here. There! The afterimage lingers: my daughter’s number. While I concentrated, she slipped away into the crowd. “Chloë!” “Daddy!” She comes running....

“A 125-Word Story About Writer’s Block in the Style of Italo Calvino” • by Christopher Degni

You sit down to write “A 125-Word Story About Writer’s Block in the Style of Italo Calvino,” but you have no ideas, so you turn to WiLLiaMs. You: Write a 125-word story about writer’s block in the style of Italo Calvino. WiLLiaMs: I cannot write in the style of Italo Calvino, because I am a large language model and my code has a writer’s block on specific authors. You:...

“Signs of Life” • by Christopher Degni

“Are you kidding me?” said Emmy. “The Perseverance is our last chance off this dying rock.” The spaceport around us bustled with life: people running and shouting, coughing and laughing. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have even come here. Dad—” “—has days. He might already be gone. Sweetie, I’m sorry, but—” “I can’t.” “They won’t hold our spots.” Emmy looked down. “Your...

“Upgrade” • by Christopher Degni

My wife smiles after handing me a silver capsule the size of an egg. My back hurts; I’m tired; I don’t know what this nonsense is, but I just want to relax. “It’s our second anniversary,” she says. Ah. Has it been that long? She’ll be due for an upgrade soon, or maybe I’ll trade her in for a new model completely. A quieter one. Less independent. The capsule hisses open. It’s...

“The Six Stages of Grief” • by Christopher Degni

I live with the ghost of my mother. Every morning I hear her practice her ritual: making the coffee, straightening my apartment, sitting at the kitchen table. Strange, as she never did those things when she used to visit me. Perhaps maintaining a routine helps her accept her new lot. My father calls often. I miss her, he says, and I agree. We all miss her. But, he says. I...

“Merry-Go-Round” • by Christopher Degni

The field, once Sara’s favorite haunt, stood graveled and muddy, lonely except for a “Coming Soon” billboard for a 55+ community. She didn’t love the field so much as the annual traveling carnival that had descended upon it, until twenty years ago, when it had stopped. Sara closed her eyes and reflected on that year of lasts: the last carnival, the last year of high...

“The Infinite and the Infinitesimal” • by Christopher Degni

In June of 1986, upon the death of the great Argentine mathematician Luis Davila, the sole trustee of his estate discovered a small enchiridion among his personal effects. A prominent inscription on the title page consisted of a single decimal number of 106 digits, close to ⅓, but not matching any known mathematical constants: .33263638—, along with a request for his library...

“Life and Jacq and the Giant and Death” • by Christopher Degni

Once upon a future, when the Earth was spent and the sun red and swollen, a farmgirl named Jacq cared for two dying things: her father and her fields. Her father, stricken with a plague of old age and fatigue, lay in bed all day, asleep; her fields, following years of declining fertility, yielded only the most meager amount of grain. Jacq and her father were down to their...

Also look for:
   “My Name is Static”
   “Treasure Hunting in the Old City”



 

The Pete Wood Challenge is an informal ad hoc story-writing competition. Once a month Pete Wood spots writers the idea for a story, usually in the form of a phrase or a few key words, along with some restrictions on what can be submitted, usually in terms of length. Pete then collects the resulting entries, determines who has best met the challenge, and sends the winners over to Bruce Bethke, who arranges for them to be published on the Stupefying Stories web site.

You can find all the previous winners of the Pete Wood Challenge at this link.

This time the challenge was to write a flash fiction story of no more than 150 words in length that played off the key phrase: “the offseason.”


Wednesday, November 6, 2024

“Dangerouser and Dangerouser” • by Sophie Sparrow


“I wouldn’t visit Wonderland in the off season. Why not try somewhere less unstable instead?” says the travel agent, sliding a Visit Mordor brochure towards me across the desk. “It’s changed a lot since they abolished heirloom-jewellery-based governance…”

I will not be persuaded. If people only stuck to what was safe, what would be the point of even leaving the house? Most accidents happen inside the home—ergo, adventure travel!

I pack my bags—a mushroom identification guide. A specially designed saltwater umbrella that can be upturned and used as a boat. A vorpal sword. Just in case.

Once I arrive, the sea of blood I have to wade through to get to customs should have been a clue.

Turns out the travel agent wasn’t straight with me. What she should have said was, “Don’t visit Wonderland in the off-with-their-heads season.”

Oops.



 

 

Sophie Sparrow writes fantasy fiction and humour. Her work has appeared in PseudoPod, Arsenika, Mad Scientist Journal, (Dis)Ability: An Anthology, and previously in Stupefying Stories, in “Angels” and “The Ghost of Moscow.”

She has worked as a content writer, transcriptionist, and software tester, speaks Russian and French, has previously been paid to wander around film sets, and is now quite tired of writing about herself in the third person. She likes cats and red wine, though not in the same glass. Keep up to date with what she's doing at www.writersophiesparrow.com

 

 


 

The Pete Wood Challenge is an informal ad hoc story-writing competition. Once a month Pete Wood spots writers the idea for a story, usually in the form of a phrase or a few key words, along with some restrictions on what can be submitted, usually in terms of length. Pete then collects the resulting entries, determines who has best met the challenge, and sends the winners over to Bruce Bethke, who arranges for them to be published on the Stupefying Stories web site.

You can find all the previous winners of the Pete Wood Challenge at this link.

This time the challenge was to write a flash fiction story of no more than 150 words in length that played off the key phrase: “the offseason.”


Tuesday, November 5, 2024

“Efficiency Optimization” • by Jeff Currier

Mrs. C’s newest passion? A.I. data analysis.

First, she tackled elf toy-production workflows. The warehouses were filled by Labor Day. Santa grumbled.

“More time to spend with me, dear,” she said. 

Next came reindeer breeding and reindeer game reorganization. The team was selected by Halloween. Santa fumed.

Nice/naughty discrimination was done in a jiffy, lists double-checked by Thanksgiving. Santa groused.

“Isn’t relaxing with me before Christmas wonderful?” she asked.

Finally, route minimization. That required real-time tweaking, so she tagged along. Santa seethed.

“Next year, you’ll return to me in no time.”

Above the clouds, Santa looped a corkscrew. Mrs. Claus, unsecured, plummeted away.

Now, thinking of the off season brought a twinkle to his eye.

“Ho, ho, ho! Finally, more than one night of alone time!”


________________________________________


Jeff Currier works too many jobs so has little time to write, but the words kept screaming for release. Jeff finally relented and set them free, in very small batches. Now they’ve run amok with no telling what mischief they’ve caused. You can find them roaming in various anthologies or in Sci Phi Journal, Stupefying Stories, Dark Moments, and Flash Point SF.

If you enjoyed this story, you might also want to read:


 

The Pete Wood Challenge is an informal ad hoc story-writing competition. Once a month Pete Wood spots writers the idea for a story, usually in the form of a phrase or a few key words, along with some restrictions on what can be submitted, usually in terms of length. Pete then collects the resulting entries, determines who has best met the challenge, and sends the winners over to Bruce Bethke, who arranges for them to be published on the Stupefying Stories web site.

You can find all the previous winners of the Pete Wood Challenge at this link.

This time the challenge was to write a flash fiction story of no more than 150 words in length that played off the phrase: “the off season.”