“Happy Anniversary?” • by Andrew Jensen

“It’s just us old farts again.” 

We hadn’t met since the twentieth, and even then the young pups refused to attend. “Bo-ring!” they’d text, and go off to whatever it is they do. It probably involved social media. Hmmph.

“Speak for yourself! I’m not old, and I never fart.” To be fair to Steph, she didn’t look anywhere near her forty-five years. But as my bratty little sister, I knew she could fart with the best of them. Especially when she forgot to avoid garlic.

“I just think they should show some respect,” I grumbled.

“Respect for what?” That was Ben, the teacher. Where did my cousin find this guy? He could make anything sound boring. Maybe the kids weren’t totally wrong. “How  can they respect something that was gone before they were born? You’re being unreasonable.”

“We’ve shown them pictures…”

“Like that makes any difference. Might as well show them a picture of a steak: no sizzle, no taste, no passion.”

They were ganging up on me. Not the first time, either. Why didn’t they care?

Steph piped up again. “Hey, remember the tenth anniversary, when Gerry brought out this old round puzzle of the Moon, all in shades of gray? The kids thought that was the most stupid thing they’d ever seen. You spend too much time alone, Gerry.”

Before I could defend myself, Kiki piped up “And this is the twenty-fifth. The Silver Anniversary. How delightfully ironic!”

“At least some things don’t change,” I snarled. “Silver is still silver. It’s just the moon that’s gone.”

“Why can’t you be happy, Gerry?” Oh shoot, I’ve gone too far. Now Mom is telling me off. I may be fifty-two, but I can’t talk back to her. “My grandchildren are living normal lives. Isn’t that all we’ve ever wanted? To fit in? For generations we’ve been outsiders. Now we don’t stand out. We don’t live in fear anymore.”

I shut up. Mom’s words might be true for some of us, but not me. I’m an outsider in my own family.

“Time for cake!” Kiki announced, “and it’s vegan, Tom: no eggs or any animal products at all.” Tom smiled awkwardly.

Kiki’s partner, Francoise, brought in the cake. It had twenty-five sparklers going, and I wondered if the icing might catch fire. If this couldn’t be respectful, at least it might be entertaining.

Then I saw the cake. It was round and white. No, silver. Not perfectly round, either. On one edge was a tiny, elaborate building: a miniature Moonbase Alpha. On the opposite edge was a missing chunk, looking like a blackened crater. It gave off a greenish glow that was even visible under the light of the sparklers. Francoise had gone to a lot of trouble. The pastry artwork was impressive.

“Happy anniversary!” called out my cousin, Leo. Stupid name, stupid man.

“Happy anniversary!” answered the rest of the table, raising their glasses.

I couldn’t take it. Such disrespect. No sense of the past. No appreciation for what we had lost. I ignored everyone’s protests and blundered out the back door. Kiki’s fence is short enough that I could still leap over it, and I was loping pretty fast by the time I got there. Then I kept going down the laneway between the other houses until I got to the cross-street.

It felt good to be running at night again, even in an unfamiliar neighbourhood. I’d taken up night jogging a decade ago, but after a few years my knees started to object. My family has always healed well from injuries, but age creeps up with its grinding joints and stiff muscles. There’s no defeating time.

Twenty-five years. A quarter century without that irresistible sense of abandon, that wild freedom, that vital return to nature.

No wonder climate change is happening. Everybody blames the loss of the moon, but it’s deeper than that. We’ve divorced ourselves from our true natures, and nature itself.

Look what we’ve become! Ordinary! We used to live on the edge. Now the kids are living on their devices, with no connection to reality. Some of us have even become vegans, for crying out loud.

When was the last time I cried out loud?

I slowed to a halt. I couldn’t keep running with tears streaming down my cheeks. I couldn’t keep it in. None of this macho big boys don’t cry bullshit anymore: I started to sob. To wail. To howl. To shake my fists at the empty sky and howl for everything we had lost.

“Gerry?” The voice was familiar. Time for the macho bullshit to re-assert itself. I wiped my eyes and looked around.

A woman was coming out of the woods in the park. She was familiar in a remote way that threatened to bug me for weeks. The voice helped: someone from the distant past. But who?

Then the breeze shifted, and I caught a familiar perfume.

“Claire. Long time no see.” I tried to even out my voice. She’d dumped me in high school. Then she’d switched schools. Probably my fault: I might have gotten carried away on our last date.

“Yeah. How’s it going?” Like she hadn’t just heard me freaking out.

I sniffed. “Sorry. You’ve caught me at a bad time. Family stuff. How are you?”

“I was out walking. I like night walks. They remind me of the past. I used to love walking in the moonlight, and with all the stuff on the news about tonight being the anniversary I just had to get out here.”

I looked at the ground, tongue-tied. “I’ve missed you,” I finally said.

“Me too. I’m sorry about vanishing like that. It was my parents. That was more than a hickey you gave me that night, and they freaked out. They even moved us across town.”

“I know. I watched the moving trucks come. And go.”

“Stalking me?” I could almost hear that cute, crooked smile that had attracted me in the first place.

There was a pause. “You know, I kind of wished that you had followed me across town. I was really alone.” Somehow we’d started walking down a park path under the starlight.

I nodded. “I wanted to, but my family stopped me. They feel like stalking’s a stereotype. All they talk about is fitting in. I couldn’t even find you in the new phone book.”

“Unlisted number. My parents were really determined.” Claire thought for a moment. “Fitting in isn’t worth it,” she said, “if you have to stop being who you are.”

We walked on in silence. It was a friendly silence, the kind they used to call “companionable.” Then Claire gestured toward the dark sky. “You taught me to love the moon. I hated it for a few months. Then I grew to anticipate the moon’s full beauty. For a few years I got to revel in it. Now I miss it.”

She brought her hand down, and took mine. It was dark, but I knew we were both smiling.

“What good is a werewolf without the moon?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe good for remembering the moon with someone else.” I could smell the hope on the breeze.

Maybe it would be a happy anniversary after all.

________________

Andrew Jensen has moved to New Brunswick with his family and too many dogs and cats. He has retired from the ministry, but of course, clergy never really retire.

His stories have appeared in Canada, the USA, New Zealand, and the UK. In July his work appeared in Amazing Stories and James Gunn’s Ad Astra. 

As you’ve no doubt guessed, Andrew sent us this story for Space: 1999 Week. We liked it a lot, but felt it was too much like Jeff Currier’s “A Curse and a Blessing” to run them both in the same week. Informed of this situation, Andrew obligingly wrote “Waxing Crescent,” which we published last week. Wonderfully helpful writer, Andrew is.

If you enjoyed this story, check out “Running Away With the Cirque” in Stupefying Stories 24. If you’re still not convinced, read “A Can of Piskies” or “Chapter 7,” both of which are here on the SHOWCASE site. 

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“Anywhere But Home” • by Eric Farrell

Maisie has never been anywhere in her twelve short years of life. 

Just the diminutive family ranch, tucked way out behind the overgrown trees eating the old asphalt road. Where the TV is yapping, the ubiquitous broadcast news just static in her ears.

Ma and Pa aren’t giving her a chance to leave anytime soon. Vacations are foreign to them. They quite like the big sky of Arkansas, the good old familiar town folk placating each and every one of their convictions.

So Maisie thanks God for Technology.

She leans back, her legs propped under several pillows. She’s ready to Blink.

This isn’t like her usual social media, which she gets with allotted tablet time. Maisie was able to sneak a mail order by her parents, and intercept the coming package. It was a small parcel, containing a well-protected little pill, smaller than the ones she always sees Ma take. She almost chickened out after watching the implant tutorial, but the included numbing agent soothed her worries. Once drowsy, Maisie pushed the pill into the soft part of her neck, just below her earlobe. A dab of the healing salve and a few days of keeping her hair down, and she was ready to sync up.

She’s careful her parents aren’t around before syncing up. Luckily for her, Ma and Pa seem none too eager to stick around and spend quality time with their kids. Pa is surely at the bar, squabbling about which beers are turning the town funny. Ma is likely at the opposite watering hole on the far side of town, letting the misanthropic murmur of rural America sooth her weary bones. In their current states, they both have probably forgotten that Maisie and her siblings exist.

Even though she’ll likely never physically travel to Paris,  Dubai, or the North Shore, she’s able to visit these places by blinking away from her native perspective and syncing with the multitude of influencers sharing their conscious space with users of the app.

She takes one last glance out her window, to make sure neither of her folks are driving up the long dirt driveway. Then she leans fully back, and clicks her tongue to access the channel switcher.

Maisie shuts her eyes to refresh her viewpoint.

—Blink—

She’s in Paris, synced with one Fuzzy Baldwin, fashion starlet extraordinaire. Fuzzy’s having a late-night cocktail, something impeccably frothy, glowing orange under the gold-hued lighting.

Maisie disassociates from her native perspective for as many as four or five hours a day, depending on the likelihood of her parents’ romps through the outside world. She enjoys piggybacking off a multitude of perspectives, from fitness guru Jack Taylor shredding through the North Shore, to part-time rapper, part-time influencer Fanta$y, enshrouded in his bosomy harems in Dubai.

But she enjoys the demure Fuzzy Baldwin’s eyes best, not just for the life she leads, but the awe-inspiring foreignness of Paris she lives in. The delightful pan de chocolat, the buzzing chatter of the beautiful French language, the great crush of humanity bisecting the verdant trees of the Champs-Élysées. It’s a world away, and one she knows she’ll never get to set foot in. Thanks to Blink’s onboard haptics, she can almost experience the full slate of senses these places have to offer.

She can taste the rich chocolate in Fuzzy’s croissant.

She can smell the ocean breeze rolling up the sand, and the huli-huli chicken Jack Taylor roasts over an open fire.

Her implant, by now fully imbedded beyond her healed skin, even allows her to simulate the touch and feel Fanta$y experiences, running his fingers over the gilded negligee on one of his many girlfriends.

None of these experiences are hers to call her own, but thanks to Blink, she can at least piggyback off others and leave her cloistered Arkansas farm behind.

Fuzzy sips her cocktail, speeding through an animated conversation with one of her model friends. She’s quite therapeutic to share eyes with, even though Maisie can’t control the perspective.

Maisie’s managed to pick up some elementary French over time, a fringe benefit of the app she never imagined. Really, she’s just happy to tune out of her own shitty viewpoint and ride along with someone else.

Of course, this means leaving her physical body in a state of catatonia, unable to register most sights or sounds back in Arkansas.

So she can’t tell how Pa’s gunning it up the driveway, having been kicked out of the bar for unholstering his handgun.

“Do you fancy a smoke?” Fuzzy’s friend asks, batting her eyes. Baldwin obliges, following her through the back of the bar, up the five flights of stairs to the roof.

Maisie can taste the acrid burn of tobacco on her lips, and has to remind herself how her body is okay.

With Fuzzy, they stare out over the roofs of Paris, up at the stars, those same stars Maisie swears she sees but that never shine quite the same back home.

Pa’s yelling at Tanner, Maisie’s older brother, for shooting cans with his AR-15 in the direction of the family’s barn. He slams through the front door, and stomps up to Maisie’s bedroom.

Maisie clicks her tongue and blinks, her whole body warmed by the midday Hawaiian sun.

When Pa opens the door, he immediately berates her. Maisie changes channels, her eyes still open, her fugue state still active. A slight smile is strewn on her face, as she switches to anyone but herself, and anywhere but home.

---

 

Eric Farrell lives in Long Beach, California, where he works as a beer sales rep by day, and speculative fiction author by night. His writing credits stem from a career in journalism, where he reported for a host of local and metro newspapers in the greater Los Angeles area. He posts on Twitter @stygianspace and has recent fiction with Aphotic Realm, Haven Spec, and HyphenPunk. His most recent appearance in our virtual pages was “Take Aim,” but his first unforgettable appearance was “Golden Arches,” the story of a fast food soft-serve ice cream machine… from Hell!

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Six Questions for… Elise Stephens

Elise Stephens’ storytelling is influenced by a love for theater and a childhood filled with globetrotting. She lives with her family in a house with huge windows, to supply the vast quantities of light she requires to stay happy. Her short stories have appeared in Analog, FIYAH, Galaxy’s Edge, Escape Pod, Writers of the Future Vol 35, and other places, including, of course, Stupefying Stories.

Her first appearance in our pages was “Two-Tone,” in Stupefying Stories 25. With the release two weeks ago of Thyme Travelers, which contains her story, “Remembrance in Cerulean,” it seemed like a good time to catch up with Elise and ask what she’s been doing lately.

______________________

SS: If you could change one thing about the way you write, what would it be?

ES: Sometimes I wish I could write in a more organized fashion while writing a scene. However, because I’m a pretty emotional person, my feelings get revved up as soon as I begin engaging in the mental worlds and goals of my characters and… suddenly my handwriting gets sloppy and my formatting collapses and I can still recall all of the emotional beats afterward, but the messy draft is pretty much always my first draft. Sometimes I wish that I could write with better form so that it doesn’t take me so long to decipher my typos or correct all the extra spaces that my handwriting recognition software has inserted, due to the fact that I wrote it in such an elevated state. Or maybe my artistic process just isn’t tidy and I have this self-directed annoyance because I’ve got a few close friends who are editors and I find myself envious of their neat drafts. Believe it or not, I’m actually an author who plans and architects my stories very carefully, but apparently that neatness evaporates when I roll my sleeves up to write the draft itself. 😀

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? 

ES: Of my novels, Forecast is my favorite. It’s an urban fantasy about family and second chances and a spooky magical ability to see into the future. There’s a secret society and a familial curse and I love the twin teenage siblings.

Forecast is available on all the usual e-book platforms, and in print from Amazon. You’ll find the links here.

https://books2read.com/ForecastEliseStephens

Or you can go to my web site and find links to everything. (Including my free e-book!)

https://www.elisestephens.com/

SS: Do you listen to music while writing? If so, what kinds of music or which artists?

ES: Yes. Instrumental music is my favorite, but there are folk bands with lyrics that I love, too. I think I listened to the Netflix soundtrack from The Witcher on repeat for almost a full year while I was writing a particular fantasy novel. I also really enjoy The Game of Thrones soundtrack, and the work by the band The Amazing Devil.

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

ES: I have about a zillion songs spinning through my head in answer to that, but The Corrs have an instrumental song called “Rebel Heart” (Spotify Link) which I first heard via a friend in high school and then later went on to use it as the bride-walking-down-the-aisle song at my wedding.

SS: Your story, “Two-Tone:” is there anything special you’re hoping readers will notice or appreciate in it?

ES: Art is supposed to cause some degree of an emotional reaction in the people who experience it. I’ve exaggerated that with my emotion-infused paint that’s used in lumastration. I want readers to think about the impact that art has on others and whether the artist might bear some responsibility regarding the kind of art they create, since art can touch and sometimes even alter the hearts and minds of those who encounter it.

SS: What’s next for you? What are you working on now? 

ES: I’m finishing up a novel set in the same world as “Two-Tone” — Nerr is also one of the main characters! —and hope to find a publishing home for it sometime in the near future. My agent is pretty excited about this book and I’m hopeful! Wish me luck!

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

ES: The writer with Writer’s Block. Bleh. This isn’t the main woe that professional writers face, but apparently that’s what the world thinks is our big hang-up.

SS: Thank you for your time, Elise. And now, just in case we haven’t mentioned it enough times, here’s where readers can find your story, “Two-Tone.”

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“Must Have Been Moonglow” • by Jeanne Van Slyke

Darla walked out onto the deck late at night. The lake was just below, but she couldn’t see the water.

It wasn’t fog, rain, or ice that covered the water, but phosphorescent outlines of every lily pad, frog, or insect that grazed the surface. It was like nature had sprinkled too much glitter everywhere. The niggling kind of glitter you find six months after you put away the Christmas decorations. Even the swampy tamarack trees and water hyacinths shimmered in the night. 

Darkness.

That was just it, there was no more darkness, my old friend. The only way Darla knew it was night was by her wind-up clock that she dared not let go unwound. She was glad she could remember what it was like to see the stars in the clear night sky, and the phases of the moon, the rising and setting of the sun. Nature was Darla’s jukebox—birds, crickets, bullfrogs singing in chorus. She’d spent her entire life tracking the lives on this lake, deep in the middle of Quetico. She could read her journals, close her eyes, and remember the image of the moon rising pink—changing with the elements sifting through the air on a given day-into-night.

Gone were the gentle sunrises that turn to glare, and the slow sunsets that calmed the day. 

It was always bright as day, with too much glittering reflection shimmering from every surface of every thing. Unnatural as hell. Darla had never cared for disco, but now the whole world was a mirrored ball.

She could see the zig-zag tracks of lake birds that tried to traverse the water, bravely seeking breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Every living being’s circadian rhythm was lost as it attempted to live through the fallout that coated the world. Every meal could be breakfast, or the last.

§

Darla journaled every day, wearing dark glasses to see the page. The phosphorescent fallout of the Moon’s explosion had left no surface uncovered by its toxic glitter. Writing with her fountain pen, she heard the scratching across the page and realized the nib was wearing down from the friction of the added texture. She looked at the pen in disbelief, but was glad she had several more fountain pens, nibs, and inks. These were an artsy pleasure for her. Even if she wasn’t the best writer, she felt like it, by virtue of writing with a fountain pen.

Fallout. She decided to journal more about it, since she felt slightly guilty for living so far away from civilization. Quetico was a vast unspoiled wetland, but even this sacred land could not escape the fallout. The giant cities of the world must now lie empty, she thought, the radio signals gone quiet, wars ceased, leaders dead. All that would be left were crumbling outposts like hers, on Lac La Croix. Wooden canoes were the first to disintegrate, then the aluminum ones were pocked with holes as the radiation burned through them. All that was left for her to navigate to the next island was her trusty We-No-Nah fiberglass canoe, which crackled across the glitter, making grooves in the lake.

Naturally (ironically!), a man-made material would be what survived this man-made catastrophe. Not even plastics could last, they just melted in the glittery glare, and in time evaporated. Finally, a way to escape the eroding scourge to the planet! Sadly, it had taken this planet-changing event to begin to eradicate plastics and microplastics, but it was now too late for scientists to turn it into a benefit for humanity.

Fall-out glitter. How could anyone or anything escape an explosion of such magnitude from the Moon? The explosion of nuclear waste shipped to the moon was a blunderbuss, in every sense of the word. A short-barreled muzzle-loading shotgun can be stuffed with any number of projectiles. Shaped like a megaphone, the particulates scatter far and wide.The scientists were the true blunderbusses, who dared to think the Moon was safe at all for inorganic and chemical waste storage.

The Moon exploded into nothingness on September 13, 1999. It didn’t matter that the toxic waste was parked on the dark side. Even Pink Floyd could write a song—name an entire album—after that mysterious place. When a roundish object explodes, Darla wrote, it’s going to send stuff spinning everywhere into space. Since the spinning Earth is its closest companion, every revolution scatters toxic moon dust over every mountain, lake, river, stream, meadow…you get the drift. Toxic drift. She underlined it. Quite different from Jed Clampett discovering black gold, “Texas Tea,” and becoming a hillbilly millionaire!

§

Darla remembered the old 1970’s sitcoms, but knew none of that technology could have survived the toxic glitter. It got into everything, jammed-up silicon-based computers, and much like microplastics, got into our blood. She walked into the decrepit library in her cabin, only to see the paper of the books turning to glittery sand.  Hardback books were empty shells, and starting to crumble while her special-treat magazines, Vogue and The New Yorker, had bitten the dust weeks ago. She didn’t need to ask what the world was coming to. It was already coming to an end.

From her perch on the blinding outdoor deck, Darla realized school children wouldn’t have schools to attend, much less living teachers. The A.I. Era had fixed that problem. But now that computers no longer functioned, parents would have to spend quality time with their children, until the final moments before the Earth itself glittered into space. Too late for the parents who’d missed their children’s plays and recitals! All those photos were dust. Those grown children were now raising their own babies, trying to describe the beauty of a moon rise, the sun set, and clear water to the horizon and beyond.

Darla’s own darkness overcame her. Enough of this self-protection malarky!, she thought. Standing on the deck, she took off her dark glasses, expecting to squint herself into a horrible headache from the brilliant glitter. 

To her surprise, the brightness had dimmed, and the glitter subdued to flickers. The flickers were like fireflies; she never knew when the next one would sparkle, so she broadened her gaze to see what was happening.

All the outlines of the lilypads, frogs, and insects were gone. The glitter was solidly coalescing across the water like a glassy pond. Darla tip-toed down the dulled-glittery grass to touch the water. She swiped the back of her glitter-burned hand across the surface of the water, to see the depth of moonglow. It was like trying to scrape the wax from the top of a jar of home-made mulberry jam. The glitter had congealed to a level of about 9 inches, but beneath it was clear water! Darla could see the tadpoles and trout, all kinds of Northern fish swimming below the glitter level. She wondered how the waterbirds might survive at this point, without ready access to fish, but plentiful insects large and small swirled in confusion through the darkening air. 

What kind of sign is this? Darla wondered if she should become hopeful. From her outpost in Quetico, far from the rest of civilization, she decided to try communicating with the outside world. If there indeed was any world left…she’d felt like the last woman on Earth.

She took an old toothbrush to her transistor radio (one she’d had since grade school, still in its leatherette case) and started to scrape all the dulled glitter out of every part. Tuning it was tricky, but she got a fuzzy AM radio station with a tired-sounding fellow out of Grand Marais. He announced that NASA had launched a satellite similar to the Moon, but with plenty of room to allow for more toxic waste. Giant snow plows in the North had been piling up all the glitter they could, and loading it onto this moon-like satellite. Like electric linemen, the plows were dispatched all over the world, mystifying remaining souls into deep gratitude.

Darla hoped they’d thought to line the inside of the thing with fiberglass, since that was the only material not eaten away by the toxic glitter from the Moon’s explosion. The news reporter scratched on, saying a team of eco-scientists had studied all of the natural and man-made fibers for the satellite, and that indeed fiberglass was the main component! Glory be! Darla thought there must have been a Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness expert on the team, since her We-No-Na Canoe was still intact after all of this mess. 

Darla hoped, wondered, and rejoiced, but decided that nothing was going to make her leave Lac LaCroix. She hoped that she could clear off a useful area of the congealed moon glitter around the dock, to pile it up until collection was solved. This old cabin had been her haven her entire life, except for a dalliance or two getting University degrees. 

What good are those degrees when it comes to survival? she wondered. She rejoiced that there might still be a chance for Earth to be refashioned into a healthier, albeit changed planet, with a makeshift Moon.

 

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Jeanne Van Slyke is a Renaissance woman, who has degrees in music, writing, and literature from the University of Wisconsin, St. Catherine University, and the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. An independent teacher in the arts for 25 years, she loves to garden, and has won several awards for her watercolor paintings.

 

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“You” • by Conrad Gardner

It’s you, it’s always been you. 

When they asked me what I wanted to remember, when the time came, I said your name without needing to pause to think.

What did I want to remember? The doctors asked.

“Everything,” I said. But that wasn’t feasible, so I had to select one event in particular, a single moment of time for me to hold onto whilst my mind decayed.

When faced with that choice, my mind raced with all the time we’d spent together; making food with you, being in bed with you, holding you in my arms while you fell asleep watching a film. I wanted to hold onto all of them, but couldn’t pinpoint one of them out of the sea of time we’d spent together.

The doctors gave me a couple of days to pick one. It wasn’t until the time I’m writing this—07/04/2050—that I realised what I wanted to keep.

It was my father’s funeral. The people were filing out, offering their condolences and a handshake. You looked at me, and gave me a three-millimetre smile. Nothing more, nothing less, three millimetres. And I understood then, in that moment, how important you were to me.

You still are. Always will be, Even when I can’t remember your name, I can remember that smile now, and that’s all I’ll need.

When I’m no longer here, I hope you can read this, and remember that I love you.

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Conrad Gardner’s work has previously appeared in Superlative Literary Journal, Sci Phi Journal, and Impossible Worlds. When not writing, he can be found running, reading, and hoping for a better tomorrow.

 

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“A Curse and a Blessing” • by Jeff Currier

The Moonies (no, not disciples of the Unification Church) were out in force on the 25th Anniversary of Moonfall. 

(I know the Moon didn’t fall. If it had, we wouldn’t be here. But that’s the name that stuck.) 

A damn near thing though. The off-center dark-side explosion at apogee set the Moon spinning, exactly when a dark matter mass just happened to be hurtling by. Enough gravitational nudge to pluck the Moon from its orbit rather than crashing into Earth. That was the scientific consensus anyway.

The sheer improbability led some to proclaim it an act of God. But if we repented our sins, He would restore the Moon. So here the Moonies were, gathering for a massive prayer session in the park. (Did they even realize they were calculating the anniversary in solar years?)

I dodged around another group, clad in shimmering robes, like they’d just stepped off the ship from Remulak. Except they wore bulbous spheres on their heads. Should’ve called them Moonheads.

Despite the empty night sky, not even a new moon’s darkness occluding the stars behind, I felt the old rhythms like clockwork in my veins. I didn’t need to look at my watch. Even avoiding the park, I’d still make the lecture on time.

§

The audience was sparse. A smattering of undergraduates, probably hoping for extra credit. Octogenarian faculty types in the front row. Someone in shadow in the back. Not much interest in obscure Greek and Roman classical literature, apparently. Which was fine with me—I found a seat far from everyone else.

These days biologists were the big draw, detailing the ongoing repercussions of the Quaternary Extinction Event. All over the world the Moon’s absence wreaked cascading ecological havoc. After the stilling of the tides over eighty-percent of all intertidal organisms died off. Massive clouds of birds circled around nighttime city lights. And who knew dung beetles, crucial participants in fecal decomposition and soil aeration, also navigated via the Moon?

Psychologists were a close second. Suicide, depression, and anger-fueled violence had spiked. New cults proliferated; Moonies, Loonies, Gaiaists, and Mánists. Third-Kinder’s argued aliens stole the Moon to run experiments on Moonbase Alpha’s crew—a prelude to mass abductions on Earth. At airports, Krishnas were replaced by zealots dressed as Imperial stormtroopers, panhandling for the Death Star Project. Allegedly SpaceX would help them begin construction by 2040. 

The Moon might be gone, but human lunacy had only multiplied. For me though, Moonfall was the most blessed day of my life.

§

A final trickle of students found seats. The first generation to never see a Moon in their night sky and seemingly perfectly content without it. They baked pearlcakes for the Mid-Autumn Festival; karaoked Hepburn’s Loon River. Incessant lunar laments only made them salty. Couldn’t their elders just get over it? 

How long, I wondered, until the Moon was mere myth? I suspected this lecture would bowdlerize it even further.

At the lectern, a distinguished-looking woman introduced the speaker, Helen Riorden. She was surprisingly young—early thirties, maybe. A mere child when the Moon vanished. I’d been expecting another dusty classicist like those up front. The Moon’s chances weren’t improving.

But as Helen began, I could almost believe the Fates were still weaving. Her astral voice, achingly like my lost Callidora’s, recited Ovid. 

He tried to speak, but his voice broke into

an echoing howl. His ravening soul infected his jaws;

his murderous longings were turned on the cattle; he still was possessed

by bloodlust. His garments were changed to a shaggy coat and his arms

into legs. He was now transformed into a wolf.

I was right about her thesis, though. For Herodotus, Plato and Ovid, the curse was Zeus’ just punishment of immoral men. No Moon required. 

I knew better. The curse was a despairing goddess’ capricious whim.

§

After Q&A finished, the students dispersed to begin their Friday night revels. The moderator spoke briefly with Helen and then assisted a tottering colleague out. But not before he managed to knock Helen’s notes off the podium. They scattered like falling moonflowers. 

Surprising myself, as if drawn by some unseen pull, I moved forward to help.

“Interesting talk, Prof. Riorden,” I said, picking up several pages, “Though Zeus was not the first to use that form of punishment.”

She didn’t look up, still snaring errant notes. “It’s not Professor. I’m ABD, looking for a topic actually. And there’s no evidence of any dependence on earlier Babylonian transformation tales.”

“I concur. Zeus stole the idea from Selene.”

She looked up abruptly, piercing eyes scanning me skeptically.

“Do you have textual evidence?”

“No, but there is physical evidence.”

I heard movement behind me. Helen’s eyes widened, momentary fear, then surging anger. I looked over my shoulder. Shadow man had emerged.

“David!” Helen gasped. “You followed me halfway across the country?!”

“He’s the reason you left?” 

“Don’t be absurd. I just met this man—we’re discussing my lecture.” She stepped back. “You can’t be this close. The restraining order…”

He turned to me, his visage betraying covetous arrogance. I admonished him in Homeric Greek, “Strange man, thou dost not well to nurse this anger in thy heart.”

Helen stifled a laugh, before adding her own Homeric contribution, “But this man’s understanding is not stable, nor ever will be.”

David just glared in baffled silence. Then he lunged, swinging a fist. I sidestepped, letting him flail past. His subsequent attacks were equally ineffectual, yet he pursued with a rabid dog’s tenacity. I could hear Helen berating him to stop. And another voice. The chairwoman, returned, was talking frantically into her phone.

David charged. I bared my teeth into a feral smile. Time to end this.

§

At the bar in Helen’s hotel, she nervously sipped her coconut margarita (aka a Supermoon). I propped an ice pack, compliments of campus EMTs, against my swelling cheek. My Eclipse sat untouched.

“Why did you let him hit you?”

“What makes you say I let him?”

She tilted her head at me. “He wasn’t getting close—you deliberately stepped into his last punch.”

I’d hoped to be less obvious. I sighed. “Before Moonfall I tore men like him apart. Now I have the luxury of more elegant solutions. Malicious wounding, battery, and an egregious restraining order violation ought to ruin the next few years of his life.” I gestured at the ice pack with my free hand. “A small price to pay.”

She narrowed her eyes, the math not adding up. “How old are you?”

“Much older than I look.”

“Well, you look quite fine, even with your accoutrement.” She smiled teasingly, sparking another remembrance of Callidora. “And you speak Homeric Greek, though the accent is strange.”

Still lost in my recollections, I murmured, “Homeros taught me the high poetic forms.”

Helen went very still, clutching her drink. 

I sighed again. “Now I’ve made you think you chose poorly.”

She took a deep breath, slowly relaxing. “You’d be hard pressed to be more of a controlling asshole than David.”

“Never been the controlling type,” I replied. “Only since Moonfall have I finally regained myself.”

“Many would say Moonfall made humanity feel increasingly powerless.”

“And yet through all the tumult, we still meet new intriguing people and go out for drinks.”

She smiled softly. “Before, you said you had evidence.”

“First, I must recount a story. Do you know the Menai?”

“The fifty daughters of Selene and Endymion.”

“Yes, but do you know their names?”

She shook her head. “No textual source I know of gives them names.”

“The youngest, and most beautiful, and most curious of the Menai was Callidora. One day, at the sun’s highest ascent whilst her mother slept, Callidora ventured forth from her mountain. On its slopes, she befriended a goatherd, not much more than a boy really. She asked him endless questions. About the goats, the birds, his sandals, the rocks, the trees, the clouds, the villagers… For many, the boy didn’t know the answer, but her questing ethereal voice imbued in the boy an insatiable curiosity to find them. 

“And so it went for many months, until one day a squad of mercenary soldiers passed by. Seeing her stunning beauty, they coveted her. They set upon the pair, grabbing and binding Callidora. When the boy tried to stop them, they laughed and beat him with the hafts of their spears until he fell unconscious.

“When he awoke, the full moon filled the sky, closer than he had ever seen it. ‘Where is my daughter?!’ a voice thundered. The boy, bowed to the ground, cried, ‘Soldiers have taken her. Luminous Selene, grant me the speed and strength to overcome them and I shall reclaim her for you.’

“And Selene poured the strength and fury of the mighty wolf into his veins. Howling, the wolf-man sprang forth. Finding the soldier’s camp, he set upon them. Claws tore flesh, teeth ripped throats, until only one remained. Holding Callidora before him, a knife at her neck, he threatened her death unless the wolf-man retreated. But Selene’s gift had made him so bereft of reason, that the wolf-man recklessly charged forward. He ripped the soldier’s heart from his chest. 

“But not before the mercenary sliced Callidora’s throat.

“When the boy-man, carrying Callidora’s lifeless body, finally returned to the mountain, a crimson moon shone down. In her anguish and rage, Selene cursed him. Whenever my full face shines upon Gaia, the lykos shall reclaim you. To wreak my vengeance upon humanity for the death of my daughter.

“For that man, endlessly transformed and reborn again, the moon’s departure was a blessing.”

§

While Helen pondered my tale, I pulled out my phone, opened GeoMaps, and typed in coordinates. (At least all the satellites had finally been recalibrated.) I dropped a pin and passed her the phone.

“Okay, a spot on Mount Latmus in Turkey,” she said.

“Endymion’s cave. Sealed and undisturbed. On the walls you will find tiled frescoes depicting Callidora’s story. Enough material for countless dissertations.”

Her silent pensive appraisal weighed upon my soul. Finally, she murmured, “I do have some unused research funds.” She graced me with another delicate Callidora smile.

And I dared to dream that Moonfall might become the second most blessed day of my life.

 

---

Jeff Currier works three jobs, so has little time to write. Hence, he writes little stories—like this one, or “Temporal Avoidance Game,” or “The Fate of Time Travelers,” or “The Foulest of Them All,” all of which we’ve published previously. Find links to more of his published stories at @jffcurrier on X or Jeff Currier Writes on Facebook.

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“Chasing the Moon” • by Karin Terebessy

On long winter evenings, the Nelsons went off chasing the moon.

Sarah was old enough to buckle herself in—though it was a bit tricky while wearing those dollar-bin knit gloves that slipped and slid on most surfaces like a skater on ice. Then she’d help Jonathon with his buckle. Sometimes, she’d have to clean the sticky off the clasp. Sometimes, she’d even have to remove her gloves, fingers stiffening quickly in the cold, and use her thumbnail to scrape away all the old dried drips of doctor-office-lollipops or apple juice, because the buckle wouldn’t fit otherwise.

“Is everyone buckled in back there?” Their mother would ask, her disembodied eyes peering into the rear view mirror; her breath curling like smoke.

“We’re all buckled, Mom.”

The car was so cold their teeth and bones would rattle like the cold windows in the frames. The brakes of the old car squeaked and sometimes there was this metal-scraping-against-some-other-metal sound and this was their musical soundtrack for chasing the moon.

Their mother drove the car up and over the dark winding hills. Past the small rural houses and copses of trees. With each turn of the road, the moon might disappear from sight. Sarah and Jonathon would hold their breath, and then the road would curve—

“There! Past that chimney! It’s back, Jonathon, look!”

Jonathon would let out a sigh at the sight of the moon. With each dip of the road the moon would hide; with each rise, make its face known again. Through the long skeletal branches of birch trees, milky fog, or heavy clouds, the moon would tease, almost as if saying “Aha, so you’ve long made peace with object permanence. Then why so fearful?”

Nothing so big could ever disappear.

As their mother drove and heat finally warmed the car, Jonathon would ask,“Can we get McDonald’s?”

“No money for McDonald’s,” Sarah would answer for their mother.

Jonathon would grimace at his sister’s maternal tone. “There’d be money if Dad were here,” he’d say. Just to be hurtful.

“Hush,” their mother would say. “You’ll scare away the moon.”

§

Each month, when the moon shrank to barely a sliver, Jonathon harbored a secret panic that it might disappear. That he’d been thinking about his Dad too much and this was scaring away the moon. He tried as hard as he could to unthink about his Dad. But trying to not think about something still left him thinking about that something. Even more sometimes. So he’d imagine his father’s face on a baseball card that he could tear up and sprinkle out his window so the wind could carry each piece in a different direction, not letting them come together to form his face again. Only, tearing up his father’s face made him think that that would be the reason he never came back again.

Jonathon took to biting the skin around his fingernails until the pink raw underskin shone through. This distracted him until the day the moon would start to grow fat again.

From his bedroom window, he’d whisper, “Don’t be afraid moon. Please don’t go away again.”

§

The long Spring evenings could be just as hard to fill as the Winter ones. But the Nelsons would sit out late, for a long time after dinner, waiting to spot the first sign of moonrise.

Or they might drive, if gas was cheap enough. The car hot now but the buckles still sticky.

Jonathon was getting older and could buckle himself in these days.  Sarah and he would get mad at each other about this, because she liked to do this for him. Until one day, Jonathon pinched the back of her hand so hard she yelped.

“Hush now,” their mother said, “Do you want to scare away the moon?”

§

Sometime in June, a few weeks before summer vacation, all the kids in Jonathon’s class had to make cards for Father’s Day. Jonathon worked carefully. He took a piece of red construction paper and folded it in half, because red was the color of love, and cards always opened from the middle. It was hard to see the crayons on the red paper, but he had drawn a big circle. Then he used dots of glue and the silver glitter, and made a sky full of stars.

Maybe it was the long summer nights, or the joyfulness of glitter, but Jonathon felt hopeful and forgot to not think about certain things. Inside the card he wrote, “Dad, come back soon.” And when he brought it home, he put it on his window sill, so the moon could see it.

§

When Sarah was helping her mother clean, she came across the card.

She shook it in Jonathon’s face. “What is this?” She hissed. “You better get rid of this. You’re going to make mom cry and if you make mom cry I’m going to hit you really hard.”

But Jonathon didn’t want to throw it out. So he folded the card up. He folded it and folded it until it was a stiff, lopsided square with a yawning mouth that wouldn’t close and he hid it under his mattress.

When the moon got small in September, he would slide his hand beneath his pillow, pressing his palm to the mattress. He could sense the hidden card, buried beneath the mattress. Buried and so far away, it couldn’t be that bad. There enough to still exist, but not there enough, to not be a crime.

Then on September 13, 1999 the moon left and didn’t come back.

Jonathan tore off his bedsheets, flipped his mattress and seized the card.

“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry,” he said as he ripped the card up into tiny shreds. He dug holes in the yard and buried the shreds in all different places. He tried to even close his eyes so he wouldn’t remember where he buried some pieces. And the ones he did remember, he went back and put rocks on, so that the rocks would weigh them down in case the power of their longing would cause them to tremble up from the earth and reunite.

But the moon still didn’t come back.

Grownups walked around frightened now, wringing their hands, asking why why why.

Guilt swelled inside him until he felt full and round with it. Until it seeped from his pores and radiated from him like an ominous light.

Shame shone from him in the darkness. Like it was saying, “Look here everyone! This is the boy who scared away the moon. Look look, let me shine a light on him so you can see him better.”

He was certain that when the grownups looked at him they could see that it was all his fault. It was so big and obvious.

Jonathon wanted to fix this but he didn’t know how. Because the way you fix things when you’ve done something wrong is you say sorry. But how could he say sorry to the moon, when it wasn’t even there anymore And how could he say sorry when his voice seemed to have escaped Earth’s gravity and fled with the moon?

How would this terrible feeling ever go away?

Everyone knows that nothing so big could ever disappear.

         

---

Karin Terebessy likes to write speculative flash fiction stories. Her work has appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Stupefying Stories, Flash Fiction Magazine, Sci-Phi Journal, and other ‘zines. She is currently attempting to write a novel based on her short story “Mood Skin” which appeared in Stupefying Stories in 2016. You can follow Karin on TikTok @karinbendsreality or find her on Instagram at karinterebessy.

Her most recent appearance in SHOWCASE was one of the most powerful and disturbing stories we’ve ever published, “Broken.” Before that she gave us “Bandages” in Stupefying Stories 26, but she’s been with us since “The Memory of Worms,” in the now out-of-print Stupefying Stories 16. In addition she’s given us many SHOWCASE stories, including, “Robin’s Egg,” “Not Quite Ready for Armageddon,” “The Finder of Lost Things,” “Mood Skin,”  “The Real Reason Why Mrs. Sprague Came by Her House So Cheaply.”

If you liked this story, check them all out. It will be time well spent. 

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“Fathom” • by Made in DNA

Foreword:
Twenty-five years later, one of the greatest mysteries of 9/13/99 remains: What happened to Japan? The tsunamis and earthquakes that immediately followed the disappearance of the Moon were horrific, of course; the death toll was in the millions and the property damage beyond the scope of human comprehension. But the islands of the Japanese archipelago are no strangers to catastrophe, as their long and troubled relationship with the Nankai Trough subduction zone attests, and this disaster was oddly selective. Somehow it was as if an entire generation of Japan’s best and brightest scientific minds fell victim to either earthquakes, tsunamis, or famine, and all within a matter of weeks.

The definitive answer to this mystery must remain elusive, as Japan has been under “protective” Chinese military government since 2004 and is largely off-limits to Westerners. However, researchers conducting forensic explorations of what survives of the IIJ backbone network have turned up multiple copies of the following fragmentary manuscript, ostensibly written by a person identified only as “Made in DNA.”

Some historians say this tale is mere fantasy, and there is no evidence that such a thing as the Serene Fuji Project ever existed. Others insist this story is true, and is presented as fiction only in order to obscure the actual location of the arcology.

Whatever the truth may be, herewith we provide what most scholars agree is the most complete and accurate translation of the original text.

 

---

“Yasu, as a vital scientist of the International Lunar Commission team, I can get you and your family visas.” 

The man on the visicreen insisted, the worry in his voice apparent. It was tempting. Things would be so much easier.

“That is very kind of you, Thomas, but I am needed here as well. If there is to be any future for Japan, I must stay.” Yasuyuki Etsugawa hoped his friend and colleague did not hear the anxiety in his voice.

Another strong temblor hit, as if to admonish the scientist for his brazen statement. Yasu gripped the edge of the workstation into which the visicreen was embedded. In another room of their assigned apartment, his young son cried out in fear for his mother. She rushed to calm him.

“Are you okay over there?” Thomas’s face enlarged as the man pressed toward his screen, and then said, “I’m sorry.” A look of guilt on the man’s face brought guilt to Yasu’s gut. “We should have acted faster!”

“This situation is too much for any one country to handle. There isn’t a nation not struggling against natural disaster. Earthquakes have devastated the US, France, Yugoslavia and countless other countries. No one could have known the waters here would rise so fast.”

Not even Japan’s best seismologists could have predicted what the Moon’s sudden and horrifying departure would do to the archipelago. Thus far it had triggered megathrust earthquakes all throughout the Nankai Trough region. The Tōkai, Tōnankai, and Nankaidō zones were having convulsions; the Taiheiyō Belt was nearly obliterated. It was as if the four tectonic plates that underlay Japan had cracked, ripping the nation into a dozen smaller unstable island-plates that were pressed upon each other, scramble-grabbing for any way up or out; forcing each other down into the depths as bodies of water on either side greedily filled the gaps. Mount Fuji itself was sinking, along with most of the Kantō Region, the Okhotsk and Philippine Sea Plates seemingly willing to commit deicide to save themselves.

Looking out the window, Yasu knew that the survivors of the initial catastrophes were racing to secure themselves in the mountains. Too many of them would not make it. Too many of those who did would run out of food and water within weeks. The nation had already lost half its population in a matter of days.

It might be every soul in Japan, if not for the Serene Fuji Project. Started two decades ago as method of combating future energy crises, it was perfectly poised to stabilize the nation in the coming centuries. With the volcano transformed into a powerful, immortal energy source, Yasu’s family and a million others would live safely in the bosom of the protector mountain.

“Yasu…”

“Yes, my friend?”

“Will we hear from you again?”

“There is always a possibility.” He lied. It was for the best.

“Maybe after everything calms down.” There was a hint of childish hope in Thomas’s voice that was out of character. Yasu understood the other man’s feelings and were grateful for them. It was good to have friends like this. Friends you could remember and who would remember you.

Another strong temblor hit. They were a constant now. Almost clockwork; ticking away the last moments of their old lives.

“That would be nice.” That was not a lie.

“Attention, citizens.” The public broadcast system integrated into all the apartment units came to life, its echo clear across the other unit around them.

Yasu’s wife came in with their small son in her arms. Her face said everything she would not, out of respect for his time with his friend.

Yasu nodded to her.

“Sorry, Thomas, I’m afraid it’s time. Goodbye, friend.” Yasu bowed with the utmost respect to the visicreen, before a last look out the window at the rising waters as they roiled menacingly up toward Mount Fuji.

The broadcast system continued. “All final phase scientific residential units will now be moved to their assigned community positions within the facility. Please secure all members of your families now.”

Yasu, his wife, and son, were all buckled in as their unit rose up the side of the mountain, disappearing over the lip into the open maw of the technological wonder that would become their home for generations. In truth, Yasu wondered just how this would work out, and if it would not become prison or grave. Would they truly be able to ride out the coming centuries within the interior of the sealed Serene Fuji Arcology, while the Earth lamented the loss of its mistress? 

For his son and the sake of future generations, he and all the others were willing to try.

 

---

 

Afterword:
Years later, “Fathom” remains a tantalizing curiosity. Is there a germ of truth in the story of the Serene Fuji Arcology, or is this just the daydream of some poor soul who didn’t make it through the catastrophe? Already in some of the more relaxed “New Age” circles the Serene Fuji Arcology has taken on an almost mythic status, comparable to Atlantis, Lemuria, or the Lost Continent of Mu. Could the pre-catastrophe Japanese actually have built such a place? There are approximately fourteen thousand islands in the Japanese archipelago, stretched out over nearly two thousand nautical miles. While the recurring discovery of apparently abandoned or unfinished megastructures on various remote islands in the chain does not prove the existence of the Serene Fuji Arcology, neither does it rule out the possibility that it might be real. 

One can’t help but wonder, though. If those million missing best-and-brightest Japanese scientists are sealed up in an arcology somewhere, hiding away from the rest of the world and riding out the centuries: what are they doing in there?

Most scholars agree: it probably involves giant robots. And genetically engineered cat-girls.

---

Made in DNA: Samuraipunk author, cheap thrill seeker, pizza lover, US immigrant to Japan. To learn more, visit https://campsite.bio/madeindna

If you enjoyed this story, be sure to check out “The Shrine Keeper,” elsewhere on this web site.

If you really enjoyed this story, look for “Something CUTE This Way Comes,” in Stupefying Stories 26.

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The Never-ending FAQ • 11 September 2024

Welcome to this week’s installment of The Never-ending FAQ, the constantly evolving adjunct to our Submission Guidelines and general-purpose unfocused ask-me-anything forum.  If you have a question you’d like to ask about Stupefying Stories or Rampant Loon Press, feel free to post it as a comment here or to email it to our submissions address. I can’t guarantee we’ll post a public answer, but can promise every question we receive will be read and considered.

We’re très busy this week, so we’ll get right to the two most important questions in need of your attention.

Q: How do I get my book onto your Friends of Stupefying Stories list?

A: That’s easy. Tell us about it. Sending an email usually works best. Include the Amazon link (or books2read, or whatever) if you can.

Yes, we’ll be happy to look at ARCs, either electronic or print. Query first.

We have a nice bunch of titles for the next update to the F.O.S.S. list, which goes live on 9/15/24, but it wouldn’t hurt to remind us that you have a book you’d like us to put on the list. We’re juggling cats here this week.

 

Q:  Why is there a Pete Wood Challenge banner at the top of this column?

A: Because Pete Wood is not merely an attorney, he is an attorney who specializes in appeals. So when I told him, months ago, that it was time to shut down The Pete Wood Challenge, he immediately began to craft his appeal.

I was not eager to shut down TPWC. Over the years we’ve made a lot of new friends through the challenge, and it’s let us publish some terrific flash fiction. But the hard truth of it is that with each new challenge the readership numbers continue to shrink, and the pool of authors willing to participate in the challenge continues to shrink, and I didn’t feel like sticking with it until, like The Incredible Shrinking Man, the diminishing returns finally diminished to nothing and evanesced out of existence.

Pete, however, is not one to give up. He kept trying different angles, and working different strategies, until he eventually wore me down and I relented. So here we go, one more time. This is either The Last Pete Wood Challenge, or The Pete Wood Challenge: The New Beginning. Which it is is up to you. 

Turning the mic over to Pete, now:

THE OFFSEASON CHALLENGE

Bruce, this is what I posted on CODEX. This challenge is open to both members of Codex and, for the first time, non-members of Codex.

If this works out, we’ll have more challenges in the future. It’s all going to come down to readership. This may be the last challenge. It may be the first of many. 

Write a flash fiction story of up to 150 words, not including the prompt. Your story must include the phrase “the offseason” or “the off-season” or “the off season.”

Deadline is October 20th at seven a.m. EST.

This challenge is open to the general public. However, at least two stories will be from codexians and at least one will be from the general public. Winning stories will be published the week of November 4, 2024.

Any genre is fine. BUT, no stories about politics. No analogies about politics. No characters who are obviously patterned after politicians. So, if you want to write a clever story about Sheriff Harris and Deputy Walz and the gunfight with the Trump gang, don’t write that story. You get the idea.

Prizes will be awarded as follows: 1st place- $20 2nd-$15 3rd-$10 Honorable Mention (1-3)-$5

HOW TO SUBMIT AN ENTRY

Codex members: Post your stories in the announcement thread on Codex.
Non-codex members: Email your story to southernfriedsfwriter@gmail.com
Put “submission off season” in the subject line.

One story per writer, and codexians cannot submit with the general public.

Good luck!

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