Stupefying Stories Magazine

Sunday, November 10, 2024

The Week in Review • 10 November 2024

By ~brb November 10, 2024 No comments

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)

November 04, 2024 Comments

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)

November 04, 2024 Comments

“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)

November 05, 2024 Comments

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)

November 05, 2024 Comments

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)

November 06, 2024 Comments

“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)

November 07, 2024 Comments

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)

November 08, 2024 Comments

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)

November 09, 2024 Comments

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.

“Not a Fan” • by Pete Wood

By ~brb November 09, 2024 2 comments

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]

“The Offs” • by Ted Macaluso

By ~brb November 08, 2024 No comments

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.”

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

By ~brb November 07, 2024 No comments

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 Terrors, 99 Fleeting Fantasies, Deadman Humour: Fears of Clown, Sherlock 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,...

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....

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:...

“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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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.”

“Dangerouser and Dangerouser” • by Sophie Sparrow

By ~brb November 06, 2024 2 comments

“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.”

“Efficiency Optimization” • by Jeff Currier

By ~brb November 05, 2024 No comments

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 Foulest of Them All”

“The Fate of Time Travelers”

“Temporal Avoidance Game”

“A Curse and a Blessing”

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.”

“Tonight, We Embrace the Dark” • by Gideon P. Smith

By ~brb November 05, 2024 2 comments

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 spilling from our lips, we danced. Leapt. Made love. We swam naked, treasuring on-season’s warming rays.

But then, foreigners arrived, bringing gifts: generators; batteries. Everything changed.

At first, we marveled at our new off-season. Refrigerated foods, warmth, light. But when on-season dawned, the joy of first-light was gone. Our parties felt forced. Off-season had become just on-season’s paler sister. Life was monotonous. Our children softened.

We’d lost off-season’s beauty. Fierce, harsh, and strong. It’d made us who we were. So tonight, we destroy the generators. Reclaim nature’s rhythm.

Tonight, we re-embrace the dark.

________________________________________

Gideon P. Smith has written for SFWA, BSFA Focus Magazine, Wyldblood Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine, Troopers Quarterly, and anthologies from Black Hare Press, Shacklebound, and Fairfield Scribes. He was a 2023 NESFA short story competition and 2024 Writers of the Future finalist, and is a first reader for Diabolical Plots and Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores. A first-generation college graduate, Gideon emigrated from Scotland to New England, where he enjoys hiking the White Mountains with his sons.

For more information, visit Gideon’s blog at https://gideonpsmith.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 phrase: “the off season.”

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Sunday, November 10, 2024

“Footprints” • by Robin Blasberg (Honorable Mention)

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

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

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

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

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

“The Offs” • by Ted Macaluso (Gold)

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

Saturday, November 9, 2024

Friday, November 8, 2024

Thursday, November 7, 2024

Wednesday, November 6, 2024

Tuesday, November 5, 2024

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