Issue 27: 3rd Quarter 2008

"Whoever battles monsters should take care not to become a monster too, for if you stare long enough into the Abyss, the Abyss stares also into you."
—Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, chapter 4, no. 146

Announcements:

Editorial:

Dear Cthulhu, (as told to Patrick Thomas)

Short Fiction

The Number of Angels in Hell
by Joanne Steinwachs
     When he thought about it, Harry realized the death of his family started his career. The best angel finder on EE5, he didn't need to do the tests. He'd seen so many angels that he could spot them. The glazed joy in their expression, how they swooped and banked with exuberance when the rest of the flyers came in barely flapping their wings. The refusal to take off the wings. The singing.

Väinämöinen and the Singing Fish
by Marissa K. Lingen
     Joukahainen opened his mouth to sing a charm that would fell his opponent like a tree, but he found that no sound came out. He was unable to swing his sword arm to attack the older man, and then he noticed a great, deep drone filling the air around him, shaking the trees and the rocks.
     Väinämöinen was singing up an earthquake.

Praxitales
by Nye Joell Hardy
     "I'm a graduate student. I'm working on a Doctorate in cetacean psychology."
     I saw that this girl had a complete range of unpleasantness that I hoped never to fathom the depths of. Considering that the moment before, she had actually been frightened of me, our roles had reversed utterly.
     "I...." the words died in my mouth. I didn't know what was going on. That was a sure thing, now.

Walking Across The Bomb
by Alexandra MacKenzie
     "You can hate my friends and me for wearing funny clothes and long hair and for hating the war.” My pulse raced wildly, and I took a deep breath that did not help. I knew what I had to do. Noriko wouldn’t stop with inanimate objects.
     Because we hadn’t.

Flash Fiction

The Green Infinity
by Camille Alexa
     California's population had fled. Pockets of survivors huddled on rooftops against encroaching vines and climbing stalks, awaiting airlift rescue. The verdant growth continued to spread, radiating outward in a pattern reminiscent of wildfire, or of contagion.
     They'd tried fire, of course, to stop him.

The Night The Stars Sang Out My Name
by Ken Scholes
     Fire underneath the skin spreading. But I do not scream. Roar of water rushing by.
     My roar.
     And somehow, I am on my feet. Every limb is lashing out and I spin and spin like those gypsies in Mom's shake and whirl dervish glass.
     I should have been a dancer.

Poetry

Odysseus on the War Train
by Rose Lemberg

Side Show Sally
by Tracie McBride

Hives
by Elizabeth Penrose

3 Poems Called Cosmic
by JM McDermott

Think
by Suzanne Sykora

Pavlov's Best Friend
by Kristine Ong Muslim

Short Form Set:

• Shears, by Marcie Lynn Tentchoff
• Two Haiku, by Francis W. Alexander
• LIONS & TIGERS & BEARS, by Kendall Evans

Awards

Colophon and Affiliations