Issue 32: 4th Quarter 2009

"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

Editorial

The Joy Of Small Cons: Campbell Conference 2009
by Christopher McKitterick

Short Fiction

Mirror Girl
by Paul Carlson

     "Desdemona 'Desi' Pringle," muttered the nurse. We were alone in the school's tiny clinic. "Eleven years old, excellent fifth grade scores. Complains of missing extremity."

     "Not missing, ma'am," I corrected. "Invisible."

     "Let's have a look." The nurse snapped on gloves and patted my left side.

     "Raise it." More poking and squeezing. "It's there, all right." She reached my fingers. "Hmm. Left pinky finger seems insubstantial. Better get in the chair."

Lake Of Dreams
by Christopher Lockhart

     The cave waned into darkness save for my headlamp. I half-walked, half-crawled my way out onto the silvery surface while enduring the maddening screams coming from around me and through me and within me. Of course, I knew that airless Luna couldn't support such crazed banter. A few moments elapsed before I realized that the screams were mine.

Epitaph In Oak
by Craig Watson

     “What are you doing?” asked Portland.

     “It's called immortality, my friend,” said Ben, “or graffiti. Take your pick.”

Out Of The Blue
by Lavie Tidhar

     He gazed out of the porthole at the oncoming flood. Somewhere in there, he thought, were the remains of the Albert Einstein, torn into molecules. It was a foolish, dangerous thing to do, to approach the Blue, to try and find a way into its naked singularity. But he could not – entirely – condone it. He wished, for a moment, it was him on that ship, instead of Miriam.

The Wrong Basement
by David J. Sakmyster

     Once our own basement had returned, there was really nothing else to do. The moral choice no longer available to us. We couldn't very well return the stuff, and legally .... I don't know, it had all been in our house anyway, so was it really stealing?

Flash Fiction

A Recipe For Broke-Heart Bread
by K. Bird Lincoln

     Five minutes into mincing, her eyes stinging with something more than onion fumes, a tear overflows the corner of her eye, dribbles down her nose and falls onto the cutting board. With oniony hands, Émilie pulls the proofed yeast over and squeezes her eyes tight, forcing more salty rivulets from her eyes into the dough. Good.

The Chinese Chef Was A Hologram
by Max Salnikov

     He tried to pull himself together, collect his thoughts. The damaged nanomachines launched random searches, comedy sitcoms were auto-downloading themselves into the undamaged nanocells in his hair to cheer him up, but it felt as if it all came from a different dimension.

Poetry

Nine Views Of The Oracle
by Rachel Manija Brown

Colophon and Affiliations