Speculative Flash Fiction
Bonjour. Thanks for the visit. You are about to launch into an adventure at AntipodeanSF, the online magazine that's devoted to the regular monthly publication of fabulous and original science-fiction, fantasy, or horror mini-stories of about 500–1000 words each, with occasional feature stories of 2000 words and beyond.
AntipodeanSF will entertain you and may cure your coulrophobia — yet won't take hours to read...
Please peruse all of this month's stories, and then you can listen to them again in audio a few months later on the AntiSF Radio Show...
...Nuke.
The Monk...He's Poor
By Tony Owens
It was midnight. The audience had gone home. The three friends sat inside the caravan discussing the parlous finances of Hernandez’s Circus of Terror. ‘Our creditors are getting a bit toey,’ said Vassalli, circus strong-man and lawyer.
Klinko, the King of Klowns, sighed. ‘They’re always toey. I would suggest toey is their natural state of existence. They wouldn’t be out of place at a polydactyly convention.’
The Frog in the Well
By Roger L Wang
Leaning on the edge of the well, Anhelina crossed her legs meticulously. She threw her golden hair onto her shoulder despite there being no one else around to see. Meek hues of the morning sun peeked through patches of scattered fog, gently kissing her outer thigh. After a bit of time, she finally turned towards the dank well.
“Mr. Ribbit!” she cried, “Come out! Come out!”
The Dollhouse
By Kevin J. Phyland
Kettering slips on the woollen gloves and tests the door handle.
The door refuses to budge, and Kettering sighs to himself and removes the forked metal pry bar from the calico bag he is carrying. The rumours of the high levels of security in the house are overwhelmed by his need for funds. The stories of the riches kept in the house are legendary.
Save the Bees
By Zachary Reisch
I shuffled forward, trying to ignore the sunburn forming on my arms. The day was cloudless but of course they hadn’t given us sun umbrellas. We were just forager bees, after all.
The house bees in line next to us weren’t faring any better, though. They were wiping away sweat just as often as we were.
408 Kilometres Up
By Deborah Sheldon
The Earth whips by through lone porthole,
A bluish beachball, nothing more.
To crash this station is my goal.
Like
By Ed Errington
Like — I’m in my bedroom upstairs. Alone right. Lights off. Like it’s really late — around midnight.
Like I’m on my bed trying to get to sleep. Like it doesn’t happen, but something else does. There’s like a bright searchlight shining through the curtains at my window. And I’m like, this is all I need. Me — I’ve a job interview like tomorrow morning.
Just Fine
By Brian C. Mahon
Standing alone on the front porch, staring at a face in the sky? This really wasn’t how I expected the world to end.
And that’s saying something: I toured from Stanford to Cambridge to lecture on how universes should end. I covered heat death, big freeze, big snap, all the standard methods. When someone inevitably raised their hand to ask my prediction for humanity’s end, I always offered my honest belief, that we would wind up killing ourselves off. Of course, there was always a follow up question about meteors. “No,” I would tell them, “Jupiter mostly guarantees we’re okay.”
I Am The First Law
By Jessie Atkin
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
(Isaac Asimov)
No one noticed at first because the initial changes had nothing to do with money.
Annora’s mother began to bring home vegetables that were not frozen or from a can. She also gifted her daughter with name-brand donuts, coffee cakes, and muffins. The overflowing shelves of the food pantries were a marvel, but only to those, like Annora, who depended on them. Food was no longer being thrown away as it once had been, and it made a difference. Annora no longer had to hunch over her lunch in the cafeteria, hiding it behind her elbows as if she were preventing a cheater from reading her test answers.
First Contact
By Harris Tobias
When the last alien died, we all cried. We put his poor tiny body in a shoe box and buried it in the field behind the tree house with the others. At one time there were five of them. We found them in the ruins of their ship in that very field. I remember how we were roused from our summer torpor at the sound of the crash. The smoke and fire brought us running.
Billy Jordan was the first to spot the wreckage and the scattered crew. By the time we saw it, it looked like so much rubble; like one of those crushed cars down at the junkyard and just about the same size. One by one we found the bodies of the ship’s crew. They were not much bigger than my sister’s rag doll except their skin colour was grey-blue and their heads were overly large for their small bodies. We gathered them together and knelt over them with wonder and apprehension. I remember we were squeamish about handling them.
Back from the Dead
By Natasah O'Connor
Candles flickered, throwing shadows over wooden beams. A deep voice rumbled, "Where shall we three meet again? In thunder —"
"Do we really need the dramatics, Ida?" another voice muttered.
"Where's your sense of occasion, Brenda? We're witches, not housewives," Ida replied, ruffling her grey curls.
Celts All
By B A Keon-Cohen
“You must be from Ireland,” I say. The train is crowded as all Melbourne trains are at rush-hour.
“No, Scotland.”
“Oh, I do apologise,” with a laugh. My work-bag is locked between my feet: laptop, files, all closely guarded.
In The Next Issue...
Coming In Issue 288
Blue Moon
By Harris Tobias
Fido, the Cat, and the Capsule
By KJ Hannah Greenberg
Three Eight Two (part one)
By Andrew Dunn
Yoni's Potential
By Greg Foyster
Maurice
By Salvatore Difalco
Daddy's Always Right
By Chuck McKenzie
An Irregular Ode to the Loch Ness Monster
By Michael Leach
Tantalise
By Jared Bernard
The Hideous Deed
By Fulvio Gatti
Review - Not Death VR (Version 3.1.007)
By Rodney Sykes
Scifaiku
By PS Cottier
AntiSF's Production Crew
Ion Newcombe is the editor and publisher of AntipodeanSF, Australia’s longest running online speculative fiction magazine, regularly issued since January 1998, and conceived back around November 2007. He has been a zealous reader and occasional writer of SF since his childhood in the 1960s, and even sold a few stories here and there back in the '90s.
“Nuke”, who it turns out loves editing more than writing, lives in the New South Wales North Coast holiday destination of Nambucca Heads, where he is self-employed in IT training, computer support, desktop publishing, editing, writing, and website implementation. He is also the resident tech-head, skeptic, and board member of community radio station 2NVR, where he produces a number of shows including The AntipodeanSF Radio Show.
Mark Webb's midlife crisis came in the form of attempting to write speculative fiction at a very slow pace. His wife maintains this is a good outcome considering the more expensive and cliched alternatives. Evidence of Mark's attempts to procrastinate in his writing, including general musings and reviews of books he has been reading, can be found at www.markwebb.name.
One of Mark’s very best forms of writing procrastination is to produce the eBook series for AntipodeanSF, which he has been doing since issue 175.
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AntiSF & The ASFF
AntipodeanSF supports the ASFF
Please consider joining the Australian Science Fiction Foundation, a prime supporter and promoter of speculative fiction down-under.
AntipodeanSF August 2022
ISSUE 287
Speculative Fiction
Downside-Up
ISSN 1442-0686
Online Since Feb 1998
SF Quote
If you want to see the true measure of a man, watch how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.
Download AntiSF E-Book
AntiSF's Narration Team
Carolyn's work spans devising, performance, theatre-in-education and a collaborative visual art practice.
She tours children's works to schools nationally with School Performance Tours, is a member of the Bathurst physical theatre ensemble Lingua Franca and one half of darkroom — a visual arts practice with videographer Sean O'Keeffe.
(Photo by Jeremy Belinfante)
Garry Dean lives on the Mid Coast of New South Wales Australia, and has been a fan of SF for most of his natural life. Being vision impaired, he makes good use of voice recognition and text to speech in order to write. Many of his stories have appeared in AntipodeanSF over the years, and his love of all things audio led him to join the narration team in 2017.
You can read examples of Garry's fiction on his website <https://garrydean.wordpress.com>
Tim Borella is an Australian author, mainly of short speculative fiction published in anthologies, online and in podcasts.
He’s also a songwriter, and has been fortunate enough to have spent most of his working life doing something else he loves, flying.
Tim lives with his wife Georgie in beautiful Far North Queensland. For more information, visit his Tim Borella – Author Facebook page.
Ed lives with his wife plus a magical assortment of native animals in tropical North Queensland.
His efforts at wallaby wrangling are without parallel — at least in this universe.
He enjoys reading and writing science-fiction stories set within intriguing, yet plausible contexts, and invite readers’ “willing suspension of disbelief.”
He believes stories might also contain an element of humour — however small — to enrich the plot and/or heighten the drama.
Alistair Lloyd is a Melbourne based writer and narrator who has been consuming good quality science fiction and fantasy most of his life.
You may find him on Twitter as <@mr_al> and online at <alistairlloyd.com>.
Mark is an astrophysicist and space scientist who worked on the Cassini/Huygens mission to Saturn. Following this he worked in computer consultancy, engineering, and high energy research (with a stint at the JET Fusion Torus).
All this science hasn't damped his love of fantasy and science fiction. It has, however, ruined his enjoyment of rainbows, colourful flames on romantic log fires, and rings around the moon. He has previously been published in Stupefying Stories Showcase, Everyday Fiction, Escape Pod, Perihelion and also on AntipodeanSF where he is part of the narration team.
Margaret lives the good life on a small piece of rural New South Wales Australia, with an amazing man, a couple of pets, and several rambunctious wombats.
She feels so lucky to be a part of the AntiSF team.
Pixie is a voice actor, cabaret performer & slam poet From the Blue Mountains in NSW.
She enjoys writing short fiction, plays for radio and stage as well as her own brand of weird poetry.
She hosts the 'Off-Beet Poetry Slam' held bi-monthly in Katoomba.
Sarah Pratt is an avid fiction writer and a Marketing Consultant.
She is currently working on her first novel but loves diving into short stories to bring a little lightness, intrigue or humour to the day.
Her work has appeared in Sponge Magazine and The Commuting Book.
Timothy Gwyn is a professional pilot in Canada, where he flies to remote communities. During a lull in his flying career, he was a radio announcer for three years, and he is also an author.
In addition to short stories at AntipodeanSF and NewMyths.com, his SF novel is available internationally in print and ebook formats. "Avians" draws on his love of alternative aviation to tell the tale of a girl who runs away from home to join a cadre of glider pilots on a world without metal or fossil fuels.
On Twitter, he is @timothygwyn, and his blogs are at <timothygwyn.com>.
The AntipodeanSF Radio Show
AntiSF Radio Show
The AntipodeanSF Radio Show delivers audio from the pages of this magazine.
The weekly program features the stories from recently published issues, usually narrated by the authors themselves.
Listen to the latest episode now:
The AntipodeanSF Radio Show is also broadcast on community radio, 2NVR, 105.9FM every Saturday evening at 8:30pm.
You can find every broadcast episode online here: http://antisf.libsyn.com
Most Read Stories
The Contributors
Former Aussie former music journalist, now working in media Payroll and moonlighting as an author.
Fantasy and sci fi are hands down her favourite genres, both to read and write after she got the writing bug after reading the Discworld series as a kid, and Sir Terry remains her favourite author of all time.
When she's not writing, she loves hanging out with her family watching Star Trek or sport to relax.
Roger Wang is a senior currently working towards his philosophy and media studies degree at Rutgers University.
His appreciation of things equally Kafkaesque as they are sublime is what drives his interest towards the speculative fiction genre.
He has been published at 365 Tomorrows.
Jessie Atkin writes fiction, essays, and plays.
Her work has appeared in The Rumpus, Flock Lit, Writers Resist, Daily Science Fiction, and elsewhere.
She can be found online at <jessieatkin.com>.
Zach writes speculative fiction in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
You can find some of his short stories at <https://medium.com/@zachary-deinreisch>.
Brian Mahon is a former cook, lab technician, submariner, and now-and-then writer.
He splits his remaining energies seeking knowledge, fighting age, doing laundry, and writing as a creativity relief valve.
He can be reached both on Facebook <@MahonMiscellany> and through his website, <www.mahanimalism.net>.
Bryan is a writer, activist and retired-barrister based in Melbourne, Australia. He appeared in the High Court in significant constitutional, native title and refugee matters including the Mabo litigation, Bryan has published numerous legal articles, and the book "A Mabo Memoir" (2013).
Bryan’s insightful and engaging fiction has been published in Australia in Woorilla (2010), Idiom (2019), StylusLit (2019), Antipodean Sci Fi (2020), and in the UK, Bandit Fiction (2018).
Deborah Sheldon is an award-winning author from Melbourne, Australia. She writes short stories, novellas and novels across the darker spectrum.
Some of her titles include the horror novels Body Farm Z, Contrition, and Devil Dragon; the horror novella Thylacines; the romance-suspense novella The Long Shot; and the collections Figments and Fragments: Dark Stories, and the award-winning Perfect Little Stitches and Other Stories (Australian Shadows “Best Collected Work 2017”).
Her short fiction has appeared in Quadrant, Island, Aurealis, Midnight Echo, Breach, AntipodeanSF and many other well-respected magazines. Her fiction has been shortlisted for numerous Australian Shadows Awards and Aurealis Awards, long-listed for a Bram Stoker Award, and included in various “best of” anthologies.
Other credits include TV scripts, feature articles, non-fiction books, stage plays, and award-winning medical writing. Visit her at <deborahsheldon.wordpress.com>
Whenever he can, Ed likes to listen to people’s interactions — in real-life and/or through the media. Taking overheard conversations as a starting point, he then attempts to create what interactions might follow — regarding plot, character and motivation.
Ed believes that what people say, and how they say it helps define their character; this notion transcends status, class, accent, race, and gender. Note Ed is not a spy. The stint he spends on eavesdropping real-life situations is severely constrained by the time taken for his coffee to get cold.
His following spoken piece — ‘Like’ — was inspired by the beginnings of a conversation he overheard ‘twixt two young teenagers while awaiting the arrival of his auspiciously affordable affogato.
Tony Owens is an ESL teacher living in Brisbane with his wife and son.
His short fiction has appeared in the anthologies In Fabula-Divino, Zombies Ain’t Funny,18, Darkest Depths and Andromeda Spaceways Magazine 2017’s Best Stories.
He is a proud member of the Vision Writers Group and his ultimate ambition is to find the literary sweet-spot between H.P. Lovecraft and P.G. Wodehouse.
Harris Tobias lives and writes in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is the author of two novels: The Greer Agency & A Felony of Birds. He has written dozens of short stories many of which are available on line at <quantummuse.com>. He is the author of many children’s books including At The Robot Zoo, MoonRivet Saves His Skin and An Alphabet Book of Bugs available in print from CreateSpace and as ebooks for Nook & Kindle. You can find links to his writings here: <harristobias-fiction.blogspot.com>
PS Cottier is a poet who lives in Canberra, with a particular interest in speculative poetry.
She has been published widely at home and in Canada, England, New Zealand and the USA.
Two of her horror poems were finalists in the Australian Shadows Awards for 2020. Her latest books are Monstrous, which is a volume of speculative poems, and Utterly, which is non-genre.
PS Cottier is the Poetry Editor at The Canberra Times and blogs at <https://pscottier.com>
Old enough to just remember the first manned Moon landing, Kevin was so impressed he made science his life.
Retired now from teaching he amuses himself by reading, writing, following his love of weather and correcting people on the internet.
He’s been writing since his teens and hopes he will one day get it right.
He can be found on twitter @KevinPhyland where he goes by the handle of CaptainZero and his work is around the place if you search using google or use the antisf.com.au archive.