Speculative Flash Fiction
G'day flash loving folks, you're 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 get you out there, perhaps even land you in places you never expected to see — yet won't take hours to read.
Please get to it and read this month's stories.
Nuke.
Wisps of White Smoke
By Natsumi Tanaka
Translated by Toshiya Kamei
Once upon a time, deep down in the sea there lived a mechanical doll named Mai-hime. When she was still human, she lived in a small fishing village by the sea. While collecting seafood on the beach, she was captured and brought to Ryūgū Castle at the bottom of the ocean. Like other prisoners held captive by the tyrannical king Ryūoh, she was turned into an automaton, deprived of the freedom to move her body at will. Still, thanks to Ryūoh’s whim, she was allowed to keep her consciousness.
Topek and Me
By Joanna Barrett
Yesterday I zoomed back to ancient Egypt at the time of the Pharaoh Ramon Topek the Fifth. Hang on, first I need to tell you about my time machine, don’t I? Time machines are as common these days as mobile phones were back in the twenty-first century, and mine is a state-of-the-art model. It’s no bigger than a fingernail and it’s made of black onyx with a rim of gold that moves and shivers whenever I look at it. Yes, creepy. But it works a treat.
There Will Come Warm Rains
By Simon Petrie
Once, the geologists told us, the planet had likely been temperate enough to have polar ice-caps, but these had long since dissipated. Now its slow-dwindling seas simmered, driving huge quantities of water vapour into a thick atmosphere dominated by carbon dioxide and nitrogen and blanketed by permanent cloud.
Once, the palaeontologists surmised, life may have been abundant here: varied, complex, ubiquitous. Life still endured in a unicellular form, the simple metabolic processes of which were perfectly adapted to a steam-hot aqueous environment; but if there had at one point been indications of the diversity of former life on this world, those traces had not endured.
The Zaratan Queen
By Robin Hillard
“Whoever I choose, I’ll have one triumphant delegation praising my judgement and forty-nine accusing me of prejudice against their kind,” Gillis complained.
DeMaus, his friend, fellow trader and second-in-command agreed. “The bastards set you up!”
The Oldest Soldier
By Harris Tobias
Harold Sampson was a hundred and one years old when his draft notice arrived in the form of two uniformed young men. They rang the doorbell on Sampson’s apartment at Cosy Acres Retirement Home on an ordinary Thursday morning. Myrtle Fitzhugh, Harold’s eighty-two year old girlfriend, answered the door. The young men introduced themselves as private Howard Wilson and Staff Sergeant Wilmer Sax, US Army.
“We’d like to speak to Mr. Sampson, is he in?”
The Lunchbox
By Yen Ooi
I found it in the cupboard under the sink. It sank, but had no stink, just like you.
Heavy, you hated being called that, but that wasn’t the problem for me. Oh no. You see, you had no odour, no flavour, even when I tasted you there was nothing. The lack of smell weirded me out, but I couldn’t call us off, not before I found out the truth of what you were.
Which led me to the cupboard under the sink.
The Light of Distant Fires
By Evan James Sheldon
The boy is in a wide field, so large he can’t see beyond the yellow grass that rises to his waist and ripples like the sea. He is trying to make a bow and arrow with a stick and some twine but he’s struggling because his fingers have turned into claws. They look like bear claws but he’s no claw expert. He’s just a boy lost in a wide field and he misses the soft padding and dexterity he used to possess.
The Dog in the Walls
By Tim Borella
The airship rolls and pitches slightly like a boat on a long gentle swell, and the dog watches Taka from the corner of the compartment. The animal’s almost perfect, but he still has a few small tweaks to make. It lives in the walls and roof and floor, roaming where it wants mostly, but with certain limitations on where it can go, and when. Depending on the light it’s grey, or silver, even blue. It could be any colour they wanted, of course, but the lady insisted on absolute accuracy.
The Cove
By Jake Dean
I leave the doorway of my pod and follow Steve’s lanky frame down the white corridor. We’re tiptoeing for some reason, like that’ll somehow stop them from seeing us.
I’d like to believe, if we get caught, that I have an excuse. He’s my superior. I’m just a lowly maintenance officer. But I know it probably won’t fly and I’ll be pulled before some tribunal. What are they gonna do though? Fire me via video link from a dozen light years away? Tell me to pack my things and… wait for a lift home?
Taila2
By Geraldine Borella
I stood in front of Taila2, praying I had enough CC’s for Andaya’s meds. Lights blinked and mechanical arms whizzed and whirred between rows and columns of pharmaceutical excipients, the monstrosity waiting to make a tailored biologic fit-for-purpose. I’d be short this time, for sure, using all my Contribution Credits to purchase the last supply, along with child support allocations too. There’d be no hope for higher education for Zella, her CC’s going fully towards Andaya’s meds and astronomical medical bills. She’d be consigned to a menial job like me, providing personal care to the elderly. There wasn’t an algorithm written to make robots suitable for wiping dribble and redirecting the demented mind yet. If only Shawnan hadn’t been injured in that mine blast. If he’d been able to make his mining quota this quarter, we might have made it. It would’ve been tight but doable.
LTNG Ltd of Hullu Diversifies
By Wes Parish
"I presented my new vision for the company's future today."
I raised my head from the mug I was disconsolately staring into. Melinda had left me again — again! And I needed to stop feeling so morose. Of course, people would say that staring into the bottom of a bottomless mug of stout wasn't going to help me, but I needed to ... I looked up at the man who had spoken, quite loudly, to his drinking buddies.
Lessons for a Battalion Commander in the Post-Event World
By Matthew R. Doherty
By Major E. B. Gwynn, formerly of the Royal Australian Engineers
(HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL… To be distributed to the relevant parties as and when the situation permits.)
It is no mean feat to command a battalion of infantry in ideal circumstances, where supply, intelligence and manpower are forthcoming. In the present, it is a most unenviable task. The new battlespace in which we find ourselves is fraught with dangers of a hitherto unseen nature.
Read more: Lessons for a Battalion Commander in the Post-Event World
Beetle-Skull
By Andrew Dunn
Thul crept low in tall lemongrass, breathing in their scent on the air but never seeing the ones that came down from the sky. They’d come close to the camp in the black of night after cooking fires withdrew deep into coals that glowed wild and red when winds below, and then receded sullen and dark when night’s breath stilled.
The ones that came from the sky always disappeared before dawn.
Another Day on the Frontline
By Kevin J. Phyland
They dropped me two blocks from the derelict warehouse and left me to make my way on foot.
The radiation signal was very weak but obviously located in the abandoned basement and shielded at least partly. Reaching the building, I forced a rust-riddled door open and jogged to the nearest stairwell and descended to the location pinpointed by the data scan.
The terrorists had messaged CopCom twenty minutes ago with a thirty minute heads-up. Since the object of terrorism is terror it was probably moot for the perpetrators whether the device was authentic or not.
My onboard sensors tickled with increased radiation as I neared the basement area and I knew that this was at the very least a workable dirty bomb and more likely a small yield nuke.
I quickly scanned the room on entering. Five minutes left according to the old analog clock on the wall if the terrorists had been sincere — an assumption not to be trusted.
In the actinic glare of the overhead fluoros my hands were trying not to shake as I carefully pried the dried punk from the recessed screwheads. This was different. Taking the phillips head screwdriver I rotated it feverishly anticlockwise to enable me to remove a piece of the outer casing to get at the device within.
The clockwork mechanism continued its ratcheting as it moved the two sub-critical pieces of uranium-235 inexorably towards each other. Inside the fuel capsule neutrons were whizzing thoughtlessly from piece to piece replacing random uranium atoms with krypton or barium and spewing out energy in the form of radiation.
As the pieces of uranium got closer to each other the number of neutrons escaping lessened and more of them started to create new radiations. If the mass became critical all the material would change pretty much at once with one enormous energy release. This was an obscenity, an atomic weapon, and I now had less than four minutes to disarm it.
This bomb had been designed using mostly non-electronic parts — a clever piece of subterfuge — which precluded simply using magnetic fields or power disrupters to disarm it. My arms were starting to feel warm. Psychosomatic or not, the amount of radiation reaching me now must be giving me some serious rad action.
Three minutes. I removed what I expected to be a klystron housing but it wasn't, and through a tube of plexiglass saw the two pieces of silvery metal sliding slowly towards each other. It was spring-loaded so that the pieces would surge toward each other if the tube was broken. My skin had now reddened and blisters were rising on my hands and fingers. They bled freely.
I paused to consider my next move. The pieces must be kept apart — that was a no-brainer — or those innocuous looking three kilograms of metal would become a five kiloton urban renewal program.
A minute twenty left. I had to give the terrorist points for creativity, as there seemed to be no way for this particular nascent mushroom cloud to have a silver lining without taking at least one victim — me.
There was a buzzing in my ears and my vision started waving with scanlines of interference as the intensity of the emitted beta particles and gamma radiation started interfering with my body's electrical systems.
Only one solution appeared possible.
I took a huge gulp of air and picked up a metal handled corkscrew left by some boozy janitor and, holding it tightly in my fist, smashed it down through the glass between the two pieces of uranium.
The pieces leapt towards one another – but struck either side of my hand – which was keeping a gap of a few centimetres between them, and I flicked the forehand piece away onto the floor.
The radiation would slow and I would probably lose my hand, possibly my eyes and some organs but importantly no big bang.
My sweat dripped freely onto the floor as I collapsed into a chair and signalled for retrieval.
Outside, the city shivered in barely contained fear. Just another day on the front lines.
About the Author
Kevin J. Phyland
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.
AntiSF & The ASFF
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Please visit the ASFF website and consider joining for up-to-date info about Australian SF cons, awards, competitions, and to receive the Foundation's newsletter, Instrumentality, and more.
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.
Main Menu
In The Next Issue...
Coming In Issue 269
Aberrant Orbitlusa Channellings
By Sultana Raza
Candy Town
By Amy Logan
Curiosity Coil
By Myna Chang
Emergency
By Bruce McNair
Morning Garden
By Umiyuri Katsuyama
Translated by Toshiya Kamei
Night Music
By Connor Orrico
On Demand
By Kevin J. Phyland
Space Train
By Laurie Bell
State of the Art
By Carl Walmsley
The Broken City
By Michael Casey
The Demise of Major Strom
By Timothy Dwyer
The First Artifact to Reach the End of the Universe
By Haneko Takayama
Translated by Toshiya Kamei
The Polishing of a Knob
By Kerrie Noor
Turn the Tables
By Ashley Noel
Woman Apart
By Keech Ballard
The Contributors
Wesley Parish is an SF fan from early childhood. Born in PNG, he enjoys reading about humans in strange cultures and circumstances.
His favourite SF authors include Ursula Le Guin, Fritz Lieber, Phillip K. Dick, J.G. Ballard and Frank Herbert.
Wes lives in Christchurch, NZ, is an unemployed Java and C programmer, and has recently decided to become a mad ukuleleist, flautist and trombonist, and would love to revert to being the mad fiddler and pedal steel guitarist.. "Where oh where has my little pedal steel got to ... ?"
Natsumi Tanaka is a writer living in Kyoto, Japan. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous Japanese magazines such as Anima Solaris, Kotori no kyuden, and Tanpen.
She is the author of the short story collection Yumemiru ningyo no okoku (2017).
Translated by Toshiya Kamei, her short fiction has appeared in various English-language publications, including Daily Science Fiction, Japanese Fantasy Drabbles, and The William & Mary Review.
Evan James Sheldon’s work has appeared recently in American Literary Review, the Cincinnati Review, and New Flash Fiction Review.
He is a senior editor for F(r)iction and the Editorial Director for Brink Literacy Project.
You can find him online at <https://evanjamessheldon.com>.
Jake Dean is a writer and waverider living on Kaurna land in South Australia.
His fiction has appeared in White Horses, The Fiction Pool, Sweaty City, Underground Writers and others.
He's utterly convinced there's a perfect wave breaking somewhere else in the solar system right now.
Yen Ooi is the author of Sun: Queens of Earth (novel), A Suspicious Collection of Short Stories and Poetry (collection), and Road to Guangdong (computer game), and SF series editor at Brain Mill Press.
Her short stories and poetry have been featured in various publications; most recently, her short story 'The Butterfly Lovers' was published in The Good Journal 3. She is a PhD student at Royal Holloway, University of London, focusing on Chinese science fiction, where she is interested in the evolution of the genre and the discourses between native and diasporic voices.
As a writer and editor, Yen hopes to develop writing that is rich in culture that will steer genre fiction into a future that is humanity-focused. Yen is also a lecturer at Westminster University's MA Creative Writing course, a mentor in marketing and publishing, and co-founder of CreateThinkDo.
Matthew R. Doherty currently resides in Leeds, England, where he spends most of his free time writing about military history, but his other consuming passion is for science fiction.
His main influences are Patrick O’Brian and Philip Jose Farmer.
His favourite single book is “A Canticle For Leibowitz.”
He is currently working on a space opera novel, which will be finished at some point in the 22nd Century.
Joanna is a writer who lives in the bush near the Glasshouse Mountains in Queensland.
She writes both fiction and non-fiction.
Her work has appeared in a wide variety of publications including Griffith Review, That’s Life magazine and The School Magazine.
She used to be a journalist but much prefers making stuff up.
At the moment she’s having fun working on a historical novel called What Eddy does for Louis.
Toshiya Kamei holds an MFA in Literary Translation from the University of Arkansas.
His translations have appeared in venues such as Clarkesworld, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and World Literature Today.
Geraldine Borella writes adult short stories and stories for children and has been published in anthologies for both. In 2018, one of her children’s short stories placed second in The Buzz Words Short Story Prize and she won an ASA Emerging Writer’s Mentorship. She currently works part-time as a hospital pharmacist and as an online creative writing tutor.
She’s fascinated by stories that expand upon today’s technology, addressing the moral and ethical issues that might arise. Equally, she enjoys the creative freedom that writing for children allows. Right now, she’s writing a young adult novel, reworking a middle grade novel and writing adult short stories when inspiration strikes. She lives with her husband, Tim, in Yungaburra, Far North Queensland and dreams of one day taking a European gap year.
Andrew writes science-fiction and fantasy from the state of Maryland on the eastern coast of the United States, often drawing ideas from jogs through forest trails at sunrise or a tasty beer at sunset.
Andrew writes each story with the goal of giving readers something they will enjoy, without relying on the typical, predictable, or cliche'. His work has previously appeared in AntipodeanSF, 365 Tomorrows, and soon Daily Science Fiction.
When Andrew isn't writing chances are he's playing guitar or bass, exploring abandoned places, or spending quality time with a bulldog. Andrew hopes you enjoy this story, and he will continue to try and write stories that you'll love to read!
Tim Borella has never lost his childhood passion for SF and writing in general and has been lucky enough to have worked most of his life as a pilot — in other words, he’s never properly grown up.
He lives in country Far North Queensland, has won awards for songwriting, and has had various other writing achievements, the most recent being an honourable mention in the 2018 international Literary Taxidermy Short Story Competition.
He also has bachelor degrees in science and teaching, and has completed a couple of as-yet unpublished SF novels. He’d dearly love to spend more time writing, but will have to continue juggling for another couple of years until the kids have fully left the nest.
Robin Hillard as had a number of stories published in magazines and ezines including AntipodeanSF.
She now lives in Melbourne with a bossy little dog who takes her to the off leash park.
Everybody (including Robin) knows their dog is the most beautiful and the variety of size and shape gave her the idea for this story.
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>
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.
Wesley Parish is an SF fan from early childhood. Born in PNG, he enjoys reading about humans in strange cultures and circumstances; his favourite SF authors include Ursula Le Guin, Fritz Lieber, Phillip K. Dick, J.G. Ballard and Frank Herbert. He lives in Christchurch, NZ, is an unemployed Java and C programmer, and has recently decided to become a mad ukuleleist, flautist and trombonist, and would love to revert to being the mad fiddler and pedal steel guitarist.. "Where oh where has my little pedal steel got to ... ?"
Simon Petrie, born and educated in New Zealand, now lives in the Australian Capital Territory, where he is paid to be careful with words.
He's had a few stories published before, both in AntipodeanSF and elsewhere. He has been shortlisted several times for the Aurealis and Ditmar Awards, and is a three-time Sir Julius Vogel Award winner, most recently in 2018 for his SF/crime novella Matters Arising from the Identification of the Body.
AntipodeanSF January 2021
ISSUE 268
Speculative Fiction
Downside-Up
ISSN 1442-0686
Online Since Feb 1998
Download AntiSF E-Book
AntiSF's Narration Team
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.
Tim Borella has never lost his childhood passion for SF and writing in general and has been lucky enough to have worked most of his life as a pilot — in other words, he’s never properly grown up.
He lives in country Far North Queensland, has won awards for songwriting, and has had various other writing achievements, the most recent being an honourable mention in the 2018 international Literary Taxidermy Short Story Competition.
He also has bachelor degrees in science and teaching, and has completed a couple of as-yet unpublished SF novels. He’d dearly love to spend more time writing, but will have to continue juggling for another couple of years until the kids have fully left the nest.
Laurie Bell lives in Melbourne, Australia. She was that girl you found with her nose always buried in a book. She has been writing ever since she was a little girl and first picked up a pen. From books to short stories, radio plays to snippets of ideas and reading them aloud to anyone who will listen.
She is the author of The Butterfly Stone (YA/ Fantasy — available now) and White Fire (Sci Fi — available now)
You can read more of her work on her blog Look for her on Facebook <www.facebook.com/WriterLaurieBell/> or Twitter: <@LaurienotLori>
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>
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.
Although a writer of the baby boom persuasion, Ed has not boomed for quite a while.
He lives with his wife plus a menagerie of non-domesticated — native Australian animals intropical North Queensland.
His writing within the ‘real’ science fiction context of COVID-19 is intermingled by long night sky vigils — searching for pesky aliens intent on maintaining their social distance to the nth degree.
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.
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>.
Geraldine Borella writes adult short stories and stories for children and has been published in anthologies for both. In 2018, one of her children’s short stories placed second in The Buzz Words Short Story Prize and she won an ASA Emerging Writer’s Mentorship. She currently works part-time as a hospital pharmacist and as an online creative writing tutor.
She’s fascinated by stories that expand upon today’s technology, addressing the moral and ethical issues that might arise. Equally, she enjoys the creative freedom that writing for children allows. Right now, she’s writing a young adult novel, reworking a middle grade novel and writing adult short stories when inspiration strikes. She lives with her husband, Tim, in Yungaburra, Far North Queensland and dreams of one day taking a European gap year.
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
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