Category: flash fiction

Unwritten Fragment of Basho’s Second Death Poem (“Last Words” Series)

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Not much in the way of commentary this week, since (1) I think the genesis of this one should be fairly obvious and (2) do you really want to see me talk about haiku for 500 words?

Unwritten Fragment of Basho’s Second Death Poem, Pulled Half-Finished from His Mind and Brought Forward in Time to the Twenty-Third Century at the Moment of His Last Breath

by Stewart C Baker

No more journeying
I rest—

I said no commentary, but I guess you really have to know what Basho’s last recorded poem was for this to make sense: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matsuo_Bash%C5%8D#Last_years

On a semi-related note, I’m pondering writing a short story (and/or a piece of interactive fiction!) about a sort of magicianly warrior group who uses spoken haiku sort of like spells to create literal changes in the fabric of reality.

It sounds weird, and probably would be, but it also makes an odd kind of sense. Haiku’s all about juxtaposition. And the idea of a haiku “cutting” to create worlds is sort-of almost canonical! As I explored in a previous story.

On an unrelated note, don’t forget to guess which title in Writers of the Future is mine! You could win a signed copy of this year’s anthology.

Song of a Whale, Translated into Human Speech by Dr Hananakajima’s Machine at the Moment of its Harpooning (“Last Words” series)

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Since August, I’ve been trying out Tempest Bradford’s challenge of limiting my pleasure reading to things not written by cisgendered straight white males.

My reading habits skew female in any case, and I have favourite authors like Jorge Luis Borges and Ted Chiang, so this isn’t much of a stretch for me. But it has led to me reading some excellent novels I probably wouldn’t have picked up otherwise, like Karen Lord’s The Best of All Possible Worlds and Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis trilogy (which I wish I had read long ago because it is astounding).

Anyway, while I might post more about that experience at a later date, I mention it today because this week’s “Last Words” post is inspired by Somtow Sucharitkul/S.P. Somtow‘s Starship and Haiku. Which I’m surprised I never found earlier because come on. Haiku! I write those.

Song of a Whale, Translated into Human Speech by Dr Hananakajima’s Machine at the Moment of Its Harpooning

by Stewart C Baker

Painsharping… Swimdeep…

As for Starship and Haiku, it was an interesting read, if a bit dated. Never mind that, in the book, WWIII destroyed most of humanity in the early 2000s. I felt like parts of it ran afoul of the Asian as Alien trope (oddly, considering its author is Thai) in ways that probably would not be considered okay today and in ways I couldn’t quite figure out was intentional subversion or something to be taken at face value.

Allusions to Mishima—not to mention the haiku, which included fun riffs on stories from Basho biographies—on suggest that Somtow is pretty well-read in Japanese culture, anyway, which was nice. But there were times when the text seemed to unironically describe Japanese people as “inscrutable” and that’s kind of…? And the Japanese are literally descended from whales (spoiler) which means that characters in the novel (Japanese and otherwise) are constantly talking about how they are literally alien compared to everyone else on Earth. Which uh…

Anyway. It has whales. And whalesong.

And it made me feel strange when I finished reading, which is a good indication that it succeeded as a SF novel on some level even if I found the racial aspects of it problematic and its depiction of Japanese culture a bit too early-Shōwa to ring true in describing a Japan set in 2023.

Benefit of living in the future, I guess.

Bonus!

For a more recent story about a Japanese girl and dolphins (close enough to whales, right?), check out Henry Lien’s excellent “Bilingual”, which is free to read on his website.

Another Bonus!

Although this is a huge tone mismatch with this story. The name Hananakajima has been shamelessly lifted from the wonderfully bizarre Sexy Commando Gaiden: Sugoi yo!! Masaru-san, the first episode of which the bravest among you can watch in regrettably low quality here.

Pi Day Guest Post by Aaron Moskalik: The Last Words of the Platonic Form Circle While Trying to Compute Its Own Diameter (“Last Words” series)

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And hooray, another guest post!

Today’s “Last Words” post is written for us by the mathtastic Aaron Moskalik in celebration of Pi day. (This makes Aaron the second person to remind me that Pi day exists, after my wife mentioned it to me the other day. I am a failure as a nerd!)

Without further ado, then:

The Last Words of the Platonic Form Circle While Trying to Compute Its Own Diameter

by Aaron Moskalik

Now, rounding Pi to three…

Math jokes! Math jokes are the best jokes.

You can see more math-related magicianry on display in “Division by Zero,” a comparatively long (100 word) story by Aaron over at Specklit, or in any of the Eric the Circle cartoons created by Mandle Brat, which is Aaron’s pseudonym on that site. (This pi-themed strip is a good one.)

Guest Post by Matt Dovey: The Last Words of Henry McIntyre, Gentlemen, Scholar, and Dinosaur from a Misogynistic Time (“Last Words” series)

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Today we have a special treat: a guest post in my “Last Words” series!

Author, friend, Englishman, and fellow Writers of the Future volume 32 winner Matt Dovey sent this my way back in January with permission to publish it when I needed a weekend off. This is much appreciated this weekend, as not only was it my eldest child’s 6th birthday, but I have been in back/neck pain for most of the past week due to an unfortunate incident with a herd of transmogrified bovines, a feather duster, six gallons of dayglo purple ink, and one surprisingly small cucumber.

Uh. Where was I?

Right!

I was just about to present to you all…

The Last Words of Henry McIntyre, Gentlemen, Scholar, and Dinosaur from a Misogynistic Time, upon Underestimating His Wife Mildred’s Capacity to Operate Her Own Invention and Blundering in Where He Wasn’t Needed, Actually

by Matt Dovey

No, Mildred, pull this first—

Very English, what ho?

The first of the month just happened to mark Matt’s first fiction publication (Woohoo!) so if this tickled your Guernsey, then head on over to this month’s issue of Flash Fiction Online, where you can read “This is the Sound of the End of the World,” a lovely piece of space opera filled with lies, propaganda, and a heck of a chorus.

Also featured is Shannon Peavey’s “Millepora”, a tale of transformation and coral, as well as two other fine stories.

n.b. No Guernseys, cucumbers, or other living beings were tickled or otherwise maltreated in the making of this blog post.

Word-Analogues Transmitted by Interdimensional Entity SquolGkmly-99rb After Being Warned Its Portal Would Close on its Neck-Analogue (“Last Words” series)

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HEY so look it’s Monday! It’s… Monday… afternoon?

And I was supposed to post a new entry in the “Last Words” series this morning?

OOOPS.

No wait, here it is! And it’s totally thematic and appropriate that it was late. In no way did I hurriedly write this entry in a few minutes of panic because I completely forgot about this thing until just now.

Not at all.

Word-Analogues Transmitted by Interdimensional Entity SquolGkmly-99rb After Being Warned Its Portal Would Close on its Neck-Analogue if it Did Not Retract its Head-Analogue from this Dimension, to Which it had Travelled to Eat Sushi

by Stewart C Baker

I still have plenty of—

Anyone want to guess what that last word-analogue would have been if I did not have a 5-word limit per story the Entity had not been so hilariously tragically cut short? Er, poor choice of words there, perhaps.

(Hint: it rhymes with “rhyme.”)

Influences and gags! Because it’s no fun if I don’t explain them:

[body part]-analogue – I used to play this game called Kingdom of Loathing. It’s pretty fun. (And also the reason I first started writing haiku, but don’t tell anybody or you’ll ruin my haiku cred.) More to the point, there are various creatures in it like the Comma Chameleon who do not have actual body parts in all situations. As such, when canned combat dialogue which mentions those body parts appears, these beasties are described as having (e.g.) a “mouth analogue” instead.

WTF? – What is even going on in this bizarre little story? Don’t ask me. But it might have something to do with Jonathan Rosenberg’s hilarious and bizarre webcomic Scenes from a Multiverse.

Sushi. Mmm… Sushi…

Final Words of João Eduardo Santos Tavares Cavalcante, the Galaxy’s Greatest Lover (“Last Words” series)

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Heeey! It’s Valentine’s Day!

What better way to celebrate than with an early installment of my five-word-story series, “Last Words”?

Okay, there are probably dozens of better ways. But I’m not going to let that stop me.

So, without further ado:

Final Words of João Eduardo Santos Tavares Cavalcante, the Galaxy’s Greatest Lover, after Being Told that Skin-to-Skin Contact with the Hrrga was Immediately and Excruciatingly Fatal, and that Making Love to Their Ambassador Was a Terrible Idea.

by Stewart C Baker

My love makes me invincible.

Ah. Love!

My story “How to Configure your Quantum Disambiguator” up for people’s choice award at Quantum Shorts

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A few days ago, I received an e-mail from the administrators of the Quantum Shorts contest letting me know that my entry, “How to Configure your Quantum Disambiguator,” was in the short-list of ten entries that will be judged for first and second prize.

So huzzah(!) for that good news about this quirky little humorous flash, which first appeared in Nature‘s Futures column back in February.

My story is also eligible for the people’s choice award, so if you enjoy that particular piece of mine, I’d appreciate your vote on the shortlist page. (Each person can only vote one time, though, so make sure you read the others before you decide! There’s some tough competition.)

“Excerpt Regarding the Departed” out today at the Sockdolager

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Story release day!

My story, “Excerpt Regarding the Departed from the Diagnostic and Necromantic Manual, 5th Edition“ is out today in the Winter 2015 issue of The Sockdolager.

This is my second time appearing in Sockdolager‘s virtual pages, and my first with an original story.

Hooray, original stories!

“Excerpt” is similar in concept to my other piece that’s appeared there, “Selections from the Aarne-Thompson Index for After the End of Things”. Both stories are told in the style of academic reference manuals, and they’re even formatted the same way, with series of numbers representing a section of the manual, and descriptive text below it. Also, both have grim and possibly inappropriate snips of humour amidst their generally depressing subject matter.

Hooray, grim and possibly inappropriate snips of humour!

While “Selections” told more of a story about story-telling, though, “Excerpt” has more of a traditional narrative buried between its lines.

So go give it a read! I’d love to hear whether you all enjoy it.

As an added bonus, I’m sharing a table of contents with excellent stories from writer friends Charlotte Ashley (“The Will of Parliament,” a tale of politics and the fair folk) and David Steffen (“Tamers of the Green,” which details the challenges of inter-species communications). You can see the full table of contents here: Sockdolager, Winter 2015 (Issue #4)

“Elements of a Successful Exit Broadcast” is odd, short, and free to read at Fantastic Stories of the Imagination

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I like flash fiction. I also like space ships (albeit ones without puppies involved).

So it pleases me to combine the two in my latest publication, “Elements of a Successful Exit Broadcast,” which is now live in Fantastic Stories of the Imagination‘s November/December issue.

It’s super short–about 200 words total–and has some pretty spiffy art to go with it. Go give it a read if you have a spare moment or two. And enjoy!

Come check out my story “How to Configure Your Quantum Disambiguator” in the Quantum Shorts competition

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…which sadly is not a competition involving clothes that have the fly open and closed until you think to check.

But it is a pretty neat flash fiction competition. I’ve entered my story “How to Configure Your Quantum Disambiguator” in the lists, so go give it a (re-)read and a vote if you like it. The story appeared earlier this year (February) in Nature, and is in part an ode to Ren and Stimpy. So if nothing else, that ought to make it worth reading, right?