Does anyone have visions these days? Or is it just authors?
As I write this essay, the global climate summit ends with no commitment regarding moving away from fossil fuels. At one point during negotiations, representatives from the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) walked out in protest. It seems pretty certain that we will surpass the 1.5°C desired limit first proposed and agreed to in the Paris Agreement.
And here I am, trying to become something of a prophet.
What comes of us all? Will it affect my kids? My grandkids, assuming I have any? It’s so hard to tell, and the feeling is a bit like waiting for the other shoe to drop.
In search of a vision of the future, I have been periodically working my way through Michael J. Benton’s Extinctions: How Life Survives, Adapts and Evolves. This text has been both frightening and reassuring—frightening because the biggest die-off of species occurred in conjunction with a rapid increase in temperature (a.k.a. “Hyperthermic event”) back in the late Permian.
So many plants died, there were no roots to hold soil in place and massive landslides have been recorded in fossil beds.
So many animals died, there’s a gap in fossil fuel creation. No life means no decaying carbon to create oil.
And yet, life came back. Earth continued. On the other side of death is rebirth. We see it every year, we celebrate it every year, at this time of year. On the other side of darkness—light.
For this reason, I’m thrilled to see a candle in the foreground of this month’s cover art, which was custom made by Kirsty Greenwood using a technique in which she marbles paper by hand, then uses the variations in the design to inform an overall sketch. Something akin to divination if you ask me.
Within this issue, I wanted to place stories that moved forward in time. We start in the present day with “The Caged Budgerigars” by Sara Siddiqui Chansarkar. I could have selected any number of pieces about the changing world, but I went with this portrayal of a woman struggling with her inability to have children because it mirrors the intimacy of another mother’s story within this issue—”A Soft and Silent Glow” by Liz J. Bradley, which takes place in a distant, dystopian future.
But before we get there we have to survive the relatively near future. Emma Burnett’s story, “Plastic-eating fungus caused doomsday[2][3],” shows us how even our best intentions can go horribly awry. And, in “Why I Quit Teaching at the Villain Academy,” Tina S. Zhu depicts a sharply split (purposefully divided even) community in the epicenter of climate catastrophe.
Beyond the disasters many have predicted, what will come? In “Bone Birds Fly,” Malda Marlys suggests it will be stark, but even among this bleak landscape, her heroine Grace is determined to make connections to others that might have survived.
Finally, we recover.
By and large, concerns for social order, AI takeovers, and climate catastrophe are clearly inspiring a lot of the fiction that we receive here at FFO. But I wanted to end this issue (and this year) with a vision of the future that is hopeful. We leave 2024 with D.A. Straith’s “A Year in the Life of the Drowned Wastewater Plant East of Bellmarsh Village.” Straith gives the ecosystem itself a voice, and treats the presents of a lone human as a good thing, as a sign of restoration.
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Acknowledgements
This concludes a full year of issues for me as the editor-in-chief of FFO. I want to say a big thank you to the entire staff of the magazine. I couldn’t possibly put out an issue every month without their help. Another big thanks goes to our patrons, without which we wouldn’t be able to pay our authors and artists. And a very very special thanks goes to my friends and family who didn’t blink an eye when I told them I acquired a fiction magazine last year.
I still have so much I want to do. We just received our letter of determination from the IRS officially giving us 501(c)(3) status. And I very much want to rebuild our website, providing more intuitive access to our archives.
Here’s to a new year filled with hope in the face of uncertainty!
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Ⓒ Rebecca Halsey