Issue 20 May 2015 Flash Fiction Online May 2015

Author of “The Cormorant in the Glass-Bottomed Cage.”

Anna Yeatts: Congratulations on getting “The Cormorant in a Glass-Bottomed Cage” published with Flash Fiction Online! Tell us the story behind the story if you will.

Rebecca Birch: Thanks very much! I’m thrilled to be published in Flash Fiction Online.

As to the story, I’m involved in an online writing forum where we regularly engage in anonymous contests, usually for stories written from prompts. One of this year’s prompts was a “Title Rummage Sale.” I scrolled past pages of possible titles looking for one that spoke to me, and when I spotted “The Cormorant in the Glass-Bottomed Cage,” I knew I had one that I could work with. There was so much conflict just sitting there in the title waiting to be tapped.

I started researching cormorants and my research immediately suggested a setting and the story grew from there. I love writing prompts! They are amazing for pushing me outside my comfort zone and opening me up to new ideas.

AY: For readers not familiar with you, how would you describe your style? 

RB: I wasn’t honestly sure I had a style until I asked my son to read several anonymous story openings and try to guess mine. He got it right on the first guess and has continued to do so almost every time I try that sort of experiment. My natural writing state tends towards the lush. I love imagery and sensory details. I do consciously experiment with other styles as well, and those are the few times the kidlet hasn’t guessed me correctly.

AY: What’s your process like for writing? 

RB: I’m very deadline-driven. It doesn’t seem to matter how much lead time I have for a given project — the vast bulk of it gets done very close to the deadline. That’s part of why I love contests. When I have a deadline the story gets done, even if I haven’t been able to think everything through perfectly, which usually results in a better story than if I had managed to carefully plot out everything in advance.

AY: What draws you to short fiction?

RB: A couple of things. One is the aforementioned tendency towards bulk-writing. It’s much easier to craft a short story quickly. Another reason is that I love the boundaries required by such a compressed space. You have to find the right moment to enter a tale. The place with the most conflict, the highest emotional stakes. I tend to think of short stories as larger ones distilled to their most potent essences. I love the challenge of discovering those essences and transferring them to the page.

AY: I originally met you at Hatrack River Writer’s Workshop a few years ago. Since then I’ve watched your career skyrocket. What advice do you have for writers hoping to break into the business?

RB: Beyond the standard advice to “just keep writing” and “just keep submitting” my best advice would be to find yourself a community of writers. I am a world-class introvert, and if you’d asked me this question ten years ago, I never would have understood how important community can be.

There are lots of places online to connect with other writers. Hatrack River Writers Workshop, which you mentioned, is one. The Writers of the Future forums is another. Simply connecting through Facebook, Twitter, or other social media may work, too. There’s nothing so encouraging as being in communication with other writers going through the same experiences that you are. They can give you the psychological boost to keep going when you’re in the doldrums or a more active kick in the pants from time to time. I’ve been involved in several Story-in-a-Day challenges at the Writers of the Future forums. Actually, I’m pretty sure I started those. One way or the other, finding yourself a community, either online or in person, is a great way to keep motivated, make connections, and continue moving toward the goal of being a professional published writer.

AY: And then there’s the inevitable question. Do you have a novel in the works? 

RB: I’ve always claimed to be a natural short story writer, but recently I was at breakfast with several local writers, where I was strongly encouraged to write a novel. Still not quite sure how it happened, but I kind of agreed to have a first draft completed by the end of December. In public. And here I am saying it again, even more publicly. So, it would seem that it’s about time for the deadline-motivation gene to kick in, and I should have a novel in the works soon. I haven’t missed a deadline yet!

AY: You have some quite varied hobbies. You’re a classically trained soprano and a deputy black belt in Tae Kwon do. And does this show up in your writing? For instance, do you have singing heroines who crack glasses to escape ninjas?

RB: Now you’re giving me ideas! Truly, though, singing heroines have certainly shown up in my work. My one completed novel draft (in my deep dark drawer of doom) includes a heroine who uses song to manipulate stone. It’s a story I’d love to revisit now that I have more experience and better skills under my belt.

AY: What else about you might surprise the average reader? 

RB: I performed as a minstrel at a medieval faire for sixteen years. I can play all sorts of period instruments passably well–recorder, gemshorn, krumhorn, harp, psaltery, lute, vielle, rebec, nakers . . . Also, I can write quite authentically about the joys of wearing long dresses in the woods in the rain.

AY: Final question, how do we keep up with you on social media?

RB: My website is www.wordsofbirch.com, and I’m on Twitter as @wordsofbirch.

Author of “Mirror Skinned”

This month’s interview is with Kelly Sandoval, the author of “Mirror Skinned,” and “Home Isn’t.” She’s a quintessential nerd. When I called her, she was glum over having missed out on a game of Pathfinder in her area. We had a great afterward during our interview bonding over our writing heroes as well as our mutual struggles: perfectionism, shipping, personal hangups, and genre restrictions. As a tangent, if anyone is seeking a backline spellcaster (her) or a frontline tank (me), both are available for jobs requiring combat for fun and profit at your nearest generic inn.

Stanley: How did you begin writing?

Kelly: Well, I made my first attempt at a novel in the 4th grade. It was about unicorns fighting dinosaurs. And I’ve been writing in spurts ever since. I’ve always lived a little bit in my head, and I think writing is my way of externalizing that. I’m still pretty new to short fiction, but I’ve developed a real love for flash. I didn’t start seriously writing and submitting until 2013 after I attended Clarion West.

S: What possessed you to start writing in 4th grade?

K: As a kid, I was always playing imaginary games with my friends.  In 4th grade, however, my usual playmate went to a different class, and I started writing to share my crazy ideas with her.

S: So were you Team Unicorn or Team Dinosaur as a child?

K: Technically, Team Unicorn, but they were Uni-pegs, unicorns with wings. These days I’d totally be Team Dinosaur because I think that dinosaurs are much more amazing now that they have feathers.

S: Absolutely! Anyone who thinks that feathers are a sign of daintiness or weakness has never gazed into the alien intelligence, locking eyes with an aerial predator.

S: Did you ever struggle with reconciling your inner world with the world in your head?

K: Definitely yes. It’s not true that all writers are outsiders, but I was definitely an outsider. My family moved around a lot, so I was a loner by necessity as well as nature. I lived in my head so much for a while that I got bad at interacting with people. Writing became a way to get out of my head. It was something where I could have something to show and share instead of leaving my entire life inside of me.

S: Did you know that you were going to be a writer when you were young?

K: I went to college to be a teacher and then after taking some classes, I saw that I would NOT be a good fit for the job. I changed my major midway and went into Creative Writing.

S: How did your friends and family react?

K: My friends were not particularly surprised when I made the change. My family, however, was freaked out. “How are you going to eat?” was a worry that they projected often. But when you publish a couple of stories, people start to think of you as less crazy.

S: And when were you first published?

K: I was first published right after graduating college in 20087. It was a literary piece in an art magazine in New York. After that, I did not publish again for 4 or 5 years.

S: What caused that gap? What was it like for you during that time?

K: It was weird for me to publish a literary piece first.  I guess that’s just what college does. You learn to look down on the books and stories you enjoyed when you were growing up. I wrote this second person, very literary piece. It was very weird for me because that’s not what I wanted to do. I got it in my head that I could only write and publish things that I didn’t enjoy. It took me a long time to get past that barrier. It took me a long time to realize that I could write what I want to write. I know it sounds really negative, but the experience of being published was super positive. The guy that published my work was very supportive. It was 100% a great experience, but it just ran me into some tangles in my brain that I needed to sort out. Everything speculative was bad. And then, later on, everything literary was bad. And now I’m in a place where I can appreciate both.

S: It seems that Clarion West also played a huge role in your birth as a writer. Tell us about Clarion West.

K: Well, I attended in 2013. To be honest, I only applied because Neil Gaiman was teaching. And also because CW is In Seattle where I had then recently moved. I didn’t submit an application to Clarion San Diego because I am very attached to my husband and cats and could not go six weeks without visiting them. I did not expect to get in at all. When I did get the call, I was visiting with mother, and my phone rang at a weird time. I was rationalizing it so heavily. It must be a telemarketer? A local number? Then it must be a local telemarketer. But it was Les at Clarion West. And the news came, and I could not stop smiling. I met the best people out there. Usman Malik was there, and he’s burning up the spec fic world right now. He’s just brilliant. Basically, when I got there everyone was more accomplished than me, it made me step up and write more. They write all the time and submit all the time, and so I didn’t want to be left behind. It was an amazing experience.

S: And how was Neil?

K: Neil was as nice as he seems but also honest and tough. On the last day, I just broke down and sobbed all over him. If you need to find a good sponge to have a cry over, he’s great for that.

S: Did Mirror Skinned emerge out of that experience? Forgive me for being a bit woo-woo, but I sensed some resonance with Neil Gaiman’s short fiction style when I read your story.

K: I wrote Mirror Skinned as an exercise in week 1, and he taught during the second week. But you’re probably on to something there. He was certainly looming large in my mind the entire time.

S: What goals do you have with writing?

K: My friends say that I want to make them sad. And it’s true that I usually write sad stories. I think, mostly, I want to make people feel. It’s just the emotions I’m interested in tend to be the painful ones. My favorite stories are the ones that linger for days, the ones that leave you unsettled and thoughtful. On the other hand, I think fiction can be enormously comforting, and I hope that some readers find comfort in my stories. Even if it’s only the comfort of seeing their own hurts reflected back.

S: The stories that you’ve written, “Home Isn’t” and “Mirror Skinned” have strong themes of abandonment. Has that been a recurring motif in your other works?

K: Mirror Skinned is one of my most personal stories. I mentioned before that it started as a writing exercise. We all wrote an anonymous piece about some intense emotional moment in our lives. And then we wrote a second speculative piece about that moment. I wrote about self-loathing. Sometimes people self-loathe by absorbing themselves into the people they date. If you date the right or wrong person, they project their idea of who you should be and it’s easy to adopt that as your identity. That’s what “Mirror Skinned” deals with.

S: What about Home Isn’t?

K: I was thinking about the Indian Schools back when the US was “civilizing the savage” and the trauma that came from having one culture taken away from you and having another foisted upon you. I couldn’t stop thinking about the identities that people have inflicted upon them instead of the identity that they are born with.

S: Does this theme continue in other works of yours?

Yes? I’m interested in stories where characters not interested in external struggles. I’m interested in stories where characters are lost within themselves. It’s closer to home. I’m almost certainly never going to take on a dragon myself. But we all deal with identity, recreating ourselves and having to change. I write a lot about identity because it’s such a universal element.

S: What stories have brought you comfort?

K: Neil Gaiman’s  “Black Dog” from Trigger Warning is a horror story about depression and fighting depression, but it’s an enormously comforting story. It’s not a happy story, but it is a comforting story. It allows us to see that we’re not the only ones coping with the world. When I was younger, Tamora Pierce, Mercedes Lackey, the typical escapist fiction, Anne McCaffrey, and their stories comforted me. When I first read Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman, comfort came not from the stories but the way he wrote about fiction in the beginning. Someone finally thinks the way I do! Reading that helped me realize that I was not the only one and it’s one of the things that made me fall in love with his writing.

S: What makes fiction WORK?

K: That’s such an impossible question! I mean, the fiction that works for me is lyrical, thoughtful, and sad. The fiction that works for my husband is fast-paced, witty, and uses transparent prose. Every book on writing has its set of rules. Conflict. Character growth. Three act structure. For me, I guess fiction needs a character I can care about. But that’s just me.

S: What helps you decide that something is ready?

K: Left to my own devices I would spend forever revising but to ship, I listen for the rhythm of the words, the flow, and sound of it. When I’m sure that the ending will make my friends cry, then I know it’s ready. Otherwise, I’m too self-critical to look at a piece of my writing and think “They’re going to love this.” At best, I think “I’m not going to edit this anymore because I need to start another piece of fiction.” I edited Mirror Skinned to death and had it up to 1,700 words at one point, and it just wasn’t working. I rewrote it so many times that I had broken it. To get it right, I had to go back to a much earlier version and glue the unbroken pieces together.

S: Is there advice you’d give to aspiring writers?

K: The current advice I give to everyone, aspiring or not, is to write things, finish them, revise them, and move on. If it never works, never sells, don’t go back and try to fix it, just move on. If you like themes that you’ve explored in the works, write a new story with those same themes. We’re constantly growing, but at the same time we keep trying to fit into these old sloughed off skins. When we can’t anymore, we should reach up and out instead.

My name is not Elisabeth. My eyes are not full of tears. My life has not just changed forever. My best friend is not dead.

Mum screeches my full name like a fishwife, carrying over the howling winds of the bay, and the magic is broken. Every evening I sit looking over the sharp rocks and grey water of Limeslade Bay, hoping I might see Sophie. Hoping that somehow saying the words could undo everything that happened. The sky turns a deep slate blue as night falls, and I can hear Mum getting frantic. I don’t want her coming out to the cliff to find me. I’ll try again tomorrow. I have to keep trying.

It was Sophie who taught me about magic. We were walking along the coastal path when she pointed. “Do you see her?”

I glanced up the path. “Who?”

“Oh, Beth.” Sophie sighed as she put her hands on my cheeks and turned my face until I was looking out to sea. A dark round head bobbed in the grey water, huge brown eyes watching us.

We spoke in the same moment. “Seal,” I said and “Selkie,” said Sophie and her warm breath touched my face.

“She’ll shed her skin at the full moon and come onto the beach.” Sophie watched me from the corner of her eye. “To find a lover.”

“Why would she do that?”

“Because she is all alone. Because she isn’t like the others. Because the seals don’t love her. Not like she wants to be loved.”

Those round brown eyes stared unblinkingly at us standing up on the path. A cloud covered the sun, and I shivered in the sudden chill. “Let’s go, Sophie. Let’s go home.” She held my hand as we ran along the trail in the rain.

There are no blood stains on the rocks. There are no more bullies. There’s no world in which Sophie left me. There’s nothing wrong with love.

Every chance I get, I look for the moon rising over the bay. I watch the dark waves for a sign. I listen to the whispers of the tide. Maybe today is the day that the magic will work.

I never knew anything about Welsh magic, even though I’ve lived here all my life. Sophie told me the stories of the Sea Morgen and the Pwca and most of all the beautiful Selkie who shed their skins in return for love that they can never keep. They get one night only when the moon is right. She never told me what moon is the right one.

Every day after school, Sophie would brush my hair and whisper stories into my ear, so no one else could hear. She said that the wind off the sea would protect me forever because I was a child of the old lands. But when Brittany and her friends chased us, Sophie didn’t turn to magic. She fought.

Four of them surrounded us on the beach. I thought maybe if I just talked to them if I just said the right things then they would go away. I’ve known them all my life. I’d only known Sophie a year, but we’ve spent every free moment together since she moved here. She’s my best friend. So I couldn’t understand why I suddenly felt surrounded by strangers.

Sophie bared her teeth and snarled.

“Fucking pair of lesbos,” said Brittany. I turned around, looking at the empty beach to see who she was talking about. As I turned back, a closed fist rushed at my face. I felt the sand fill my mouth and nose before I knew she’d hit me. Sophie was a twisted blur, fighting the other three. A wet sound of soft flesh took her down, and she fell retching into the sand. Melanie and Michelle kept kicking her in the stomach until Brittany pulled them back, said that was enough.

Sophie lifted her head, lying on the ground completely shipwrecked, and snarled at them again, like she wanted some more. “Don’t,” I whispered, spitting the sand and blood from my mouth. They would have kicked her again, but when someone shouted from a distance, the girls ran and disappeared into the dunes.

I struggled to my knees. Sophie’s face was a fierce mask of hatred. Her eyes blazed with anger. She reached out and touched the side of my face, and I flinched away. She stared at her fingers, covered with blood and sand. Her angry eyes filled with tears, that fierce-hearted girl who was ready to take on everyone. She forced out words I’d never heard her say before, “I’m sorry.” I wanted to tell her that it wasn’t her fault, but she ran off before I could get the words out. Before I could find the words to say, “I don’t care” or “you are my best friend” or even “I love you.” That’s the last time I saw her. She didn’t show up for school, and I thought maybe she went back home to England. The police came round after school.

I didn’t miss my last chance to tell her.

The magic doesn’t stop me crying. It’s been seventeen days. Her parents had a funeral with a closed coffin, but we all knew it was empty. Some walkers spotted her broken body on the rocks at Limeslade Bay just after dawn. It was gone before anyone could get down to recover it. The tide stole her away. Everyone called it a suicide but I know they are wrong.

Sophie didn’t jump. She just shed her skin. I’ll be waiting for her on the beach when she comes. This time, I won’t flinch.

Previously published in Daily Science Fiction, 2014, and SciGenTasy. Reprinted here by permission of the author.

The river nudged my log raft against its mooring post with a steady thud on the night I first saw Old Qiu’s woman. Sitting on her knees at the end of his boat, she offered his cormorants a few of the small fish they’d caught that day. Her young, round face echoed the full moon, its light glinting in her black eyes. A jade ring encircled her finger. Its sweeping lines reminded me of river’s currents.

“Jiang,” Qiu called, from where he squatted beside a cook-fire on the shore. “Come.”

When she obeyed, the cormorants croaked their gurgling call after her.

* * *

Jiang spent her days collecting reeds, the hard stalks biting her hands until they bled. “What is your woman doing?” I called to Qiu over the river between us, where our birds flew through the waters, catching throatfuls of silver-bright fish.

Qiu ignored me, but in the evenings I watched. Jiang sat beside the fire, weaving the reeds into the shape of a cage. She never smiled, but sometimes I thought her shining eyes sought me. I, to whom she’d never spoken a word.

* * *

A night came when the river hid beneath a shroud of mist so thick I couldn’t see the end of my raft. Sounds seemed to come from everywhere at once. Frogs chirping on the banks. The chop of an ax. A muted wail, then a splash that could have been a fish jumping, or something thrown into the river.

The smell of damp iron hung in the air, and my birds crept close, butting my legs and croaking. I smoothed their feathers, but while it seemed to soothe them, nothing relieved the chill raising gooseflesh over my skin.

* * *

The next morning, when the sun burned away the fog, Qiu’s boat was already far out onto the river, but now the cage Jiang had woven hung from a post at its prow, a single cormorant within. A smear of red slid down the reeds where one stunted wing struggled to spread.

One by one, the other cormorants returned to Qiu, coughing their catch into his baskets, calling as they went. The bird in the cage fluttered and kept silence.

* * *

In the days that followed, I kept watch over Qiu’s boat. His cormorants now brought new offerings. A silver bracelet. A teacup carved from horn. Treasures of far greater value than fish or even Qiu’s boat. And always, I felt the caged bird’s black-eyed gaze upon me, until one day, when the sun hung at its zenith, it opened its throat and called, hopping and flapping madly against the woven reeds. My cormorants swarmed to the cage and circled beneath it, a black-winged eddy.

Qiu shouted and dispersed them, but after he had moved on, I maneuvered my boat to where his had floated and plunged my spare pole into the riverbed to mark the place the caged bird had finally found its voice.

* * *

That night, under the watchful eye of a crescent moon, I slunk up the riverbank to Qiu’s moored boat. The old man snored near the dwindling remains of his fire and, though the river sloshed against the wood when my weight displaced it, his resting cormorants made no sound while I crept to the prow and untied the cage.

Its bottom was formed of mottled glass, and the cormorant’s feet slipped on the smooth surface, slick with streaks of blood. Careful not to jostle the cage, I returned to my own raft and slid it into the current. My abandoned pole stood out as a dark shadow in the moonlight.

The cormorant stared ahead, wings trembling.

* * *

We reached the marker, and I pulled the cormorant from its cage, tying a quick noose around its throat. The moment I let go, it vanished into the depths. My own birds crowded the edge of the raft, peering into the blackness and muttering among themselves.

In minutes the bird returned, its catch trapped in its constricted throat. I stroked its neck until it coughed up its prize–a severed finger, bloated flesh straining against a ring of jade.

I released the noose then, with a shudder, lifted the ghastly finger. The cormorant pressed its damp head against my hand and nipped at the ring. I pried the jade free.

A moan sounded beside me, and the raft sank low. Jiang knelt at my side, hair like river-weeds clinging to her naked skin. She cradled one hand to her breast, blood seeping from the torn stump of her finger. Beads of moisture snaking down her body caught the moonlight, turning them to pearls.

I swallowed in a throat gone dry. My fingers traced the jade’s carved lines, so cold against my skin. This woman could be mine. I knew it as surely as I knew my birds. All I needed to do was place the ring on her finger to claim her for my own as Qiu must have done before me.

Her black eyes gazed up at me, her body motionless, waiting.

Slowly, I became aware of the silence. My cormorants stood around me, their stares as heavy as the emptiness where their constant, familiar voices should have been. I licked my lip and tasted sweat, despite the cold. I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t make Jiang a slave, no matter that I would treat her with respect and care.

I held out the ring in a cupped palm. “It is yours. Do with it what you will.”

With a smile as bright as the river at dawn, Jiang plucked up the ring and threw it into the river in a broad arc, then touched her palm flat against my chest, over my quick-beating heart.

Without a word, she slipped into the river and vanished in a rush of tiny bubbles, leaving nothing behind but the ephemeral warmth of her hand against my skin.

I pulled my pole from the riverbed’s grasp and pushed toward the shore, holding tight to her memory.

My first alien was a Cetitharian. Slender, mirror skinned, beautiful as a solar storm. I never asked him why he came up to my home-ship. I never asked him much of anything. Reflected in his skin, the cargo hold’s dull gray walls were silver. Even I, little brown mouse that I was, polished into tiger’s eye. Seventeen, and never before had I seen myself made beautiful. He changed that just by looking at me.

I volunteered on the next shuttle down.

It took days of walking the shuttle-port before I found him. Curious as Cetitharian’s are, I might have gone home with any of them. I could have been gold, copper, jet. I wanted tiger’s eye. And he did take me home when he found me.

In romances, Xeno-sex is all tentacles, body swapping, and climaxing in fields of glowing flowers. For me, it was pale scars where he kissed me and my own reflection, distorted into beauty by his skin. We went for walks along Cetitharia’s restless black seas, tossed rocks into the water and watched them dissolve into gold dust. 

When I told him I loved him, he laughed, a peculiar burbling that Cetitharian’s used as punctuation. He kissed a scar onto my forehead and stroked my cheek.

“You’re just waking up,” he said and turned away.

I kept his laugh. Locked in my quarters, I practiced it for hours during the long months before the next orbit. I used it like a Cetitharian, ending sentences with warm bubbles of sound. My work crew stopped speaking to me. That, too, made me laugh.

On Milsk, our next orbit, I didn’t wait to be found. I bribed my way onto the first ship down and did my own hunting. 

Milsk dizzied me. The sharp smell of green in the air, the spongy organic streets, the eyeless Milsken’s watching me from their fungi houses. I walked the streets for days, sleeping beneath the open sky, damp with the constant mist of the place.

She was an artist, the woman who finally took me to her bed. She tasted like new grass and did not speak to me. At her silent direction, I would stretch out, naked and shivering in the Milsken damp. She watched me for hours, then breathed my image onto panes of glass. I think she even sold them. Anything’s a novelty to the right market.

She walked back with me on the day the ship left, pressed a pane of glass in my hand. I didn’t say I loved her. She didn’t say anything at all.

I kept her stillness. I stopped moving until I needed to, gave up the twitching restlessness of a life spent confined.

The portrait, I broke. I sat, arranging and rearranging myself as the glass ribboned my fingers with cuts. No matter what order I tried, I couldn’t find a hint of tiger’s eye.

I jumped ships to get to Trv, longing to stroke their blood-red carapaces. They would not touch me there. Comfortable in their nesting groups, they ignored my every fumbling advance.

I kept their contempt, swallowed it and let it feed my own. My shipmates, all strangers, didn’t meet my gaze or sit near me in the mess. That too, I fed on.

In one of Simerate’s jewel-toned cities, I lay against the feathered chest of a bright-plumaged Simeri while he wove vinegar-scented flowers through my hair. His low, thrumming song worked its way into my bones until, opening my mouth, I sang with his voice.

I kept that song. I sang it to a maiden in Aais who treated me with reverent gentleness until the night her kisses turned, and she showed me, at last, the use of the hooked teeth which lined her first two mouths. She took three fingers from my right hand, and I took her hunger.

Oh, that hunger. The Aais would devour the universe if only they weren’t afraid of space. Sometimes, I think I might devour it for them.

The scales of a death-hungry Quex lad, coaxed by clever surgery to settle along my spine. An elixir of longevity licked from the fingers of a bone-crested Urs who whispered the names of a thousand years of lovers as he fucked me. Feathers embedded along my arms and in my scalp. Three clawed fingers to replace the ones I gave away. The smile of a Thubvin who would not believe me human.

He wasn’t alone in that. I’d always been able to work on any ship, but now they made me pay for passage. I bought a ride on my own home ship, walked the cool gray halls looking for something I felt I belonged to.

I found a spacer boy, lean and pretty, his dark gaze impatient until he saw me.

“What are you?” he asked. I studied his expression, not quite so spacer-neutral as he thought. He was raw, restless with want for something more than sunlamps and synthetic beef.

“Just the same as you,” I said.

He was sweet, in bed. Eager to please and he didn’t cry out when my claws pierced his skin. He tasted bitter, salt-tainted, flavors I’d long forgotten and hadn’t missed. I pulled him into my arms, and let him sleep with his head pillowed on my chest.

“On Cetetharia,” I whispered to him, “the seas are made of acid, and every kiss is a scar.”

I stroked his spine, imagining the patterning of scales. There was so much of the universe left for him to see.

He might yet be something beautiful.

My youngest child has become something of a Rubik’s Cube fanatic.  She owns ten or so, including a 12-sided cube.  She recently learned to solve a 5X5 cube and can solve the classic 3X3 cube in about 2 minutes.

When completed, of course, the Rubik’s Cube has nine differently-colored sides.  Turn the cube, and you see red.  Turn it again, and you see green, or blue or white or orange.

Stories are like that, each one a structural square of words, made of smaller squares of the elements a writer uses to build it, that communicate something to the reader.  But despite all the structural similarities that are consistently used to construct something that you and I recognize as a story, each one is unique in significant ways.

Turn to “Mirror Skinned” by returning Flash Fiction Online author Kelly Sandoval; a science fiction journey of self-discovery among the stars.

Turn again to “Wikipedia Abduction Myth” by another returning author, Oliver Buckram; an amusing look at conspiracy theory and internet urban myth.  Take my advice.  Click the hyperlinks. 

Turn again to “The Cormorant in the Glass-bottomed Cage” by Rebecca Birch; a gentle and enchanted tale of a woman who is not what she appears to be.

Turn one more time to our Reprint selection for this month, “When the Selkie Comes” (originally published in Daily Science Fiction) by Sylvia Spruck Wrigley; a tale of love, missed opportunity, and magic.

Also, this month, enjoy interviews with Rebecca Birch and Kelly Sandoval.

Ready?  Set!  Read!!