Start your week off with six killer short stories
Going into the weekend, I wasn’t sure I’d have enough for a post, Sunday was fruitful and I stumbled across a few great additions to the list. As always, if you have something to share (yours or someone else’s), lay it on me.
- Human Trials by Madeleine Vigneron in Khōréo Magazine: a grim and gory sci-fi story about the last people on Earth.
- House Hunters by Mary Heitkamp in Electric Lit – The Purge plus real estate. Unhinged in the best way.
- Describe Your Most Recent Episode, Cont’d, by Carly Alaimo in Split Lip – this is a wildly creative story about a woman from a messed up home trying to get help. It’s kind of a puzzle too — I was tempted to print it out to piece it together.
- About Lucy by Emily Waugh in The London Magazine: “Lucy may have been a genius. Or she might have just been unlucky. Unlucky people often turn out to be geniuses. Misfortune stuck to Lucy like dog shit in the cracks of a heel.”
- The Private Investigator Balances the Scales by Jack B. Bedell in BULL: this is super short but has a serious twist to it that I’ve been thinking about since I read it.
- The Great Silence by Ted Chiang, in Electric Lit: “It’s no coincidence that “aspiration” means both hope and the act of breathing.” This is an older story, it’s included in his excellent collection Exhalations. It reminds me of Benjamin Labatut, weaving science and fiction together with an emphasis on soul.