1250 words is definitely pushing the limits of “flash” fiction, but I had so much fun writing it I just wanted to keep going. (Most published flash fiction is under 1000 words, but I go up to 1500 for flash stories on my site. Anything longer is labeled “short fiction” instead.) This story prompt is courtesy of Jason Sizemore from Apex Magazine, who wanted to “gift” his editor Lesley Conner with a story, so in May 2017 I wrote this tale of bravery involving a camping trip, and a really big tick…
Mrs. Lesley and the Campers of Troop 83 Vs The Giant Blacklegged Tick of Contrary Knob
The sun beat down on the campers of Troop 83 as they dropped their gear heavily to the ground, and with the kind of sighs only weary teenage boys can make, flopped beside their packs. Only their substitute troop leader seemed energetic. She stood near the edge of the clearing, looking out over the wide valley, and the twisting path they’d all just climbed up the mountain.
“Isn’t it beautiful, boys?” She spread her arms wide. “Look at that view!”
I got a copy of this over the summer, and finally got a chance to read it this fall. I’m glad I discovered I should be paying attention to what this small magazine is offering.
That’s not to say that everything is perfect, or wonderful, or for me. On the surface, it’s a collection of poetry, fiction, and essays growing wild like plants in a field; like any wild bunch of things, it’s sometimes hard to tell which is which, and what works together with other creations in that setting instead of merely being there at the same time. There are essays which seem like stories – one that works and one that doesn’t – and poems I wanted more from, stories I would have cut down. But in between, there’s brilliance.
Before I get further into my review, I have to stop you right here and ask: have you read Innocent Ilo’s “To the Place of Skulls”? It’s easily one of the best and most impactful stories I’ve read this year, and I am honestly surprised that I haven’t seen more people talking about it. If I had to pick one story for you to read from this year’s Reckoning, it would be Ilo’s. So well-crafted it reads like it’s a far simpler story than it really is; the kind of craft that leads you into a dark and heavy place before you know it, without forcing you there, without feeling saccharine or unsupported. There’s nothing I don’t love about this story (except the subject, of course, which is both fiction and just barely, maybe tomorrow, going to be true somewhere).
Luckily, I don’t have to pick just one, from this thick annual magazine that editor Micheal DeLuca envisioned to showcase “creative writing on environmental justice”. With six poems, five essays, twelve stories, and art, there’s going to be something for everyone. Even the work I didn’t connect with has a purpose – like “From Paris, With Rage“, an essay framed as a story, which mostly focuses on teaching readers how to deal with being arrested at a major ecological protest, if that’s something you need to know. I was comforted, seeing a high level of quality work through a magazine of this size, because it tells me that it’s not a combination of good stories and bad ones, or well-written compared to badly constructed. It’s work that suits my tastes and what I needed to read at that moment, and other work that isn’t written for me. Maybe it’s written for you.
The work I did connect with, I’m grateful to have read. “A Wispy Chastening” by D.A. Xiaolin Spires is exactly what flash fiction should be: tightly written but hinting at vastly more than is on the page, allowing you to fill in the blanks in your head to supply the worldbuilding that wouldn’t fit into the word count limit. Marie Vibbert’s “Fourth-Dimensional Tessellations of the American College Graduate” is another one of my favorites – even if you don’t have a soft spot in your heart for bees like I do, it’s a cleverly winding tale of young adult attachment, and the way we collect the people who complete us, whether we like them or not.
Both “The Bull Who Bars the Gate to Heaven” by Zella Christensen and “A Hundred Years From Now” by Mohammad Shafiqul Islam are excellent poems that are simultaneously both stories and messages, and while some of the other poems here I felt lacked something, or tried too hard, these two were perfect as they are. Marissa Lingen’s “The Shale Giants” is another flash fiction story, but its word count barely constrains its slow-moving mass of rock and building resentment. Definitely worth reading.
“Girl Singing with Farm” by Kathrin Köhler, is a weird science fiction story both beautiful and heartbreaking, but one that also hints at a happy ending, and even the possibility (never certain) is something most other pieces in this issue don’t offer. “Rumpelstiltskin” by Jane Elliott is one of the better uses of this particular fairy tale I’ve read in a retelling. A father slowly losing everything to a global famine recounts how the world came to be this way, and through his recollections, you get a glimpse of where the fault lies.
The answer is the same for much of Reckoning: the fault lies in ourselves. Maybe if we open up to more creative environmental writing, we’ll figure out how to fix some of what we’ve broken before it’s too late. (At the very least, Reckoning aims to get you thinking about the problem, which is the first step.)
One of my favorites! Originally posted on my website in March, 2017.
The Scent of Food is Memory and Love
Azedah took the leaves off of the last small, round eggplant, then cut through the dark purple flesh until she had turned it into a pile of thick slices. She added them to the others already simmering in olive oil in her largest frying pan, so wide it covered most of the cooktop on that side of the stove. When both sides were golden brown, she lifted the eggplant pieces out of the pan and put then aside to drain. Quickly, her fingers moving with long experience, she chopped a large yellow onion; the fine slices sizzled when they hit the hot oil left in the pan.
“Azedah,” the house said. “The visitors have arrived.”
“Ah, they are early! Is Yasmin out of the shower?”
“Yes. Yasmin is in the study,” the house replied.
Azedah stirred the onions with a worn wooden spatula, and the smell of their cooking spread across the large kitchen. “Ask Yasmine to greet our guests,” she said. Behind her, the pressure cooker beeped, its cycle finished. She tapped the “natural release” icon, and turned back to the stove.
