Not One of Us, Issue 80
Sep. 20th, 2024 02:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
asakiyumeI'm in this issue of Not One of Us with a piece of very short flash fiction, "Freeing .33333..."
It's ironic, maybe, to write flash about a number that goes on forever, but like the narrator, I've always been fascinated by this endlessly repeating number, and a short form is as good as a long form, I suppose, to talk about something infinite.
There are several other offerings in this issue that I loved--noteworthy among themsovay's poem "Fair Exchange," about what the dead want. (You know it instinctively, but Sovay expresses it--and what the dead would pay to get it--with wrenching clarity.)
The poem "Catch the Bus," by Zhihua Wang, is light, humorous--but its theme is about trying to fit yourself in to a schedule where *you* are the piece that has to change; *you* are the one that must adapt, and that's also a theme in the story "Loneliness and Other Looming Things," by Devan Barlow, whose protagonist is psychologically incapable of tolerating an "upgrade" that everyone around her has made or is making. Like someone with a rotary-dial landline phone in the era of smartphones, she's isolated, but the solution being proposed may cost her her only human connection. There's beautiful language on dreams in this story:
In "A Million Wings Moving as One," by Jay Kang Romanus, a changeling who can take and shed an infinite number of forms tries to find a sense of self. These lines struck me:
The poem "Protest" by Rebekah Postupak achieves a giddy-but-grim change of perspective for both the narrator and the reader--powerful!
The remaining two stories, "The World Has Turned a Thousand Times" by CL Hellisen and "Where Dead Men Come to Die" by Ed Teja, have startlingly contrasting settings--the stark semi-desert of South Africa's Karoo region in Hellisen's tale and the tropical humidity of the town of Koh Kong, in Cambodia's Koh Kong Province, in Teja's. Both are stories of transformations of sorts, and self-discovery.
Not One of Us is that remarkable thing in this digital world, a paper zine. Some of my favorite writers, like Patricia Russo and my dad, have published in its pages. Information on buying single issues or subscriptions and on submitting to it is available HERE.
It's ironic, maybe, to write flash about a number that goes on forever, but like the narrator, I've always been fascinated by this endlessly repeating number, and a short form is as good as a long form, I suppose, to talk about something infinite.
There are several other offerings in this issue that I loved--noteworthy among them
sovay's poem "Fair Exchange," about what the dead want. (You know it instinctively, but Sovay expresses it--and what the dead would pay to get it--with wrenching clarity.)The poem "Catch the Bus," by Zhihua Wang, is light, humorous--but its theme is about trying to fit yourself in to a schedule where *you* are the piece that has to change; *you* are the one that must adapt, and that's also a theme in the story "Loneliness and Other Looming Things," by Devan Barlow, whose protagonist is psychologically incapable of tolerating an "upgrade" that everyone around her has made or is making. Like someone with a rotary-dial landline phone in the era of smartphones, she's isolated, but the solution being proposed may cost her her only human connection. There's beautiful language on dreams in this story:
There was a oconstant bristle at the edge of my mind, like I had to remember to tell someone something ... At random points throughout the day, I started laughing, as if I remembered something funny. But I never had any idea what the joke was.
In "A Million Wings Moving as One," by Jay Kang Romanus, a changeling who can take and shed an infinite number of forms tries to find a sense of self. These lines struck me:
Outside, the humans drift under its window in an endless river. The changeling watches them, envying their lack of choice.
The poem "Protest" by Rebekah Postupak achieves a giddy-but-grim change of perspective for both the narrator and the reader--powerful!
The remaining two stories, "The World Has Turned a Thousand Times" by CL Hellisen and "Where Dead Men Come to Die" by Ed Teja, have startlingly contrasting settings--the stark semi-desert of South Africa's Karoo region in Hellisen's tale and the tropical humidity of the town of Koh Kong, in Cambodia's Koh Kong Province, in Teja's. Both are stories of transformations of sorts, and self-discovery.
Not One of Us is that remarkable thing in this digital world, a paper zine. Some of my favorite writers, like Patricia Russo and my dad, have published in its pages. Information on buying single issues or subscriptions and on submitting to it is available HERE.
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Date: 2024-09-20 09:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-09-20 10:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-09-21 01:11 am (UTC)I missed that it had been reprinted! I'm so glad it's widely available. I will try to remember to link it.
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Date: 2024-09-21 02:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-09-20 11:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-09-20 11:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-09-21 01:06 am (UTC)Thank you so much!
I love your piece. Its irony is perfect.
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Date: 2024-09-21 02:38 am (UTC)And I'm very, very happy you like mine, too.
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Date: 2024-09-21 03:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-09-21 03:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-09-22 02:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-09-23 01:55 pm (UTC)