Fictional Worlds

THE MAGICAL NEGRO—It’s easy to believe that this trope came from a good place or at least rose out of benign neglect. After all, a white writer is “writing what they know” or appealing to their target demographic, which is typically people like them…

The voices begin three days before someone is to die. The coffin-maker wakes up covered in sweat. He has been talking in his sleep again, his wife says, in the language of the dead. He looks at her under the waning light of the candle. Edna’s face i…

I meet with the other pregnant men on Thursdays. Our room at the civic center is between the recovering alcoholics and cancer survivors. We’re currently at eleven, now that Wallace shot himself. The room tries to look like it’s for any ol’ support g…

In the morning, when the fog lies thick and heavy on the water, I sit at my workbench and seed the next simulant. It takes fourteen double-C commands to move the digital embryo into the simulation tank and begin the process. The tank thrums to life …

It knows all my secrets, all my weaknesses. On a good day, when the sun is shining, the offering plates are filled with honey and I have enough candles for my circle to hold, the angels keep it at bay. Not that I can summon anything higher than a me…

I ascend during the church picnic. My thighs peel off the plastic bench with a crisp smack, and I’m two feet into the air before I understand what is happening. I flip a foldout table, clawing for purchase. Potato salad and peach cobbler spill onto …

Since the onset of my symptoms, I’ve been saving the last pages in the leather-bound notebook you gifted me—for this suicide note. I neglected to foresee how terrible my handwriting might be when the moment came, so please forgive my chicken scratch…

The problem, of course, is that the world ended. She’s lying in her bed, staring at the sloping scribbles on the ceiling. Downstairs, the party continues as ever. Voices rise from the parlor at all hours of the night, beckoning her with wild words s… The Edge of Things | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2kuq3TP

6,300 Words “Sit here.” He pulls out a thin panel from the front of his kiosk, punches it into the third dimension, then into its secondary function as a chair, and places it in front of me. “Here’s safe. via Pocket Behind Her, Trailing Like Butterfly Wings | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2iUgw8k

Caroline tucked an unruly strand of coarse brown hair up under her pink knit cap, shrugged the strap of her black violin case back into place over her shoulder, and hurried up the music building stairs. via Pocket While the Black Stars Burn | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2xzoBER

Thistle stepped over an upturned root that twisted from the dark, wet earth. “Mama the river and the tree.” She moved with deliberate grace, each footfall a code that unlocked another hidden key. Wilder should have known. Every other word out of her… Tree of the Forest Seven Bells Turns the World Round Midnight | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2ysAfSb

Translated by Alex Shvartsman. You were thirty-five when you parked your pickup truck in front of that damned diner. A single poor decision that would make you hate yourself for the rest of your life. via Pocket Black Hole Heart | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2ttmfCj

Willie Kennard rode into the town of Duffy dangerously late, looking back over his shoulder at the height of the sun and squinting. He dropped down from the old mare he’d borrowed off Wilson Hayes and hitched her to a post. via Pocket Sundown | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2sWTOgh