Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 168 by Neil Clarke

Author:Neil Clarke [Clarke, Neil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: magazine, science fiction, Science Fiction - Short Stories, Science Fiction & Fantasy, science fiction magazine, short story
Publisher: Wyrm Publishing
Published: 2020-09-01T00:00:00+00:00

About the Author

Isabel Lee is a writer, artist, and creative technologist from Chicago, Illinois. Her interests include exploring the intersections between code, art, and fiction. She also enjoys painting and watching Korean thriller movies. Isabel is currently a senior at Yale University, and this is her first publication in a major literary magazine.

Ask the Fireflies

R. P. Sand

They say the universe was created when a Giant lit a matchstick. That her great sigh fanned the flames that danced and wept into stars and constellations. They say some seas are blue and Slugs are naturally submissive. They also say that I cannot exist. But what do they know? These are truths or untruths contorted through generations, whispers leaping from ear to ear, unrecognizable from their original form. They are irrelevant to me.

The only truth I know, the only truth I care about is that Alshea is not “as good as dead.” Those in mint jumpsuits with low, measured voices that bounce off scarcely used eardrums—always an odd sensation, that—do not know what they are talking about.

No, Alshea is not as good as dead, how could she be? Proof is in how she is perched at the garden table, cheeks flushed despite the little bruise above her brow, eyes sparkling alertness, propped up on the soft feather pillow Norai sewed because the wrought iron chair is not high enough for her. Proof is in how vivaciously she regales her version of the Old Earth tale “The Little Wizard Who Lived” to her stuffed unicorn and me, pouring caramel tea in our periwinkle cups. Proof is in how the colors of a setting star soak rainbows into her dark hair and skin, how the breeze catches any loose strands and hair ribbons, how she blooms like the red valerian spangled in our garden, so sharp and so vibrant. So alive.

“Up, Podder! Prep the table for dinner.” Norai’s feathery voice dissipates my reverie. My whiskers twitch at the scent of warm butter; she wheels the dinner cart down the cobblestone path from the manor house. The purple cats at our feet stir at the promise of food. Tiers of perfectly creased cloth napkins, white dishes with painted lilies, unicorn cookies, buttered rolls, and: do I smell Norai’s hot chocolate? Her cinnamon-tulsi-peppermint blend is why Tedna, the gardener, sometimes stays for dinner, and locals like the baker and candlestick maker deliver themselves rather than send shop runners.

When I eye the chocolate pot longingly, but reach instead for the dishes, Norai suppresses a smile under half-moon spectacles, and her gray-mauve lips and rice paper wings of the same color flutter amusedly. The wings are small on her round, petite frame but she can hover a few feet off the ground, though she hardly ever does.

I prep the table in a way that meets the approval of Norai’s precise eye, and she lays the food, appropriately punctuating Alshea’s continuous string of commentary and tale-bits with “oh really”s and “how lovely”s. She allows a few crumbs to drop to the grass, which the cats love.

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