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Rewriting 2020Stories from the 2020 Alternate Endings call
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For the rest of 2020, we’re asking writers to reimagine our world for the better. We’re looking for flash fiction stories from BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) writers who re-envision the future.
What were you imagining for 2020 when it began? What’s on your apocalypse bingo card for next month? Does it feel like tempting fate too much to ask if our current reality can get any worse OR any better? We invite you to fast forward and tell us how any or all of 2020’s chaotic plot lines resolve, get tangled, tied off, or cut. Write us some Alternate Endings to tell around the fire until we get there. Does the fae spell break at 00:00:01 on Jan 1, 2021? Is a free-roaming space colony in Andromeda still trying to wipe out a sentient mutated Covid-19 200 years from now? Here are the stories we've published so far in this call:
What were you imagining for 2020 when it began? What’s on your apocalypse bingo card for next month? Does it feel like tempting fate too much to ask if our current reality can get any worse OR any better? We invite you to fast forward and tell us how any or all of 2020’s chaotic plot lines resolve, get tangled, tied off, or cut. Write us some Alternate Endings to tell around the fire until we get there. Does the fae spell break at 00:00:01 on Jan 1, 2021? Is a free-roaming space colony in Andromeda still trying to wipe out a sentient mutated Covid-19 200 years from now? Here are the stories we've published so far in this call:
Season of Safety
by Tlotlo Tsamaase
"Through our front window, smoke tangles with falling winter leaves, sweeps through the fronds of tree branches; a birdsong breeze washes out the silent cries of a woman in a tiny low-income home. It is the norm, and nearby surveillant eyes will breathe no truth, will snitch not, for every breath’s soul is tied down, a creature refusing to escape its restraints. Inside, the woman is me, folded on the floor like adjustable furniture, knees nutty beneath the skin, but healable, the legs still functional to scurry about to serve him." Read the full story at Interstellar Flight Magazine or Read an interview with Tlotlo Tsamaase.
"Through our front window, smoke tangles with falling winter leaves, sweeps through the fronds of tree branches; a birdsong breeze washes out the silent cries of a woman in a tiny low-income home. It is the norm, and nearby surveillant eyes will breathe no truth, will snitch not, for every breath’s soul is tied down, a creature refusing to escape its restraints. Inside, the woman is me, folded on the floor like adjustable furniture, knees nutty beneath the skin, but healable, the legs still functional to scurry about to serve him." Read the full story at Interstellar Flight Magazine or Read an interview with Tlotlo Tsamaase.
Saving Grace
by Justin C. Key
"The deed done, she glanced over at other world-lines. Had she made the right decision? Should she have confronted that initial travesty? Perhaps risking the dismantling of space and time was worth America never becoming such an existential threat." Read the full story at Interstellar Flight Magazine or Read an interview with Justin C. Key.
"The deed done, she glanced over at other world-lines. Had she made the right decision? Should she have confronted that initial travesty? Perhaps risking the dismantling of space and time was worth America never becoming such an existential threat." Read the full story at Interstellar Flight Magazine or Read an interview with Justin C. Key.
Unwilled
by Nisola Jegede
"How come none of them made any attempt to get the cure that had been planted under their noses? How could they forget, for a moment, that they were made to be kings?" Read the full story at Interstellar Flight Magazine or Read an interview with Nisola Jegede.
"How come none of them made any attempt to get the cure that had been planted under their noses? How could they forget, for a moment, that they were made to be kings?" Read the full story at Interstellar Flight Magazine or Read an interview with Nisola Jegede.
A Timely Mistake
by Archita Mittra
"It was supposed to be a quick one-day mission. The scientists had shown her pictures from the archives, the murder of a certain politician that set into motion a chain of events that led to the future. She had practiced that moment countless times in the simulations. She couldn’t have messed this up." Read the full story at Interstellar Flight Magazine or Read an interview with Archita Mittra
"It was supposed to be a quick one-day mission. The scientists had shown her pictures from the archives, the murder of a certain politician that set into motion a chain of events that led to the future. She had practiced that moment countless times in the simulations. She couldn’t have messed this up." Read the full story at Interstellar Flight Magazine or Read an interview with Archita Mittra
For You, 2000 Quarantines From Now
by Andrea Kriz
"The recruiters told me I was going to help people. That’s why I left my parents. All those other kids on the ground. I see now. That raider’s right. We abandoned them. Just like we’re abandoning this car. But that’s going to change." Read the full story at Interstellar Flight Magazine or Read an interview with Andrea Kriz
The Wake-Up Call
"Humans are usually most active when the sun is bright, too, but they’re so wrapped up in their own lives they don’t notice anyone else. It’s almost like they’re sleepwalking." Read the full story at Interstellar Flight Magazine or Read an interview with Suhaila Sundararajan
Not the Knife Today
by Natachi Mez
"Those hands, transmitters of that virus. That sick thing that wants to make me sick thing. That sick thing ain’t in me but it made me sick, and in the sleep that I can’t sleep, my hands call out to me. They say, Love me. Hold me. Let me hold you. Let me be the hands I am." Read the full story at Interstellar Flight Magazine or Read an interview with Natachi Mez.
"Those hands, transmitters of that virus. That sick thing that wants to make me sick thing. That sick thing ain’t in me but it made me sick, and in the sleep that I can’t sleep, my hands call out to me. They say, Love me. Hold me. Let me hold you. Let me be the hands I am." Read the full story at Interstellar Flight Magazine or Read an interview with Natachi Mez.