It's Mouning in Free Fiction Land

It's Lightspeed and more in today's free fiction.  More later.






Fiction
• At The Colored Lens: "The Gyre" by Rebecca Schwarz.
      "In the middle of the Pacific Ocean the Gyre turns in a great lazy whorl. The current carries with it the trinkets of civilization: bottle tops, cigarette lighters, barnacled gym shoes, and Ziploc bags clear as jellyfish. Lost fishing buoys trail tangled nets, which in turn haul their unintended catch of dead fish, shredded Mylar balloons and schools of water bottles."

• At Lightspeed: "Mulberry Boys" by Margo Lanagan. Science Fiction.
      "So night comes on. I make my own fire, because why would I want to sit at Phillips’s, next to that pinned-down mulberry? Pan-flaps, can you make pan-flaps? Phillips plopped down a bag of fine town flour and gave me a look that said, Bet you can’t. And I’m certainly too important to make them. So pan-flaps I make in his little pan, and some of them I put hot meat-slice on, and some cheese, and some jam, and that will fill us, for a bit."

• At Lightspeed: "The Boy and the Box" by Adam-Troy Castro. Fantasy,
     "The boy looked like any other boy his age, except that, thanks to him, there had been for some time now no other boys his age, or of any other age. The elimination of all others had transformed him into the entirety of a subset that had once numbered billions. He was now the platonic ideal of his type, not just a boy, but the boy."

Flash Fiction

• At Every Day Fiction: "Fire and Light" by Sarah Crysl Akhtar. Fantasy.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Potato War" by David Stevenson. Science Fiction.

Audio Fiction

• At Clarkesworld: "I Tell Thee All, I Can No More" by Sunny Moraine. Science Fiction.
      "Just let it in. Let it watch you at night. Tell it everything it wants to know. These are the things it wants, and you’ll let it have those things to keep it around. Hovering over your bed, all sleek chrome and black angles that defer the gaze of radar. It’s a cultural amalgamation of one hundred years of surveillance. There’s safety in its vagueness. It resists definition. This is a huge part of its power. This is a huge part of its appeal."

• At Lightspeed: "The Boy and the Box" by Adam-Troy Castro. Fantasy,
     "The boy looked like any other boy his age, except that, thanks to him, there had been for some time now no other boys his age, or of any other age. The elimination of all others had transformed him into the entirety of a subset that had once numbered billions. He was now the platonic ideal of his type, not just a boy, but the boy."

• At Protecting Project Pulp: "The Witch-Doctor Seeks Vengeance" by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Adventure.
       "As he quenched his thirst, another denizen of the gloomy forest approached the stream along the path behind him. It was Numa, the lion, tawny of body and black of mane, scowling and sinister, rumbling out low, coughing roars. Tarzan of the Apes heard him long before he came within sight, but the ape-man went on with his drinking until he had had his fill; then he arose, slowly, with the easy grace of a creature of the wilds and all the quiet dignity that was his birthright."

Other Genres
• At Protecting Project Pulp: "Mitafri" by Eric H. Wilkinson. Pulp.