Category: The Future

Posing utopic, apocalyptic, dystopic, or superhero solutions to “The Future.” Writers depict futuristic alternative worlds in politics, environment, gender, religion, sexuality, or ethnography.

Poetry from the Future: “Beads of Time” by Dmitry Blizniuk (Translated by Sergey Gerasimov)

It’s getting dark, slantwise, just a notch from eternity.The ballerina of reverietakes slowly offher pointes of silence.Left … now the right one … A long sigh … A fence; birds made of twisted iron hungrily peck the rust. A black cat glides along the façade.The radiant rapiers of electric light are trembling;the streetlights in fencer’s masks(the left hand…
The Future Has Poetry: “Water Tastes Like Metal” by David Anson Lee

The tap tastes like the factory that promised a hundred jobsand delivered a century of residue.We boil and filter and boil againuntil only the sediment remembers the river. My neighbor grows potatoes in a tub because the soil refused apologies.His hands are callused maps of a season gone wrong.Children rinse candy in bottled water and…
Fiction Review: Emily Hall Reads Kristina Ten’s Debut Collection Tell Me Yours, I’ll Tell You Mine

Kristina Ten’s debut short-story collection, Tell Me Yours, I’ll Tell You Mine, is filled with female protagonists who refuse to acquiesce. Delightfully defiant, and reminiscent of Dahlia de la Cerda’s riotous Reservoir Bitches, Ten’s characters shrug off taboos and aren’t afraid of using violence to ensure their autonomy. Across the twelve stories in Tell Me…
The Future Has Poetry: “Tuesdays”‘ by R.C. Blenis

The boot descends. The wet thudof sole on skin, the small suckof leather peeling from flesh;the metronome of Mondays.Air squeezed sideways through a mouththat used to make music. The wheeze,the wet whistle, the catch between blows,pressure pressing into softness, the bodybeaten to a beat, a blood-beat drumming downto this dumb thud, this pulp, this pulse.This.…
Poetry from the Future: “salamander exfil” by Dennis Hinrichsen

slept in the hostilewoke in the hostile buffalo nickel on a hard rail glooming more and morethe gesture jackals behind every door midnight moonlight with too much metal in it when will it be cowboy again? lariats of oxygenand a straight shot wordwordwordnot this crawl space antler cowering I am myself as potent as a…
Poetry from the Future: “Makeup Revolution Highlighter in Supercharge Fever” by Georgia Slavec

Today in preparation for the apocalypseI memorize the labelof my favorite cosmetic highlighter.If I leave my room explodingsparkles, do not regard me. We in the darkare species: endless, like jazz, thoughtsthat will be told. Clear black bottlesof ink with the potential to beanything, or simply to definethe eyes, whose dramasrenew. I hear we’ve got twowarm…
Poetry from the Future: “You Will Click Here Now” by Wes Civilz

Click here now. Click this glowing button now And mute the news and pause the videos And watch the calendar expand anew With layered glitchy dummy text imposed. Now kill all calendar events (deleting Events brings all to front). Expand. Repeat. Recurring weekly thing. Click. Oops. Repeating Event goes daily now so go complete Your…
Rodrigo Toscano: Two Poems from the Future

Itinerant Tendon Already tight, the tendon got tighterLosing even more strength, already weak.A sudden demand on its core functionCircular rotation at ten degreesGive or take, exceeded its base limit.A micro tear thus began its journeyWidening its path steadily to the bone.Upon arrival, the tendon snapped off(A simile on the way that went downWas not found,…
Writing from the Future: “The Lemon Game” by Brittany Redd

You are a regular person just trying to survive in a world where life only ever gives you lemons. Sometimes, you get a lot of lemons; sometimes only a few. It is up to you to decide what you do with them. You can make lemonade. You can make something else if you want. Whatever you try to…