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.

The Future Has Fiction: “The Math Problem” by NM Whitley

The math problem leapt off the page and began its spree of terror. “…the fuck?” cried one eyewitness, speaking on condition of anonymity. The item was brief, a mere five lines, and as Bret read aloud in the kitchen, his sister Nan smiled, whether from amusement or because she’d managed to spoon peas into her…
Poetry from the Future: Three Terms of Service by Sean F. Munro

TERMS OF SERVICE: Grip Semiotics & Class Diagnostics Grip pressure reveals your buyological gender, thumb-to-text tension, page-turn velocity, forearm torque, and knuckle-crack frequency. Palm sweat salinity indicates probable voting patterns. Your grip signature is compared against 4.7 billion normalized datapoints; deviations trigger Ergonomic Compliance Audits. Suspected non-binary grips are flagged for Re-Education Modules administered via…
Fiction from the Future: “New York, New York: A Wikipedia Page” by Subrina Moorley

New York, New York From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on October 22, 2046. “New York” and “New York City” redirects here. For other uses, see Old New York. New York, New York is the largest amusement park of its kind in the world. The park is located on…
Poetry from the Future: “A Wave” by Jared Sagar

Sometimes a whole year slips by. Verity said the Inuit died as ice closed around their meat-holes. There is always skin, skin on ruins, trawls in chlorine. I wave moronically at widow peaks, a window’s orange fire, at bone receding cringe, pink telluric kids inspecting jetsam in the illusional pool. My reptilian friend, welcome, can…
The Future Has Poetry: Three from Arcanum by Daniel Beauregard

a drunkeneye roamsthe hearthwherean idiotsitslike a fishout of water the fire is unlitand the idiot is cold what an idiot! * down by Frog Lakethere’s an old stonethat looks like acat’s head a deflated balloondecrescendo out oftime with raven’shair the bubbles go downby Cat’s Head Lakelooking for valveswith which tospeak a moderate shift insediment yields…
Poetry from the Future: “Landlords” by Grace Lynn

Here’s how you inherit the future. You stand here searching for lost parts but only find people rehearsing gravity. They make syllables of promise then rise into air. They are pretty & distant & will remain this way. Will let you down but never remember. If speech heals silence, it’s only in your head. Only…
Fiction from the Future: “The Passenger” by Michael Sheehan

Caleb came at his appointed time but was surprised there was a line, there was a crowd, a disentangling order of people pressing toward the barrier. Stupidly he’d thought the offworld opportunity, now that it had finally come, would be something cleaner: he’d show at his time, be screened, show his repopulation report and pass,…
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…