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: Four Illustrations by Selene dePackh

*Ed.’s Note: click images to view larger sizes. Illuminated Passages 11-a Illuminated Passages 25 PTSD 2nd Restatement PTSD 3rd Restatement Selene dePackh creates innovative story lines that expand the science fiction genre of cyberpunk into an entirely new subcategory which she calls Neuropunk, which draws on her own autism to immerse the reader in a…
A Short Story from James Brubaker’s Black Magic Death Sphere: (Science) Fictions: “H.G. Wells and The Present Crisis in Human Affairs”

Sometime in 1935: Imagine Herbert George Wells sitting on a stack of wood in a soundstage at Worton Hall in Isleworth. He watches an army of carpenters build a façade of the future out of cheap wood while he awaits the arrival of his film’s set designer, Vincent Korda. The carpenters swarm around Wells, every…
Jacqueline Boucher Poetry: “Radioactive”

In the aftermath, the first things to grow are the horns. We fleshy ibex in threadbare sweaters clash in subcutaneous bump and grind, in hemorrhage & broken bone. I leave one eye at the foot of a gutted soda fountain, tin of ravioli clutched in my fist like pennies. Before: we got gas there, swapped…
“Puzzle-Piece Blues,” original short fiction by Selene dePackh

*Ed.’s Note: click image to view larger size. [harsh black and white comix-style cyberpunk image of feminine face repeating within itself from multiple angles] Puzzle-Piece Blues Case Study [delete]* Bear in mind that I’m a suspect witness. Everything I say is subject to erasure. I make for deaf ears, pressure-popping like plastique in an airline…
Fiction: Marleen S. Barr’s “A Feminist Extraterrestrial Special Forces Commander Causes Trump to Become Gone with the Wind”

The civilian body armor market was valued at $72.2 million in 2016 and is expected to more than double by 2024, according to Grand View Research.—Tiffany Hsu, “With Schools as Targets, Security Outfits Flourish,” The New York Times, March 5, 2018, A17. I was sitting in the eye doctor’s waiting room scared to death because I…
This Is a Dream, a one act sci-fi screenplay by Success Akpojotor

CLOSE ON: A book is received by a black hand, and ensconces on the decorated table. INSERT. COVER PAGE TIME PILL BY DAVID OYEWOLE BACK TO SCENE The black hand opens the novel’s verso page and inscribes a legible and beautiful autograph across it; and returns it, to the Yoruba woman, in her mid-thirties, who…
Four Illustrations by Jon Read

*Ed.’s Note: click images to view larger sizes. Smoke Signals Inside Fun Lake Mutant Love Mutant Attack A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Jon Read is a graduate of Kent State University. His style is influenced by visionary folk art and neo-expressionism. His paintings portray a strong narrative, telling stories heavily influenced by comic books, cult films,…
Fiction: Daniel J. Cecil’s “The Stages of Orbit”

-1- Jonathan was drawn back by a force when the airlock opened. It was the vision of the kitchen floor, which was another opening, and another loss of air—something he wasn’t quite expecting the weight of. That day was like this one. The lack of oxygen was what he felt. When his friend returned home…
Fiction: “Correcting President Barnes” by Kelly Ann Jacobson

We called him The Editor. He arrived from the sky—black briefcase in hand, suit cinched tightly at the neck with a black tie—and after a flawless landing on the roof, entered the building in a few short, purposeful strides. He looked like a man, and if you touched his skin, he would feel like a…