Tag: HFR Archives

Fiction from The Future: “Dog Days” by Michael Chin

From back before all the dogs were gone, I remember Waffles. The first time Waffles stole a waffle from Dad’s plate (the reason we renamed him from Rover). Waffles barking from the far side of the front door when I keyed into the house. The way Waffles smelled when he was wet—moist and mildew-y in…
“The Burial Party”: Vol. 9 Original Fiction by Adrian Van Young

In her invalid’s bunk on the steamer Virginia, the Nurse cannot stop throwing up. When the boat is in motion, it does not afflict her. She could stand on the prow with her face in the wind. But when the steamboat lies at anchor in the hot airlessness of the day, churning faintly, the Nurse’s…
“The Man Who Smells of Lemons”: A Poem from the Future by Jude Marr

The man who smells of lemons dresses in brown and red. He stands, still as a bleeding tree, in a city parking lot. Every day he plants himself in his usual spot, where tarmac cracks radiate outward from his feet, like roots. Every day he stands and waits for a white-hot sun to crack open…
Three Verses from the Vortex(t): Poetry from the Future by Jake Syersak

Identity Vortex [ “Can Rivers Be People Too? : Inside the Radical Movement to Gain Rights for Ecosystems—and Save the Environment.” (THE NEW REPUBLIC: May. 9. 2018) ] that this garden should fall may it fall less the weight of a sigh & more the weight of scythes the rivers read the lips of…
A Story from The Future: “Affliction” by Angela Woodward

I have fled to a floating island of trash to tell you stories of the peaceful north woods. Here’s one—A man woke up early, disturbed by his uneasy conscience, and went down to the stream. It was still so dark, the path appeared as a blacker indentation in the ground, the leaves and sticks and mud…
The Future Has Comics: “The Lonely Alien” by Marc S. Cohen

*Ed.’s Note: click images to view larger sizes. The Lonely Alien Marc S. Cohen is an artist, writer, and musician born in the United States and residing in Toronto, Canada. He makes little pen and ink drawings on existentially topical themes like alienation, dislocation and the construction of selfhood in a shifting semantic landscape. His…
The Future Has Photography: “Men with Their Guns 2” by Margo Berdeshevsky

*Ed.’s Note: click image to view larger size. Margo Berdeshevsky is the author of: BEFORE THE DROUGHT (Glass Lyre Press/2017). She is the winner of Fiction Collective Two’s American Book Review/Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize: “a ‘thrillingly cutting-edge’ book of sensual short-short stories with photographs by the author.” (Robert Olen Butler on Beautiful Soon Enough).
Fiction from The Future: “Rabid Dogs” by Jason Arment

Time before the alarms, when violence was only overseas, seemed disconnected from the now—silent countdown. Clark glanced at his watch. Only two minutes left. He wished things could go back to the way they were, when his only worries had been never amounting to anything and loneliness. But something had changed. Now every sixty minutes…
A Story from The Future by C.A. Schaefer: “To Whom Will You Seem Beautiful”

I am eighteen when I decide. I stand by the bed of the creek, watching the light on the surface of the water, when a man steps down beside me. He takes my face in his hands and turns it, side to side, as I might inspect a puppy or an antique, and then says,…