“I said, ‘I’m not in trouble about being gay but I do have trouble identifying with those queens,’ and then a queen overturned that police car and changed my life.”

—Edith Windsor

Issue 2021.58

Flash fiction

• ‘The Bone Prophet’, Hester J. Rook - art by Dr. T. Eratopo

Short stories

• ‘Stitched’, Sarah Salcedo - art by Sarah Salcedo
• ‘The Derelict’, Nicasio Andres Reed - art by Eric Asaris
• ‘The Mountain’s Wife’, Jennifer R. Donohue - art by Katharine A. Viola
• ‘Desolation Corner’, William Squirrell - art by L.E. Badillo

Poetry

• ‘Not for Sale, Used Asteroid, One Owner’, Mary Soon Lee - art by Fluffgar
• ‘Until a Hundred Generations of People Have Departed’, E. Saxey - art by Cécile Matthey
• ‘Of Weeds and Witches’, Shelly Jones - art by Jason Baltazar

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What sort of a world are we leaving behind us?

What will historians, and especially archaeologists of other species, say when they look back at the material remains we have left? Will we be a sorry grease spot in the geological record? Will our self-important and self-serving words be read as epic poetry, or will they be read at all? Will our hollow homes, our fossilised remains, our poisoned landscapes, our mass extinction events, tell a story?

Or will we tell our own stories—in sustainable words, in magic thread, in space-faring vessels, in animated scrap metal companions, in legacy, in memorial, in empathy?

The stories and poems in this issue do all of these things, and while we cannot say how far into the future they will be read, we can enjoy them today. Kudos to Jennifer R. Donohue, Shelly Jones, Nicasio Andres Reed, Hester J. Rook, Sarah Salcedo, E. Saxey, Mary Soon Lee and William Squirrell for their immortal words, and glory to Eric Asaris, L.E. Badillo, Jason Baltazar, Fluffgar, Cécile Matthey, Sarah Salcedo, Katharine A. Viola and Valeria Vitale for the artworks that tell stories alongside them.

Djibril al-Ayad, July 2021

Comment on the stories in this issue on the TFF Press blog.