Charles Payseur Reviews Short Fiction: Flash Fiction Online, Diabolical Plots, and Fantasy

Flash Fiction Online 6/23
Diabolical Plots 6/23
Fantasy 6/23

Flash Fiction Online celebrated a month of fantasy stories in June, including Daniel Galef’s strange and captivating “The He-Bear”, which follows a man enjoying some time out in the country, away from the concerns of the busy hustle of city life. Until, sent on a walk with a different guest at the estate (and a terribly ob­noxious one at that), he encounters something dangerous and unexpected. Galef does a great job of keeping things just this side of the absurd, allowing the rather arrogant and casual narrator to confront something serious and find, through that confrontation, a new outlook. It’s the most comedic of the originals in the issue and after some of the more tragic tales that preceded it, its humor was greatly appreciated.

The June Diabolical Plots features a pair of new takes on monsters, from vampires to, in the case of M.L. Krishnan’s “Interstate Mohinis”, the mohini. Or possibly the mohini, as the main character of the story isn’t quite sure what she’s become after being murdered. What she knows is hunger, sated only when she devours men who would seek to abuse her – at least, until she meets a woman, a Beautiful One, who moves her in ways deeper than hunger. But the Beautiful One is also under the power of a brutish man, and Krishnan does not flinch away from show­ing that in a world so driven by hunger, beauty and compassion are fragile things. What the story explores in part is how monsters often result from the perversion of justice. They are the symptoms of a corruption that normalizes violence and violation, finding in those like the narrator a freedom that can only come from a release from the world, because peace within it has been made impossible. Fans of monster stories and horror will not want to miss this.

Fantasy explores the robust range of the genre in June with pieces ranging from science fantasy half-kittens to twists on candy houses and fairy to Kim M. Munsamy’s take on curses and ifrits in “Things Handed Down”. The story follows a family and generations of women who are plagued by dreams of an ifrit that terrorizes and tries to hurt them. It’s only through a charm that the dreams are soothed and a person protected, and with the family needing to move, losing their home, it’s the charm they hold onto most, because while it works for only one person at a time, it’s a precious inheritance. Munsamy moves the story along smoothly, building up this long history to give the full weight of what is being passed down and what it costs, confront­ing readers with a grim situation that’s still not without warmth or love. Tahnia Barrie joins the issue with a poem, “Holy Dyad, Till Sunup”, which speaks of movement, of a musician and turtle making a journey together – through water and space. The piece is strange, fluid in its language and feel, almost breathing in the way the lines expand and contract. And while it’s not a long poem, there is an ellipse inside it, an indication that there might be more unseen, below a surface perhaps, that invites readers in while also setting a kind of deadline, the magic here one of darkness, dispelled by the rising sun but also resolving in it, in the return of warmth and light. Barrie leads readers on a beautiful journey, with a lot to dig into.

This review and more like it in the August 2023 issue of Locus.

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