Story Du Jour #10

All Story Du Jour tales are available online and free! A small presentation in these trying times.

Flash Fiction Online

"Keeping Time with the Joneses" - by Wendy Nikel

521 words

Trouble on the block after the neighbors splurge on fancy scientific equipment. 

Here's a sample of the writing:

"Initially, no one complained about the Joneses’ extravagant time-themed parties. The machine spun and flashed into all hours of the night as neighborhood couples in flapper dresses and top hats slipped bottles of SKYY vodka into ’20s speakeasies. The binge-watch of the first five Super Bowls was all anyone could talk about for weeks, and even Mrs. Martin herself had to reluctantly admit that Oklahoma! was better with the original cast."

What next? Something. I assure you. Something will be next.

Today's Short Story Recommendation

"Time Reveals the Heart"

As I'm reading more short stories to better my own, I've decided to share my discoveries with the

Clarkesworld Sci Fi and Fantasy

half-dozen regular readers of this blog.

Today's offering hails from Clarkesworld: "Time Reveals the Heart" by Derek Kunsken. (His name contains an umlaut over the u, but I can't figure out how to add one.)

Here's the opening paragraph of this science fiction tale:

"Guo Lěi mounted the stairs to his mother’s apartment at seven in the morning. He hadn’t visited in two weeks; he never knew what he would find. It was early, but he had a launch today, maybe several, and no matter what, he tried to see his mother before every launch, just in case. When silence answered his knocks, he used his key."

That's pretty nifty writing. You've got your foreshadowing, the knowledge that the protagonist's work is dangerous, and that his mother's health is an issue all bundled in the action of knocking on the door. It'd take me a page and half to get all that out. 

A story exploring time travel, addiction, the dangers of altered perception, and the worth of reality, this is a quick read, not too heavy on dialogue with nice descriptive touches such as "His voice sounded like falling drops of water, shapeless, wobbling in free fall, transparent."

Weighing in at 5804 words, "Time Reveals the Heart" is available online and as a podcast at the Clarkesword site.