Apex #140, September/October 2023
“Whisper Songs” by Lyndsie Manusos
“Quietus” by Zohair
“Life Wager” by Lucy Zhang
“Kɛrozin Lamp Kurfi” by Victor Forna
“Junebug” by Sarah Hollowell
“Spitting Image” by Rich Larson
“Brainpink Umber” by Chelsea Sutton
“From This Beating Heart, From This Fractured Mind” by Elisabeth Ring
“Memories of the Old Sun” by Eugen Bacon (reprint, not reviewed)
“Through Dreams She Moves” by Tonya Liburd (reprint, not reviewed)
Reviewed by Victoria Silverwolf
Many of the eight new stories in this issue use fantasy concepts to create allegorical accounts of emotional states.
“Whisper Songs” by Lyndsie Manusos takes place in a world where birds are dying in large numbers. Government agents literally draw songs out of their bodies with syringes. A new mother breaks the law by keeping one of these syringes for herself, leading to a strange transformation.
Flashbacks depict the mother’s friend, who journeys to the place where the government stores these songs. The weird occurrence found in these sections is evocative, if not fully explained, but seems out of place with the rest of the story. The author has a gift for characterization that partially makes up for a climax that is predictable.
“Quietus” by Zohair is an episodic tale that depicts the various things, some seemingly miraculous, that happen as a coffin drifts down a river for many years. A man who is placed in the coffin at the beginning may or may not be the one who reappears at the end.
The style is cool and detached, with unnamed characters and the feeling of magic realism. The story also reminds me, in a subtle way, of the works of Jorge Luis Borges. One has the feeling that this haunting piece is meant as a parable, but its meaning is obscure. This is the author’s first published work of fiction, and it shows great promise and sophistication.
The narrator of “Life Wager” by Lucy Zhang is the daughter of a dragon and a human woman. She chooses to live on Earth instead of Heaven, becoming an expert player of mahjong. Her skill is so great that she becomes a favorite of the Emperor, who wishes to marry her.
This is a charming mythological tale that draws the reader into its fantasy version of ancient China. My only complaint is that it ends without a full resolution, and one wishes the story were longer.
In “Kɛrozin Lamp Kurfi” by Victor Forna, a supernatural being in the form of a storyteller steals a child. The boy’s mother pursues the creature, using her own power of creating stories to save her son.
This tale is more disjointed that I have made it sound, with multiple short sections of text and a story within the story. It is obviously an allegory for the power of storytelling but is otherwise difficult to follow.
In “Junebug” by Sarah Hollowell, a group of friends travel to visit a woman in a hospice. A mysterious incident causes all electronic devices to stop working and leads to a massive traffic jam, delaying their arrival. Meanwhile, the dying woman contacts them in a sort of dream world.
The author writes in an informal, slangy style and successfully portrays young, media savvy people. The story has great emotional appeal, along with wistful nostalgia for childhood friendships. The weird event that causes electronics to break down is left unexplained and seems irrelevant, given the otherwise supernatural nature of the plot.
“Spitting Image” by Rich Larson is a very brief horror story in which two boys visit a well that returns anything thrown into it, but changed in an eerie way. The climax is effectively creepy, but the story goes on for a while beyond it, making the conclusion anticlimactic. Although this chiller is only 900 words long, it might be better at an even shorter length.
“Brainpink Umber” by Chelsea Sutton is the first of two very short stories inspired by the theme “heart of wood/brain of glass.” Sunlight on a woman’s head causes her to lose memories. An even stranger event occurs after she dies and is buried.
The premise can be seen as a metaphor for dementia, as the woman eventually loses all sense of her identity. What happens after her death is more mysterious, although it may have something to say about the way we remember those we have lost.
The theme is treated more literally in “From This Beating Heart, From This Fractured Mind” by Elisabeth Ring. A man with a wooden heart and a woman with a glass brain work at home via computer. The pressures of work and home life cause the woman to spit out parts of her brain.
Possibly inspired by the increase in telecommuting during the pandemic, the woman’s experience can be read as a metaphor for an anxiety attack. The man’s heart, that beats as regularly as a clock, might be interpreted as his reliability during a time of crisis, although this is not certain. In any case, this tiny work is interesting, if minor.
Victoria Silverwolf notes that one of the stories labeled as flash fiction is actually longer than one of the stories not so labeled.