Flash Fiction Online #103, April 2022

“The Annual Conference of the Ladies in White” by Stephanie Feldman

“The Perfect Brick of Feta” by Sam F. Weiss

“On the Anniversary of Your Passing” by Thomas K. Carpenter

“A Midsummer Night’s Abduction” by Jennie Evenson (reprint, not reviewed)

“The Social Phobic’s Guide to Interior Design” by Sarah Grey (reprint, nongenre, not reviewed)

Reviewed by Victoria Silverwolf

The three original stories in this issue involve protagonists who have strange encounters that change their lives.

The narrator of “The Annual Conference of the Ladies in White” by Stephanie Feldman flees an abusive man and winds up at a hotel where the ghosts of women have a convention. She wonders if she is doomed to become one of them, but finally learns why she can see them when other living people cannot.

The way in which the meeting of the dead women resembles an ordinary conference suggests a light tone not quite in keeping with the story’s message. The premise is interesting, and might have been better explored at greater length, allowing the ghosts to become individual characters rather than just a list of multiple legendary figures.

In “The Perfect Brick of Feta” by Sam F. Weiss, a man who works in advertising allows a grocery store commercial to connect directly with his brain, more out of curiosity about a competitor’s work than anything else. The vivid experience he has of another person’s memory of cooking an enticing dish causes him to reconsider his rather bland lifestyle.

The speculative technology suggests a satiric look at advertising, but this is more of an intimate tale of a character learning how to appreciate the good things in life. It’s a pleasant, if very simple, fable. The best part may be the description of the food.

“On the Anniversary of Your Passing” by Thomas K. Carpenter consists of several very brief sections of text full of futuristic concepts. The narrator addresses multiple reappearances of a lost lover, eventually understanding that these are alternative versions from other universes, released when the original disappeared during a failed experiment.

The author is very generous with science fiction content in this story, revealing a vivid imagination. The ending is enigmatic, and raises more questions than it answers.

Victoria Silverwolf thinks the recipe described in one of these stories sounds delicious.