Flash Fiction Online #109, October 2022
“Every Shard, Every Speck, Every Particle” by Emma Brankin
“In a World without Bluebells” by Dafydd McKimm
“Directions to the House of Unnumbered Stars” by Devin Miller
“Sub Rosa” by Samantha Murray (reprint, not reviewed)
Reviewed by Victoria Silverwolf
Three new allegorical fantasies appear in the issue.
In “Every Shard, Every Speck, Every Particle” by Emma Brankin, a dance student failing to achieve success surrounds herself with mirrors, leading to a strange transformation.
Although a content warning suggests that this story deals with eating disorder and body image, it can be more broadly interpreted as a portrait of obsession with one’s ambitions and the crushing sensation of losing one’s dreams. The conclusion might be seen as the main character’s psychological breakdown or as a genuinely supernatural event. In either case, it may leave the reader with more questions than answers.
The narrator of “In a World without Bluebells” by Dafydd McKimm wears a flower of a certain color after observing someone else with one. Soon everyone sports such a bloom. When people wear flowers of a different color, violence erupts.
The premise is a metaphor for the way in which loyalty to a particular group and resentment of another can lead to fanaticism and bloody conflict. (The difference in color may remind American readers of the split between red voters and blue voters.) The theme is an important one, related in a satiric manner than some may find too obvious.
“Directions to the House of Unnumbered Stars” by Devin Miller relates the process one must undertake to reach a mystical figure who will draw one a map of one’s own constellation, unrecognized by others.
From the very beginning, it is evident that the constellations are symbols for nontraditional gender identities and family structures. The story is written in an evocative manner and provides a worthy message, but even for a very short work is somewhat repetitious in its lesson.
Victoria Silverwolf likes flowers.