Flash Fiction Online #122, November 2023

“The First Day of the Week” by Carina Bissett

“The Anatomy of Witchdaughter” by Nadine Aurora Tabing

“Downfall” by Heather Truett (nongenre, not reviewed)

“In Search of Body” by Yelena Crane (reprint, not reviewed)

Reviewed by Victoria Silverwolf

“The First Day of the Week” by Carina Bissett is a very difficult story to describe. If I understood the premise correctly, the days of the week are incarnated as seven sisters, in a vague manner that somehow involves technology. They are also deities. The narrator is Sunday, who changes her relationship with her sisters in a way that alters the universe.

As may be evident, I found this strange tale quite confusing. Even if its full meaning escapes me, it certainly creates a haunting mood.

In “The Anatomy of Witchdaughter” by Nadine Aurora Tabing, a graduate student dissects a mummy that was obtained illegally. To say anything else about the simple, predictable plot of this supernatural horror story would be to spoil it.

Besides being a familiar tale of terror, the work can be read as an indictment of the way that scholars sometimes lack respect for other cultures in their search of knowledge. The allegory is not overdone, at least, and the story is mostly a typical chiller.

Victoria Silverwolf read two short books tonight.