Flash Fiction Online #96, September 2021

“Echo Echo Heartbeat” by Beth Goder

“A Girl Forages for Mushrooms” by Ruth Joffre

“When the Trees Spoke Back” by Taylor Rae

“Beneath Her Sweet Roots” by Sylvia Heike (reprint, not reviewed)

Reviewed by Victoria Silverwolf

All the stories in this themed issue, including the reprint, are fantasies involving forests.

The narrator of “Echo Echo Heartbeat” by Beth Goder searches in the woods for a lost heart. Three roads lead to three different hearts, but none of them are the one the narrator is missing. This quiet, poetic tale appears to be an allegory for discovering one’s true self, and accepting the fact that dreams do not always come true. Its subdued mood of melancholy may appeal to some readers more than others.

In “A Girl Forages for Mushrooms” by Ruth Joffre, a divorced man takes his daughter into the forest in search of edible fungi. She discovers his strange secret. This otherwise realistic story ends with a striking image of an extraordinary transformation. The intent may be to provide a metaphor for the man’s emotions after his divorce, but this is not completely clear.

“When the Trees Spoke Back” by Taylor Rae takes place in a magical world of sentient forests and living cities. The narrator’s mother teaches her the language of trees, while an invading city threatens the forest’s existence. Clearly meant as a parable for the encroachment of civilization on nature, this story has a dreamy, unreal mood, partly due to the author’s frequent use of hyphens to create new terms from other words, such as “bone-beads” and “sun-cycles.”

Victoria Silverwolf lives in the woods.