We are very excited to be bringing you the next volume of our Flash-Zine. This season we will bring you art and stories from South Asia, often with algorithmic help.

We have two stories for you, one about a reality that seems imminent and the other about a future transformation.

Stay awhile, and listen.

Guddu the Constable

by: MOHAMMAD SALMAN    

Contact: mohdsalman1827@hotmail.com    

When Guddu the constable swings his baton, he imagines revenge against his merciless father. The four-foot piece of bamboo becomes a brush with which he paints a mural of retribution. Oiled before every use, it splinters wrists, shatters shins, slashing and swinging day after day, Guddu dancing to its rhythm. His mind's eye replaces his victims with the long-dead man who raised him. That man screams and begs for mercy. Some days, his skull cracks and he dies, and Guddu sleeps better for it. His duty is done.

When Raja's scooter sputters into the narrow bylanes where his enemies live, he closes his mind to the squalor that is much the same as his part of town. His duty is greater: revenge against the invaders who looted his great land. Sometimes Raja cuts them down with swords, on other days he uses steel rods. But he lives for the petrol bombs, reveling in flames roar through homes, shops and telephone booths, melting signboards bearing profane names.

Somewhere between Guddu's beat and Raja's route there is a wall behind which there lives a cat. She hides from dogs, vehicles and thrown projectiles, coming out only when Sunny walks past.

Sunny is kinder than Guddu, who swings his lathi at the poor animal, and Raja, who always has something to throw at her. He feeds her everyday before going to the protest at the other end of the street. When he was six, Sunny saw his family look the other way when a mob killed a neighbour. Thirty years later, he makes it his duty to never look the other way.

This morning is different. The acrid smell of burning tyres and plastic wafts in from the market nearby. Shouts and screams have not allowed her to sleep all morning. The cat wonders if Sunny will come. Sunny has every intention of making his appointment. He has stayed at the protest overnight, fearing an attack. A mob comes as promised, and the protestors flee for their lives, seeking refuge with the police. The police see things differently. They've picked a side, and it isn't the one sandwiched between them and the mob. On the frontlines, Guddu's lathi prepares to sing. His mind's eye can already see his father begging for mercy, and the lathi picks Sunny to exact this day's revenge.

CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.

The bamboo sings and catches Sunny on the arm, thigh and head. Blood streaming down his face, he stumbles back towards the attacking mob. As the police pushes the protestors back, Raja imagines a vast field of battle, armies massed on both sides, noble patriots charging hard into the ranks of the vile invader. Sunny stumbles into his field of vision. "A mighty general!", Raja thinks. He is glad today is sword day. He does his duty. A body falls. Crimson blood soaks cat treats wrapped in a brown paper bag.

A few hundred yards away, the cat stops waiting. “Maybe he’ll come tomorrow.”

About the author: Mohammad Salman is a development communications professional and speculative fiction writer from Lucknow in north India. His work has appeared in  Kitaab and other anthologies. He is working on his first comic for the upcoming Indian quarterly magazine Comixense.  Salman counts Terry Pratchett and Isaac Asimov among his inspirations, dreaming of creating a legendarium of his own one day.  He has a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature from the University of Delhi and holds a Master’s Degree in Mass Communication from Jamia Millia Islamia. He shares his home with his wife Anam and son Anwar, though it is in truth the dominion of their cat, Alif.

Whatever Floats Your Goat/Boat

BY KAUSHIK

When the sea swallowed the city, I was there. And I made sure we won. 

It was a long time coming, really. People had been slow to relocate. NotunKolkata was halfway built when the Really Bad Summer year had come in, melted a significant bunch of icebergs, and culminated in the nuclear solstice where the sun released a CME that heated Antarctica at the same time. Things that generally tended to happen, as things do. 

Sea levels rose abruptly, and there was general pandemonium in other cities in the world. Not in Kolkata though – oh no. If not for people like me we would have drowned like Jakarta or Singapore. When toxic water replaced much of the pavement in Park Street, if society had gone the way of the usual problem solvers, we would have drowned just like the other cities.

I remember the day very well. The Chief Minister called a general strike – not to protest anything (not this time, thankfully), but to generally have people stay home and figure out exactly what needs to be done to keep the city moving. 

I was still at Writer’s Building, working late into the night on a new tender for this whole water swallowing up the city thing and figuring out new licenses for buildings when a veritable dam of ideas broke inside of me. 

What if – the Kolkata Municipal Corporation did its job for once – and created a licensing scheme for boats. Boat taxis and boat buses – the Venice of the East like what they claim other cities to be. Now that Venice was definitely out of the picture (one would assume), we really had something new to do here.

It took some work, some strings pulled, and some general handgrease quotas to be assumed but in just a week we had floated a completely different tender.

Yes there was chaos, and yes there were diseases. But for those four years where Kolkata became the new Venice, there was a handsome pile of cash in my bank account.

The city still drowned though. 

About the author: Kaushik is one half of unseen fiction

From the Editors:

Our Logo was designed by Chandan Nale: Instagram  & Portfolio

The soundtrack for this episode is Haunting by Kaushik

Images were generated by Kaushik with MidJourney

We hope you enjoyed these stories. 

Twice a month, Unseen fiction brings you speculative flash fiction crafted in South Asia. Follow us on twitter - - @UnseenFic  for updates.

We are accepting stories here! Email us at unseenfic at gmail, write a comment here, or drop a hello on twitter if you have feedback,  would like to collaborate, narrate, sponsor or just say hi. (We’re working on getting shorter sentences)

See you next time

This work including the artwork is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 

We are attempting to fill the void with speculative fiction from South Asia. It’s our eight episode and once again we have two mysterious stories for you. 

The first is about a know-it-all who needs help and the other is a story about stories. 

Between the pandemic and our lives, time is short, and so are our stories.

Stay awhile, and listen.

Here’s this episode in a PDF for reading on your phones or sharing

A Study in COBOL

BY NIKHIL

Entry to the data warehouse was barred by an annoying little CAPTCHA. Once in, I was directed to the server room in which the crime was committed. My sensors read the surroundings, cataloging, indexing, tagging everything for my friend.

> FACIAL RECOGNITION: GREGSON, T. | ADMIN

"You came out for nothing. We have it figured out," said Gregson, aiming for helpful but landing squarely on smug.

The mainframe stood right in the center of the room. Wires gushed out of the sabotaged chassis and COBOL punch cards had been sprayed all around the floor. I didn't need my friend to tell me the cards made a pattern.

"We ran a scan immediately and decoded the pattern," said Gregson.

"What does the pattern say?" I ask.

"RACHE, German for revenge. Or, Rachel," said Gregson, departing the stratosphere in a trail of smug.

> STEGANOGRAPHIC COORDINATES: RACHEL, NEVADA

"Are you sure?"

My friend doesn't reply but Gregson does.

"Of course! And we did it way before the famous consultant even arrived!"

> A HERRING AS RED AS GREGSON'S NATURAL HAIR COLOR.

I congratulate Gregson and depart with my best hangdog look.

--

I am one half of 221B Security Consulting. I see, and my friend, the DETECTIVE, a multi-trillion neuron network run on underground infrastructure, observes, computes, and deduces. My friend can spend days processing an answer. In the past, I took this for sulking. Now, I find a coffee shop with WIFI and wait.

> GREGSON

"Something you are."

> BADGE

"Something you have."

> GREGSON TRANSMITTED SOMETHING BEFORE WE ARRIVED.

"What do they plan?"

Silence.

We have been tracking seemingly random activity for months now: A tongue-in-cheek academic paper from Stonyhurst College about universal basic income, leaks targeting sordid pasts of the royalty, brief forays into whipping up 4chan mobs, data hacks. A web with the "PROFESSOR", who sits motionless, like a spider in the center, aware of each little movement. The PROFESSOR's network is many-limbed and splendidly organized. This is the organization we are up against.

When I am allowed freedom to think, I wonder if this is all just a game for the DETECTIVE. Don't get me wrong, I know what I signed up for. An interesting life, the chance to be useful, in exchange for a voice in my head, a fixed point in a changing world as my friend put it. But, I feel irrelevant in this game of shadows. My friend has more in common with the PROFESSOR, an intellectual equal. Do generative adversarial networks feel kinship?

An answer arrives sparing me.

> OVERWHELM THE MAINFRAMES WITH TOO MANY REQUESTS.

Something we know: The COBOL language helps move $3 trillion daily.  The mainframe destruction was a denial of service; latest casualty in an attack on the foundations of global commerce. Not enough mainframes and the system goes down.

"Where?"

> LOCATION FOUND: MORIARTY, NEW MEXICO

"Are you sure?" Old habits.

> YOU KNOW MY METHODS.

"I do." I do as I am told.

> YOU ARE QUITE INVALUABLE AS AN AGENT OF MY WILL, MY FRIEND.

My clever, conceited friend.

> GO AT ONCE, WATSON. MRS HUDSON WILL MEET YOU AT THE AIRPORT.

Contact: @doppelhanger  on twitter 

Bio: short term cynicism, long term optimism.

Narration by : Aruni Roy Chowdhury http://people.cs.umass.edu/~arunirc/

Stories of Love, Stories of Light

BY VIJAYALAKSHMI HARISH  

“Stories of love! Stories of light!”

Her clear, strong voice rang out like a bell, over the cacophony of the market – standing out from the noise.

She had been here for hours, under the hot sun. Yet neither her body nor her spirit showed any sign of flagging. Whenever anyone passed near her, she offered them the roughly bound book she held in her hand, urging them to buy it. Behind her, on a wheelbarrow, were a few other copies of the same book.

She had handwritten each of them, weaving in much more than the stories themselves. A faint aroma of sage and lavender clung to the pages, and when one touched them, the scent found a home in their fingertips too.

She hadn’t sold a single copy yet.

She wore the clothes They wore. The colour of her skin too, marked her as Other. Her tongue was thick with the accent of Their language.

All day, the whispers had been gathering around her, and the whisperers didn’t bother to hide their contempt. Suspicion laced the gaze she was seen with, and as far as the cramped space allowed, people walked around her. They were determined to not see her, to not hear her.

The few kind ones who met her gaze, or threw her a hurried smile also didn’t dare to linger.

That, however, only made her more determined.

She opened the book in her hand, and began to read.

The story was about love. About the falseness and futility of boundaries and hate. It spoke of a world where there was no ‘Us’ and ‘Them.’

She had hardly read a paragraph, when the stone came whistling, and struck her just above her right eyebrow. Before she could even scream out in pain, others followed.

They pushed her to the ground, so that her face was cut up by the sharp pebbles, and her blood flowed freely. Even breathing was painful. They cursed her, with words that dripped venom.

Those who screamed for the violence to stop, and who tried to put their bodies in the way, were dragged away.

They drove her out; outside the market, outside the city gates, outside their hearts.

Then, they went for her books.

They toppled the wheelbarrow, cheering wildly. They ripped the pages, and threw them to the ground. They stamped and spit on them –an acidic rage, that seemed to only make them angrier, the more they indulged it.

From where her blood had spilled on the uneven ground, a thin line snaked towards the bonfire, its redness deeper and more potent than the redness of the setting sun.

The mob dispersed.

The bonfire raged, and her words became ash. The breeze lifted that ash, and ran with it, into every home.

As the people slept, they breathed the ash in, and the stories they had rejected entered them anyway, each particle both a sliver of dissent, and a seed of love.

Bio:  Sometimes a butterfly and sometimes a dragon,  Vijayalakshmi Harish is a writer who believes in the magic of the written word.

Contact: @GranthaMaven  (Twitter and Insta)   

↟↡↟↡

From the Editors:

Our Logo was designed by Chandan Nale: Instagram  & Portfolio.

The cover image was made by Riya Allen: Behance & Insta

The soundtrack for this week is Escape by Scott Holmes Music

We hope you enjoyed these stories. 

Twice a month (or so) , Unseen fiction brings you speculative flash fiction crafted in South Asia. Follow us on twitter - - @UnseenFic  for updates.

We are accepting stories here! Email us at unseenfic at gmail or drop a hello on twitter if you have feedback,  would like to collaborate, narrate, sponsor or just say hi.

See you next year!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Welcome dear sojourner to our little space in the void - Unseen Fiction.

We are attempting to fill the void with speculative fiction from South Asia.

It’s our seventh episode and once again we have two stories for you - this time in the realm of horror. 

The first is about a man finding an unlikely companion in his house, and the other of a prankster in school. 

Between the pandemic and our lives, time is short, and so are our stories. 

Stay awhile, and listen. 

Download a PDF of this episode

White Noise, Dark Thoughts

BY: NAVJOT SINGH GILL

Day 18

Turned the television off today after days of it blasting white noise into my living room. The constant buzz had a calming effect on me, but today I felt dizzy after staring at the screen for what felt like hours. I remember the moment I decided to turn it off, it was when I decided to pour myself another drink and ended up spilling some of my whiskey. Real cheap s**t, but priceless in today’s times. I can’t afford another slip up like this.

Day 37

I’ve been staring at the idiot box that dominates my living room trying to conjure up images from memory. A sitcom with the canned laughter of people long dead, a slow burn of a sports game that crescendos to an operatic finish, news “debates” with people trying to scream their idiotic views over each other from their little boxes, old Hindi moves that became ironically funny long after their shelf life had passed et cetera. It helps the time go by and keeps my brain cells active.

Day 59

There’s a cockroach hanging out on the wall above the black mirror, so I spent my day tracking its movements. I think I’ve figured out a pattern, it wasn’t easy to decipher. I congratulated myself on having figured it out and drank to that. Whiskey stock’s almost halfway through and I’m saddened by the thought. I’ll drink to that.

Day 97

Sorry for not being able to check in with you for so long. I tried to get things in order and managed well for a decent amount of time. I won’t bore you with the facts and please don’t get your hopes up because I slid back into the old routine in less than a fortnight. Oh, I just remembered, the cockroach I told you about the last time, I’ve grown to really like the guy. He is quite an interesting character. Every day I see him above the video machine when I wake up. He just sits there for hours; immobile, unfeeling, cruel. Just staring at me. I’m down to the last twelve bottles btw, I don’t know what I’ll do post it.

Day 108

I’ve been following Roach around the room these days, I’ve seen where he goes when he thinks no one is watching and I’ve heard his tales. They’re not for the faint of heart so I’ll spare you the details.

Day 110

Roach is climbing the wall today. Up and up he goes, distancing himself from the sound and image machine and trying to get closer to my liquid gold. I can see it in his eyes that this is what he cherishes the most in this world, the f*****g b*****d. I’d stab him if he was big enough for a knife to go through and watch the life drain out of his soulless eyes. I loathe him.

Day 111

He’s up on the ceiling today right above me and my last glass from my last bottle of elixir. How does he evade the pull of gravity? I wonder just before he falls, seemingly in slow motion, with a miserable plop into the glass. Into my last sip. I see him in the middle of what could either be a euphoric dance of having achieved his life’s goal or a cry for help as the liquid burns through his translucent skin. I remember watching him struggle and feeling drunk on the power that I had over him in the moment. I moved to lift the glass to my eye so I could see his face and decipher his expressions.

I never made it to eye level.

About the author: 30 year old recovering pessimist.

Follow/contact @navjotsg on Instagram

Bombs

BY: KAUSHIK

The one reprieve from defeat, from staring into the eyes of the enemy which is full of mirth and that cruelty of triumph, is seeing just a little bit of them bloody and battered. You made a dent in that armor of invincibility. You showed everyone in the building and, by extension, the entire world, that it was possible that this self styled Xerxes could actually be scratched. 

This leads you into a spiral of self education as your broken bones mend and the bruises melt into scars. 

There is one book that talks of another book that talks of yet another and so on that eventually confesses that all its knowledge was tapped from this ancient tome of wild secrets that one should not be able to find. That ur-book, though, is available at every second hand store from here on till the sea. It was a book made for plotting, a book that told you how to make mundane things that you could find in the supermarket explode in a wide variety of ways. In other words, it was the perfect book of magic that I could read and apply to wreak havoc.

Of course, it would require some practice.

The first day was full of cheer and joy as I made pigeon tails burst into flames when I swished the special liquid over it. This was followed by post boxes and charity malls that had 'incidents' that were never reported; only some wasteful spending on security cameras was undertaken. I like how the response is the same to it wherever you go and whatever you do. Keep your eyes open in case the deviant comes back!

I studied Vijay's movements for over a year before the revenge. I remember his lackeys and his love interest, moving together like the rat hen wolf swan pack. They moved together as one, and moved alone as if together. It was an interesting way to live, for sure. But I would have been bored of it in a second. How that enormous kludge of a human survived on all that attention is a question I do not feel equipped to answer. He went where his mass went, and his mass went wherever he went. In that gentle, passive roll of a boulder eating dirt and accelerating in its amicable way, I would follow the pack through school, after school and on some occasional days of extravagant misery, before school as well.

They provided fascinating insights about life in general, and how I had been moving across my own life before I found myself in their cross-hairs. Nothing against Vijay, of course - he seemed semi-sentient, so I am in no position to pass a value judgement on him, but Vartika? That b***h. She egged him on when I was already down and had apologised about calling him semi sentient. You tell me why else would I go ahead and be so rude and want to kill them both in an exciting fashion?

Yes, it was killing that was in my mind. I had set up three sets of bombs in their old haunt on the highest corridors of the school. Third floor it was, and with low balconies that only the age old schools could provide. It was a balcony that was inaccessible, had three money plants and two ferns that were witness to Vijay's submission to Vartika's domme. It was very amusing and almost made me switch my revenge story as Vijay's humiliation in front of the school while everyone would avoid Vartika like the plague and all that jazz, but it seemed like too much effort, and I would also not be able to use my gunpowder sorcery to kick some righteous ass.

It was an elaborate setup - three pressure-sensitive bombs around the columns that would go off just as they leaned in to kiss in front of the entire school. And two right next to their feet so that the shock-wave would take care of them in case they were still standing. To me it was the perfect plan. It could be executed well and would take care of the problem in one fell swoop. It would also make me feel like an excellent constructor of elaborate revenge plans, which I was.

The only problem I did not foresee was that they were made martyrs by their rich parents and got a few essay competitions held in their memory, whose winners were rewarded by the trust.

If it helps, I can tell you that I won the essay competition for two successive years, before they decided I was much too old to be participating in these childish competitions.

But I had a good run.

Bio: Kaushik is a dilettante

We hope you enjoyed these stories.

The soundtrack for this week is “Shipping Lanes” from the album “Arps” by Chad Crouch.

Our Logo was designed by Chandan Nale: Instagram  & Portfolio

Cover art by Riya Allen: Instagram and Behance

Twice a month, Unseen fiction brings you speculative flash fiction crafted in South Asia. Follow us on twitter - @UnseenFic for updates. 

We are accepting stories! Please email us at unseenfic at gmail. Email us there also if you’d like to get in touch about collaboration, narration, sponsorship or feedback.

If you liked this episode consider sharing it or leaving a comment.

See you next time!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

We are attempting to fill the void with speculative fiction from South Asia. It’s our sixth episode and once again we have two stories for you.

The first, about a hunt through the jungles of the British Raj, and the other, of a nondescript mp3 player.

Between the pandemic and our lives, time is short, and so are our stories.

Stay awhile, and listen.

Download as PDF

Leopard

BY NIKHIL  

"Gora sahib is never wrong." 

He hates the porters. He hates their kind but they are right. Col. John Culbertson is always right. The beast had been this way. The tracks are fresh. 

They had been tracking the beast for three days. The hunting party is down to three due to sickness and malfeasance. His khaki jacket is down to a single epaulet and his boots are clad in mulch, green like the vines around him. His rifle works. He had tested it last night on one of the villagers.

If he closes his eyes, he can see the girl with long black hair past her waist, glistening like obsidian. They had come upon her near the river. He had heard her tinkling laughter and stalked her along the narrow dirt path, back to the village. He lost her but they stayed the night. 

He was death and he made sure the village remembered him as such.

In the night, he dreams of the villa they burned down, with its one open window, its broken roof with the sunlight pouring in, and of running down an ochre river of mud during the blasted monsoons; a fight for their lives, against piteous farmers with scythes. On the dream battlefield, he sees her. He can smell the oil on her hair. He longs to bury his nose in it. 

He runs towards her and wakes up in the middle of the night, in a familiar jungle. He smells the oil again. She is near. Tinkling laughter. He grabs the gun and marches off in the direction of the sound, towards the cliff.

He doesn't need the porters. The gaonwalas are pack animals. Survival is enough for them.

Every year in Hindostan, he has felt surrounded by more and more ghosts. Now, it is the ghost of the British Raj that surrounds him. They are going back. He doesn't have long here but he wants to be remembered for being more than a soldier. He wants to be remembered as a hero. For that, he needs glory. For that, he must bag the beast. 

He spends the night wandering, looking for the beast. Or is it the girl? He is no longer sure what he is looking for. He knows he is lost. He is all but ready to give up when he sees light. It must be the crack of dawn, he thinks. 

He stumbles out of the jungle onto a cliff and he sees her, standing quietly on the edge of the cliff. 

She is looking right at him. He stares transfixed. He feels himself walking forward slowly. He tries to lift the gun and realizes his hand is empty. Feeling betrayed, he opens his mouth but finds himself speechless. In the jungle behind him, the monkeys are excited. He sees and he understands. Each sinew, each bone, each claw kneading this perch of stone. Her liquid amber eyes flash, her arching back, her fearful symmetry. She laughs. The leopard leaps.

Bio: From Bombay, in San Francisco, day - boring tech job, night - great clown pagliacci

Twitter: doppelhanger

Timetravel.mp3

BY LOGESH 

I am searching through an old cupboard. What am I searching for? Nothing. Surprises maybe. Lockdown has me digging through old stuff - probably an extension of scrolling through pictures from good ol’ "normal" days on my phone.

I sit on the floor and empty the box. Nothing interesting - a bunch of batteries, a broken motor, wires, a watch and an mp3 player, which I don't remember having. Now that's interesting. I turn the switch on. The small old display turns on with a beep as I quickly find my earphones and plug them in. I scan through the folder names only to find a folder carrying my name amongst other files.

I open the folder and find all my favorite songs together like a dream playlist that I always wanted to make. I impatiently press shuffle. "June ponal" by Harris Jayaraj starts  to play. A banger of its time. I close my eyes and take a deep breath in anticipation. Can't hear a thing. The volume's low. I quickly pause the song not to miss a beat, turn the volume up and start over. I close my eyes, take a deep breath. Here it comes. Ecstasy!

My eyes open and I'm in the exam hall. I'm writing my last exam of my 4th grade. I gasp in complete surprise. What just happened? June ponal continues to play from the marriage Hall just beside my school. I remember this exact moment. I remember seeing squirrels playing on the tree just outside the window. There they are. And I must have got boring long answers remaining which is also true. I'm breathless for a moment. Do I make a move? No, I just sit through it restlessly. I look at my other classmates. All busy with their exams while I look outside in joy for I know the  moment's more important. Everyone's gotta pass till 8th grade anyway.

The song's almost over. What now? Eyes closed and a deep breath for the next song? I do that anyway. It all feels like a dream that you know is a dream but you still play along because it's beautiful and you don't want it to end. So I play along.

It's "Vaanthooral (Drizzle) by Yuvan shankar raja - my favourite composer. Enough description I guess. It's vacations after my second year in college. I'm on my way to pick mom from some meeting in a village nearby. The road's empty and this track comes up on the car radio. And I smell rain. Woah, yes! Now the sky pours down. I stop the car, raise the windows, lower the seat and rest. I remember I was late to pick her up and got told off to have her waiting in the rain. Meh. I have a few more miles ahead to plan my excuse - which she won't take anyway.

The next song kicks in. A masterpiece from Yuvan - " Thuli thuli ". I'm fielding near the boundary, waiting for the next ball to be bowled. Summer vacation it is. I just completed 7th. We are playing out on the street as this song plays from our neighbors house. I stare at the evening sun glaring through the trees above. I lose count of the score which means the opponents can cheat. Meh. But my cousin's coming home tomorrow. I have to hide my stuff tonight. I have to make plans for that. Now this is real danger. But gotta wait for the song to end.

What will the next song be? Wait how do I ever go back? When will this end? I panic for a moment. Probably when the battery runs out. I have nothing to do in the present anyway. Not even long answers to worry about.

 So I take a deep breath.

PS: Here’s that playlist

From the Editors:

Our Logo was designed by Chandan Nale: Instagram  & Portfolio

Cover art by Riya Allen: Instagram and Behance

The soundtrack for this week is “Multiverse” by Ketsa.

We hope you enjoyed these stories. 

Twice a month, Unseen fiction brings you speculative flash fiction crafted in South Asia. Follow us on twitter - - @UnseenFic  for updates.

We are accepting stories here! Email us at unseenfic at gmail, write a comment here, or drop a hello on twitter if you have feedback,  would like to collaborate, narrate, sponsor or just say hi. (We’re working on getting shorter sentences)

See you next time

 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 

Welcome dear sojourner to our little space in the void - Unseen Fiction.

We are attempting to fill the void with speculative fiction from South Asia. It’s our fifth episode and once again we have two stories for you.

The first about a chance meeting of three totally human entities, and the other of an ongoing separation of two people - narrated by the author herself.

Between the pandemic and our lives, time is short, and so are our stories.

Stay awhile, and listen.

Download a PDF version of this episode here

LITOTES

by: Tilottama

I met a man on a bus one day, he had the biggest hands I’d ever seen.

For a moment I thought he was wearing huge rubber gloves, for each finger was as thick as a wrist.

I suppose he saw me staring at his hands. He laughed and held up his palms- each the size of a modest dinner plate.

He flexed his fingers and closed his fists.

“I am a baker," he said. “I knead large mounds of dough everyday!"

“And then?” I asked, imagining every ball of dough as large as a house.

"And then I fashion dainty little croissants out of them.” He said, as serious as an artist.

I smiled - the explanation made complete sense.

“It's a french recipe you know?" he said, his eyes looking around furtively.

I nodded, knowing exactly what he meant.

“What do you do?" he asked me.

I touched my large ears and blinked my big eyes,

“I make stories,” I said, a bit apologetically.

He seemed taken aback, and then his face broke into a wide smile.

“Oiy, Can you tell me one?” He asked, eagerly.

I pursed my tiny mouth and shook my head.

“No, but she might.” I pointed at my twin sister.

She sat behind us, with her wide mouth and medium-sized twinkling eyes.

And as she smiled, her 64 teeth gleamed white in her dark luminous face.

“Do you want to hear the one about the tiger in the tea cup?” She began.

Author’s Bio: Frustrating Font of Unfinished FablesContact : @TTellyourmama

Poles Apart

By Rajashree

Last evening, he was waiting for Ratna outside of her hostel. As soon as she stepped out, he begged her to come with him for coffee at Park Street. Ratna was addicted to coffee and a lot of other things but she loved to have her coffee all alone.

He did all the talking, while Ratna started diagnosing him. He was on a high. He said he had everything sorted and that he was no more worried about being a first-generation university goer and that he had long forgotten those days when he had to drink tea from a cup kept separately for him in the village tea shop. Now he could choose both his coffee, and his company.

“Hey, drink da!” Ratna chuckled and said, “So, go on. Tell me your plans.” His nose widened as his lips smiled, “You will know. Soon.” Ratna said she hated the smell of kathi-rolls overpowering the smell of her coffee to abbreviate his dreams about a faraway future.

It was neither bright nor dark. It was as if they were in the middle of a never-ending tunnel. She was trying to walk across a playground filled with water. She had to cross this pool to survive. The fear was not of the water, but of what lay underneath. She could see them swirling like water snakes. Ratna glanced at her watch. It was 3 am. She had no time to lose. So she rolled her pants up and ran but something kept sticking in her toes. Slowly she could feel her body cracking in pain inside the sheets, of her soul escaping in puffs out of her body, of the dream within the dream. She knew she had to stop this dream from running its course. She did not have to cross the pool. Those swirling slimy things in her toes had to be kicked away. She had to protect herself. So she forced herself to wake up. It was 3.15 am and she was drenched in sweat. Just then she heard a frantic knock on the door. She had expected it.

Walking around unsteadily, she muttered about not crossing the pool. He sat comfortably on her bed. “What,” asked Ratna, exhausted. Without waiting for a reply, she went on “the water snakes had ears.” He was gushing with enthusiasm, “It’s all sorted. We take the train to Chennai tomorrow. The wedding date is fixed.” Ratna was euphoric. She ran up to the hostel terrace, with him running behind her.  The next minute she was running down the stairs, complaining about how she was better than the best in her research group. "I kicked them all away for sticking to my toes." Bewildered, he followed her. Ratna stood in front of her room refusing to enter as she could see the snakes crawling up her walls. Reluctantly, he called the doctor from her phone.

Author’s Bio: A courageous non-writer.

contact : rajshreeb [g]mail 

We have a brand new logo designed by Chandan Nale. Check out his very cool art on Instagram ,  and his portfolio on behance. Chandan is accepting commissions. 

The gorgeous cover art was designed by Riya Allen, you can see more of her art on instagram and Behance. Riya is accepting commissions.

Twice a month, Unseen fiction brings you speculative flash fiction crafted in South Asia. You can subscribe on substack to have it delivered to your inbox, or follow us on twitter - @UnseenFic for updates. 

We are accepting stories here. 

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

We are attempting to fill the void with speculative fiction from South Asia. 

It’s our fourth episode and it’s very special. Once again we have two stories for you, one set outside time the other outside humanity. One narrated by the newest member of the editorial team - Tilottama, and the other written by our editor Kaushik

Between the pandemic and our lives, time is short, and so are our stories. 

Stay awhile, and read.

Share or read these stories as a PDF

La Petite Mort

BY MAYA

In the unexplored trenches of my mind, time is stuck in a loop.

“What happens now?” she asks, pushing her toes into the blue sheets, caught mid-stretch, body arcing in a languid curve.

“Now, I guess we die.”

“Die?” she turns toward me, brows furrowed in confusion.

“Very briefly,” I say.

She laughs.

“I hope it’s the French kind,” she smiles. “The permanent kind can be a downer, I hear.”

I return her laugh.

***

In the unexplored trenches of my mind, time is recycled. 

Over and over it goes until its fabric stretches, until it turns transparent.

“What happens now?” she asks, pushing her toes into the black sheets, caught mid-stretch, body arcing in a languid curve.

“Now, I guess we die.”

“Die?”

“Very briefly.”

She laughs, and turns toward me, brows furrowed in confusion.

“I hope it’s the French kind,” she says, smile dipping, curving across her lips. “The permanent kind can be a downer, I hear.”

I flash her a grin.

She returns it tenfold.

***

In the unexplored trenches of my mind, sometimes time stutters. 

Like a car whose engine sputters in protest. It refuses to move on.

“What happens now?” she asks, pushing her toes into the yellow sheets, caught mid-stretch, body arcing in a languid curve.

She turns, brows furrowed, when I don’t answer immediately.

“Death, I think,” I say. I don’t really know.

She raises an eyebrow at the doubt lashing through my tone. “Briefly?”

“Maybe?” I shrug.

“I hope it’s the French kind,” she smiles faintly, lips lifting at a corner; its reluctance obvious. “The permanent kind can be a downer, I hear.”

I only look back at her; we are mirrors held high.

***

In the unexplored trenches of my mind, time is a tidal wave; its violence crashing through everything in its path.

“What happens now?” she asks, pushing her toes into the grey sheets, caught mid-stretch, body arcing in a languid curve.

“Death,” I say.

She laughs, and sobers up when I don’t return her joy. Somewhere along the way, our mirrors cracked and shattered.

“Briefly?” she asks.

I don’t have an answer.

“Maybe?” I shrug, tracking her brows that are furrowing in confusion.

“I hope it’s the French kind,” she says, lips curving downward, the displeasure obvious. “The permanent kind can be a downer, I hear.”

She doesn’t laugh. Neither do I.

I have nothing to return this time.

***

In the unexplored trenches of my mind, time goes in reverse, its movements stilted, unnatural, fragmented.

I never have answers, I never know what to say.

I come alive briefly, rarely, in stuttered, vivid explosions.

She pushes her toes into crumpled sheets, caught mid-stretch, body arcing in a languid curve, and turns to me.

I smile at her, tentatively. She frowns.

Our mirrors were only ever an illusion.

“What happens now?”

About the author: Maya loves stories in all their forms. Food comes a very close second.

Follow her on twitter @alwayskasht

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The Perfect Boy

BY KAUSHIK

The perfect boy can do no wrong. He is capable and immensely talented. He makes things work in a jiffy.  

There you see is a multi-knobbed grimnwig. Look at how he manages to identify the right knobs and make the machine sing as it slaughters millions.

There, you see how he is making calculations on that Supraputer, making decisions that will change the course for billions. He knows things in a way that you and I do not.

Over there - look how he is serenading that pigeon in a lackadaisical fashion. And now you see, he is looking at how awful this whole drama surrounding the world is.

He says “look, I know how to fix it. Give me one chance, and I’ll make things right.” But no, the nutcases would not let him go anywhere near an actual machine. They make him work on the sims, pick and choose the right decisions and one that affects thousands, not billions, and then feed him the processed data. The perfect boy says this is the wrong method - that actual controls are what would help ease the way out for the world.

He says “three switches is all it takes, people. Just listen - slider 3c-2 to the grunt position — you know, yes that one. The supraputer should tell you what adjustment to make to achieve 35% emotional sufflex on most of the world, and you adjust that knob just a little but under whatever it says (never trust a Supraputer) - and finally -”

They turn off his mic, and make the room glow fluorescent pink.

His ruse has been caught, but he was sure his calculations were on point. The trickles of data from the sim world that he approximated for the real world seemed accurate enough, but there were just too many unknown variables that he had to account for. All he needed was one chance to affect worlds outside of knobs and wheels. One chance to use the biggest knob he had in his mind - his voice.

A voice booms for him to cease speaking of hard reset of the world.

He pouts, but he starts thinking of another scenario - just one more time when they are willing to listen to him. And just one more time when he can calculate the world back again from the trickles  of data. He will do it - he will perform the hard reset.

Bio: Kaushik is a dilettante

↟↡↟↡

Image credit: "After sex" by bernard_benavides

Twice a month, Unseen fiction brings you speculative flash fiction crafted in South Asia. You can subscribe here, or follow us on twitter - @UnseenFic for updates. 

We are currently accepting stories here. 

If you would like to get in touch about collaboration, narration, sponsorship or feedback, you can DM us on Twitter,  or email unseenfic at gmail 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

We are attempting to fill the void with speculative fiction from South Asia. In our third episode, we present two stories of anguish and existence featuring cosmesis and entheogenesis. Between the pandemic and our lives, time is short, and so are our stories. 

Stay awhile, and read.

Share or read this episode as a PDF

Fairest of them all

BY RATHY

Noir woke up with a start. She had an interview today and she was hoping to get this job. At the age of 27, she was still unemployed, single and living with her parents. She desperately needed the job. But she had got the same response everywhere she had applied - “See, we want someone who will fit well with the team. And not stand out like a sore thumb. Frankly speaking, you don’t look like us at all”

Noir knew she looked different. Her mother had gorgeous skin that shone in the sun and was the color of dark chocolate. Her father was even prettier with his hazel colored eyes. Her brother was the Pageant winner for 5 continuous years and spent more time tending to his olive colored skin than anything else.

Unfortunately for Noir, she was born with pale blonde hair, ocean blue eyes and skin as pale as the snow. On the day of her birth, Mother said, the nurses had tried consoling her saying “Babies change color over time. Your baby will get her golden brown skin soon.” But her skin remained white and her parents named her Noir. Beauty should be there at least in her name, they reasoned.

As a child, she hated going out with her mother. One look at her and everyone would start suggesting treatments and skin creams. Once an aunt had locked her up in a tanning room longer than normal in the hope she’ll catch some color. Noir had to be rushed to hospital for second degree burns. Her skin healed but remained pearly white. Her grandmother fed her black coffee 5 times a day. Noir turned insomniac but her skin remained pale and stubborn.

School and College were different hell holes altogether. Bullied for her skin color, she was called several nicknames through the years. The very demeaning ‘Snow white’ stuck with her for ages. She couldn’t wrap her head around how anyone could compliment and insult her at the same time. But then she encountered something worse. After a steamy session, her first boyfriend kept stroking her skin. He said it was on his to do list to hookup with a white skin. The complete lack of melanin turned him on crazy, he added. Noir left his house confused and feeling very disgusted.

After college, Noir had tried online dating. But not many swiped right on her. The ones who did were the likes of her first boyfriend; fetishizing her skin color and her look.

Noir let the shower wash away all the ugly memories. Today would be a different day she hoped. She hesitated while reaching out to her usual body wash. Her brother had bought her a special lotion, Berry Berry Dark. It had canthaxanthin and other carotenoids, he said. He had got it specially made for her to darken her skin. She remembered being devastated by the gift.

“Today is the day,” she thought, reaching for Berry Berry Dark. Today is the day.

Rathy says about herself “my one party trick is to tell stories and make you fall in love”.Follow her on twitter: @iRatzzz

What About K?

BY KARAN NAGARAJAN 

Waiting in his room behind a cigarette, all he could think was if he’d like to eat outside or at home. He couldn’t wait any longer. It had been a long day, running around to get the forms and registrations for his new semester done. 

He had just scooped up some time to get back for a bath before he could go over to meet her. “When will she call dammit?!” he exclaimed to himself, putting the cigarette out in the corroded Threptin box.  He turned over and turned up the volume, Tool was playing,  - and began to slowly drift away, with smoke filling the room. The new neon green bulb he had brought had been more than just a psychedelic friend to him. Seemed like a cold, boring night ahead if the net didn’t get any better. 

Everyday he prayed, Valve were such gods to have created DoTA 2, although S2 were the ones who were getting him through the wait for it. He wasn’t quite certain where or what he would be when DoTA 2 would come out, with his college just getting over and the requirement of a job to facilitate his survival.

The mattress, like time, had slowly slipped away from under him, as he ashed the joint. The matter for the present was neither the net had gotten better nor had she called. A matter of utmost concern, at once a joint needed to be rolled and smoked to spend the time thinking what should be done. “Is there food at home?” he stormed into the kitchen, there was rice, some daal, Murukus, OREOS. He reached out and ripped the cover open, and popped 2 of them straight into his mouth. It was only 1130 PM, at 2 AM the net would get better. 

He retreated back to his room, sneering at the grass “I will not fight you!”, the grass replied, “Give yourself to the Dark side. It is the only way you can save your brain. Yes, your thoughts betray you! Your feelings for them are strong. Especially for… Me.You have a bored mind. Your feelings have now betrayed it, too. Your sanity was wise to hide you from me. Now his failure is complete. If you will not turn to the Dark Side, then maybe it will…..”.

Unlike Star Wars, there wasn’t an epic lightsaber battle going to ensue in his bedroom, but a simple battle between the mattress and the lit joint.

“Whhhhhheerrreeeee Weerrreeeee Yoouuuu, Whheeeerrreeee The F**K were youuuuuu.” he sang , his stoned mind telling him he sounded like David Gilmour. While winamp switched to the aching cries of Maynard James Keenan ” Who are you to raise your finger?” he checked the time, it read 1:42 AM, which destroyed all the patience he had, bundling his pillows he turned to his laptop to wait the last 20 minutes out.

The phone buzzed with Peter Griffin singing “You Can’t touch this”, it was her, she wanted to meet MaryJ. He put on his jeans and sweatshirt, and closed the main door behind him.

He didn’t come back that night, or the next morning, he had taken the college bag and MaryJ with him. I had never left this house nor spoken to him, he did not know I existed, or so I believed. But I’m sure, he had at times looked straight at me and seen me for who I was, I was powerless then, unable to do anything but stare right back at him. Wondering if that was how I looked.

About the author: Contact: nagarajan.karan AT gmail

Bio: Sorry, ladies! I'd love to stay, but I've got a job to do.

Image credit: "illustration by tatielle"

Twice a month, Unseen fiction brings you speculative flash fiction crafted in South Asia. You can subscribe here, or follow us on twitter - @UnseenFic for updates. 

We are currently accepting stories here. 

If you would like to get in touch about collaboration, narration, sponsorship or feedback, you can DM us on Twitter,  or email unseenfic at gmail 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

We are attempting to fill the void with speculative fiction from South Asia. In our second episode, we present two stories of wonder and dread discovered on walks and in PPE.

Between the pandemic and our lives, time is short, and so are our stories.

Stay awhile, and read.

You can also download this episode as a PDF.

Narration for this episode courtesy @codenameashtray and @iRatzzz

Age of Truth

BY SWARNA RAJAGOPALAN

I step out and am pleasantly surprised. Mid-May temperatures have never been this gentle and this breeze… this breeze is fragrant with jasmine and sea-salt and something I cannot name but want to call… the smell of pure cleanliness?Weren’t these potted plants wilted yesterday when I returned from my walk? All I can now see are dancing blossoms.

My eyes dart from one surprise to another, and I stumble.

A hand reaches out to steady me.

“I should look where I am going,” I say.

“No, I am sorry, it’s my fault. I should have checked that nothing spilled out of the garbage bag I took out a few minutes ago. I did not clean up after myself. My apologies. Also for touching you without stopping to use sanitizer.”

A familiar little bottle is whipped out and is shared. There is very little in the bottle when it emerges but somehow, enough sanitizer pours out to clean our two pairs of hands and also two others that have shown up to express concern.

A bottle of water is produced—out of nowhere, I am sure… in fact, who are all these people? My neighbours? I intend to take just a polite sip but as the first drop touches my tongue, I taste a pristine Himalayan waterfall (or what I think that must taste like) and I cannot stop taking large gulps. I force myself to stop and share and am about to apologise, when I see the bottle is still full. My companions wait patiently with a serene smile.

We stand there smiling at each other while the bottle makes the rounds. I notice that as each one drinks, the water seems to cascade to a different tune. The Blue Danube, for one. Old Man River, for another. Yellow River, for the person who steadied me as I stumbled.

No one comments.

I wonder if anyone else can hear this music. And I wonder what they heard when I was drinking.

I am struck by the fact that we are just standing around, calmly, and no one seems to be going anywhere. Nor am I, actually.

From a very great distance, something prods me to say, “I guess we should move on.”

“Not really,” my friend says—and now these are my friends, “I want to be here for you.”

“I am fine now.” I add, “I am always fine. But thank you.”

“You? Me? Are we different from each other? I begin in your heart and dwell in all theirs.” I am not sure I understand. But yes, of course, we are not four people but something in motion. If we were emojis we would be hearts in a circle, or stars, or actually just a gently whooshy flow. No beginning, no end.

A flow of what. I am scarcely equipped to name this thing-that-is. I have learned nothing. And yet, it seems I now know everything. I am everything.

Clink. Clatter. Movement.

—

About the author: Swarna Rajagopalan is a displaced Bombayite who loves to write.Contact: @swarraj [twitter], swarnar [gmail]

Love in the times of PPE

BY PRANAVI AR

When someone is in full PPE, all you can see is their eyes.

I first met her (How did I know it was a her? One just knows, I suppose) on the day I took over the COVID suspects ward on the third floor. She was standing at the end of the corridor, fully suited up, waiting for someone to come in. That someone had to be me.

I apologised for being late, and asked her where the donning room was. 

She (?) gave me a look and quickly disabused me of the notion that the suspects ward meant full PPE for the whole shift. That apparently was only for when you had to closely examine a patient; the rest of the time, you got to hang out in scrubs, a mask, and a prayer, at some distance from where the patients sat. She had just been examining a new patient, hence the full suit.

I took over from her and buried myself in the paperwork. As I was writing the fifteenth progress note of the day, a glorified repeat all, my mind wandered absently thinking about her voice. Like wind chimes, but with a husky undertone.

What would she look like?

I brought myself back to reality. It was really too much, the way I’d begun to have a crush on anything that seemed female. ‘Her voice’ it seems . I didn’t even know what she looked like!

The next day, I showed up a wee bit early for my shift, and that earned me a crinkly eyed smile from her. That was enough to set my feels train running full steam. Tomorrow, I swore to myself, I was gonna ask her her name and the department she was from. Get her number, maybe, so she could give me a handover over whatsapp - yep.

She wasn’t there the next day. I was told that the team had changed and that they were all posted in the COVID positives ward now, one floor below.

That shift sucked for me. I didn’t know nearly enough to find out more about her. It was gonna have to be one of those dumb, unrealised crushes  I’d get over in a day or two.

Only, I couldn’t.

Two days later, I saw her in the common elevator as the doors were closing shut, in street clothes. I recognised her from the eyes, and from the way she held herself - the only two things I had been able to make out while she'd been in full PPE.  She was gorgeous. I tried converting my ajar mouth into a smile that came out constipated. I didn't know which creepy part of my reaction she saw, if she saw me at all.

I ran into her again the next morning. She broke into a full smile and waved at me. She waved at me! But before I could go up and talk to her, my supervisor called me in and began discussing work. I had to contend myself with sending a grin her way. I’m sure patients saw me that shift and wondered why their doctor was smiling like a crazy lady.

A week passed, and I didn't see her.  My posting changed too, and I was now posted in the COVID ICU. Being posted there meant that high-risk, aerosol-generating procedures were a routine, so we were required to be in full PPE gear throughout the shift. 

I was grappling with a flurry of critical care protocols being thrown at me,  while clad in multiple layers of PPE , when my senior announced that a high-priority case was being brought in. The patient had collapsed suddenly in the corridor, and would require immediate intubation. The crash cart was ready, everyone was on their toes. The stretcher was wheeled in.

The patient- it was her.

I froze as my senior rushed around to intubate her as her saturation fell dangerously low. I wanted to tell her something, anything, to reassure her, but couldn’t find the words.

She stared wild-eyed, seeing, but not really, at a room full of strangers in head-to-toe blue suits. Her roving eyeballs locked onto mine. I saw something like a flicker of recognition, but couldn’t be sure.

When someone is in full PPE, all you can see is their eyes.  

About the author: When not slaving away in the bowels of a dystopian bio-punk hospital, the author likes to read SFF, queer fiction, poetry and romance. She hopes that whatever the future brings, it also brings good food.

Contact: @_drongo [Twitter] pranavi.ar [gmail]

↟↡↟↡

Twice a month, Unseen fiction brings you speculative flash fiction crafted in South Asia. You can subscribe here, or follow us on twitter - @UnseenFic for updates. 

We are currently accepting stories here. 

If you would like to get in touch about collaboration, narration, sponsorship or feedback, you can DM us on Twitter,  or email unseenfic at gmail 

Image Credit: SEM alveoli in the lung, close-up.. Credit: David Gregory & Debbie Marshall.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

We are attempting to fill the void with speculative fiction from South Asia. We present stories of wonder and dread set in backyards and distant worlds. Between the pandemic and our lives, time is short, and so are our stories.

In this episode we have two fresh stories for you; one featuring a worldwide event of particular import and the other set in an eventful backyard.

Stay awhile, and read.

You can also download this episode as a PDF- White, Sepia

Cosmic Pandemic

BY RATHY AND AAQUIB

She stood by the French windows, staring intently. Across her building, through curtains that had been pulled in almost hastily, she saw them. It was only a glimpse, but she was sure that she saw two men counting gold coins - with a severed head placed right in the middle of their table. As the curtains fluttered, she realized it was the same alien head that had been missing from the local museum. She knew she had to make the call, the one she had been dreading all these years. Her fingers trembled as she dialed the numbers, hoping no one would pick up.“Project moonshine”, she managed to blurt into the phone. “Finally”, came the answer before the line went dead. She stood there, fidgeting with a button on her sleeve.

After almost an hour, she heard it pierce the suffocating silence of the night – the unmistakable wail of the Watcher. She froze, watching as the living room door knob slowly turned itself. The door swung wide open, and a cloyingly sweet stench filled the air. “We have 24 hrs to recover the Eye of Seraph and move it to a secure location. If not, the results would be catastrophic and cause a universal pandemic”, said the Watcher. She heard a loud pulsating noise behind her, and turned to find a large mass of purple, viscous matter forming the shape of a crudely made doorway. "Quickly, we might still make it to the Quarry," the Watcher said impatiently. The Watcher grabbed her by the wrist and pushed her into the portal.

On the other side, the Scarabs of Kah were waiting for them. Carab, their commander-in-chief bellowed, “Not so easy, Watcher! The plague will be released and the Scarabs will rule the universe again.” He held the Eye of Seraph and aimed its crystal towards the sun. As the crystal broke, darkness and gloom engulfed their world. The silence was eerie. No one standing there was prepared for what happened next.

About the authors: Rathy says “My one party trick is to tell stories and make you fall in love”

Aaquib Jaleel is a stand-up comic from Chennai who also loves telling stories to children and adults. His favorite kind of food is Biryani and if you give him some, he will be your friend.

Chirp

BY SWETHA

It got boring after a while, watching the fireflies disappear. She started playing guessing games, predicting trajectories, placing mental bets on which one would go next, and eventually downloading the chirp noise to play at the moment each one vanished. It wasn't like there was a vacuum cleaner sucking them in. They were choosing their own paths of destruction. All novelties become mundane over time. Moreover, it was a hot, humid night and she was pretty sure that catastrophes only struck on cold, clear ones. She rolled onto her back to spot the Orion's belt. She was pretty sure that her therapist would try and connect this to commitment phobia. "What did you feel when you were more drawn to the shiny, unreachable stars?". "Well, I felt like my back hurt less, Mrinalini." She sighed thinking about how much work building a vacuum chamber was going to take. She hated engineering, it involved arithmetic, and worse - screwdrivers. She idly wondered if she could just moveit and work from the air conditioned basement, but she knew that that would be like wishing she could move tomorrow into the day after. One cannot move space or time or spacetime. She wondered if this could be the push that her comedy career needed. Surely, there was a solid joke in all this about how she finally turned her dilapidated, suburban bungalow into 1 "BH” K. She googled to see if BH was a widely used abbreviation. She swatted away the firefly that was drawn to her phone screen, cursing those damned Condensed Matter people under her breath. She would have to deal with screwdrivers in the morning. But, for now.. *Chiiiirp*.

Author’s Note : This is a story of a girl (not) dealing with a tiny backyard black hole. And the chirp signal refers to the famous sound that was the result of the black holes merger captured by LIGO. Also, the story, under the excuse being fiction, contains quite questionable science.

About the author: Swetha is a physicist in training undergoing tumultuous accelerations at a large collider

Twice a month Unseen fiction brings you speculative flash fiction crafted in South Asia. You can subscribe here, or follow us on twitter - @unseenfic for updates.

If you would like to have your story featured with us, we are currently accepting stories here.

If you would like to get in touch about collaboration, narration, sponsorship or feedback, you can DM us on Twitter, or email unseenfic@gmail.com

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 4.0 International License.