Size / / /

They have imagined something they call time.

They chain it to their wrists.

They do time.

Make it, save it.  Borrow, buy

and spend it.  Time crawls, they say. Time flies.

It warps and bends.

They lose it and collect it.

They freeze it.

Time out.

Time in.

Time off.

In time.

On time. About time.

Some claim to have all the time in the world.

Double, half, and quarter,

full time. Time and a half, and unpaid over,

hard and break and

just-in-

time.

Quitting time.

Some have none to spare.

Some are completely out.

Good time, they say.  Bad.      Real time. Time out of mind.

They try to kill it.

Their stories speak of time machines.

They dream.




Bette Lynch Husted's collection of memoir essays, Above the Clearwater: Living on Stolen Land, was a finalist for both the 2004 Oregon Book Award and the 2005 WILLA Award (Women Writing the West) in creative nonfiction. A poetry chapbook, After Fire, was published by Puddinghouse in 2002; Triplopia nominated her poem "Tending Adobe" for a Pushcart Prize. Her essays, poems, and stories have appeared in Oregon Humanities, Fourth Genre, Prairie Schooner, Northwest Review, Natural Bridge, and other journals. She was a 1994 Fishtrap Fellow.
Current Issue
20 Jan 2025

Strange Horizons
Surveillance technology looms large in our lives, sold to us as tools for safety, justice, and convenience. Yet the reality is far more sinister.
Vans and campers, sizeable mobile cabins and some that were barely more than tents. Each one a home, a storefront, and a statement of identity, from the colorful translucent windows and domes that harvested sunlight to the stickers and graffiti that attested to places travelled.
“Don’t ask me how, but I found out this big account on queer Threads is some kind of super Watcher.” Charlii spins her laptop around so the others can see. “They call them Keepers, and they watch the people that the state’s apparatus has tagged as terrorists. Not just the ones the FBI created. The big fish. And people like us, I guess.”
It's 9 a.m., she still hasn't eaten her portion of tofu eggs with seaweed, and Amaia wants the day to be over.
Nadjea always knew her last night in the Clave would get wild: they’re the only sector of the city where drink and drug and dance are unrestricted, and since one of the main Clavist tenets is the pursuit of corporeal joy in all its forms, they’ve more or less refined partying to an art.
surviving / while black / is our superpower / we lift broken down / cars / over our heads / and that’s just a tuesday
After a few deft movements, she tossed the cube back to James, perfectly solved. “We’re going to break into the Seattle Police Department’s database. And you’re going to help me do it.”
there are things that are toxic to a bo(d)y
By: Michelle Kulwicki
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
  In this episode of the Strange Horizons Fiction podcast, Michael Ireland presents Michelle Kulwicki's 'Bee Season' read by Emmie Christie Subscribe to the Strange Horizons podcast on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify.
Wednesday: Motheater by Linda H. Codega 
Friday: Revising Reality: How Sequels, Remakes, Retcons, and Rejects Explain The World by Chris Gavaler and Nat Goldberg 
Issue 13 Jan 2025
Issue 6 Jan 2025
By: Samantha Murray
Podcast read by: Jenna Hanchey
Issue 23 Dec 2024
Issue 16 Dec 2024
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Issue 2 Dec 2024
By: E.M. Linden
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Issue 25 Nov 2024
Issue 18 Nov 2024
By: Susannah Rand
Podcast read by: Claire McNerney
Issue 11 Nov 2024
Issue 4 Nov 2024
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