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In every scene from the alternate world
where skyscrapers are just inches away from
the ground,
curtailed by
the ever-growing Christmas trees, I'm a
good son,

& every mom thinks I arrived into my first morning
with enough motherly delight. I'm not going to
ruin their imagination, of course, what is the ruin
in telling the truth about
the machine
that we've now become;

a device whose cursor-hands point only to the
good reviews of the app from where
we hacked into this place? The point is: our cosmos is growing
into a bright castle,
almost into a milky world,
& to say that at least,
my mother is still my mother is the
only fact I owe you all.

The truth is:
she does not have

to bend into a ceramic plate to carry us beautifully, & my father
isn't the hand that will break her.

For the first time since 2080, we can all agree
that a god must not always beautify wreckage
to make it happen. At least, we've seen
to the end that there is—

ever-growing & humming,
it seems to browse us over again in
different engines.



Nwuguru Chidiebere Sullivan (he/him/his) is a speculative writer of Izzi, Abakaliki ancestry; a Medical Laboratory Science student whose works have been nominated for the Forward Prize, the Pushcart Prize, and the Best of The Net Award. He was the winner of Write About Now’s Cookout Literary Prize. He has works published or forthcoming at Ink Sweat & Tears, Augur Mag, Sand Journal, Mudroom Mag, Bracken Mag, The Shore Poetry, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, The Deadlands, West Trade Review, No Contact, The Fourth River, and elsewhere. He is fond of his poorly-lit room from where he tweets @wordpottersull1.
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 
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