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Tuesday, they broke the light.
The next three days they tried to fix it.
Staples, paperclips, hairpins, glue;
Nothing would hold it together.
Finally, they settled on writing a thesis
Promoting the better side of constant
Dark, finagled the peer review,
Hoped to secure a grant before
The true effects of the disaster
Were widely known. Quickly
People were publicly serving
Cups of broken light at corner
Photon bars. With the secured grant money
They secretly bought into the most
Wildly popular photon bars, cursed
Themselves in the open, and privately
Watched the value of their shares grow.
One filed a patent on a new, more
Stylish, light service delivery cup.



Ken’s four collections of flash fiction and four of speculative poetry are available from most web booksellers. He was an information warrior for thirty-three years, and now supports full time his wife’s powerlifting. Recent work has appeared in Analog, Café Irreal, Rune Bear, and Tiny Molecules. His website is www.kpoyner.com.
Current Issue
12 May 2025

You saw her for the first time at your front door, like she wanted to sell you something or convert you. She had light hair and dark eyes, and she was wearing fatigues, which was the only way you knew that your panicked prayers of the last few minutes had not come true. “Don’t freak out,” she said. “I’m you. From—uh, let’s just say from the future. Can I come inside?”
Time will not return to you as it was.
The verdant hills they whispered of this man so apt to sin / chimney smoke was pure as mountain snow compared to him.
In this episode of Strange Horizons at 25, editor Kat Kourbeti talks to Naomi Kritzer about her non-linear writing journey, imagining positive futures, and how to deal with the world catching up to your near-future specfic.
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