Timeline: FlashBack’s Second Season
We’ve had a stellar second season of FlashBack fiction. Just in case you’ve missed any of our fantastic stories and authors, here is a timeline of all the work we’ve published this quarter, in chronological order. To make it easier to find your old favourites, a complete list of everything we’ve published so far is now available at our new Timeline page.
We’re taking a little publication break for the next couple weeks, though we’ll continue working behind-the-scenes. We’ll be back in September with a new season of historical flash fiction and prose poetry, as well as a few surprises. Submissions reopen on 15 September. As always, thank you for reading and for your support!
Season II
- The beginning of time: How Monday was Made by Guy Biederman
It’s been a rough day. Ice Age in the morning, Vesuvius after lunch, and the loss of God’s favorite trattoria in Pompeii….
- The Stone Age, give or take an epoch: Wheel of Fortune by Nick Black
Oh yeah, life’s been nothing but sweet for Jasper since he invented that flat round rolling thing of his.
- Late 1600s: In Dead Waters by Sarah Arantza Amador
We held our fortified port for six weeks while the King killed Protestants in the northern lowlands but the South Gate finally gave way during a fight for fresh bread. So many died in battle that no sacred ground was left for burying the dead. We stacked the bodies one on top of the other in the gendarmerie tower and covered them in salt, of which we had plenty.
- Late 1600s/Early 1700s: Footsized by Sarah Peploe
Her breasts hurt with milk, still. They’re heavy. They leak sometimes, dark and obvious through her dress. She is behind with the washing. Her big girl who is nearly seven has been helping, and her sister Doll, but Doll is close to her own confinement.
- Early 1800s: Eleanor’s Last by Nuala O’Connor
I see those small ones about me betimes, when I bind rope or thresh corn. My living childer work with me, all three, but the others appear and do their share
- 1850s: There Will Be No Lace by TM Upchurch
I shrug them loose, lean in and swaddle you tight so you won’t feel the cold. Pretend I’m still here. Your eyelids close, open, close, open less… As they slide down, sealing you into sleep, I am still here. I brand my mind with the moment, breathing in deep, sucking you into me before they take my wrists.
- 1895: Frau Roentgen’s Left Hand by Anita Goveas
The thumb is indistinct, mid-sized and slender. If it were a tree limb, it would reveal I was fifty years old.
- 1908: Three Hundred and Eighty Five Yards by Rob Walton
Some say Conan Doyle is only here because the organisers offered him a good seat to watch the athletics. Others say he is here on behalf of the Daily Mail. I really don’t mind about that.
- 1922 (told several decades later): On The Ethics of Book Burning by Nick Lord Lancaster
These are the facts of the matter. The warehouse fire was entirely accidental. I don’t know the cause of it; I’m not privy to that level of information.
- 1932: A Pot of Usefulness by Jane Lomas
When he was used up the lads gave him the grand title of Chief Splosh Maker, and he’d spent a few happy weeks warming the pot, spooning loose tea and pouring for the exhausted gang. But they couldn’t cover for him for long.
- 1947: The Partitioning of Dreams by Susmita Bhattacharya
Years later, she would think back on how she had cried for her dolly, and not her brother who had been buried by the roadside. Years later, she would wonder about the home they had left – if the new owners feasted on the mangoes from their trees.
- 1958: A Long Way Away by Diane Simmons
It is realy horrible here. The journey took AGES and AGES and I blubbed and the lady took my pear drops away so I didn’t choke.
- 1950s &1960s: Balm by Charmaine Wilkerson
“What? What?” her son said, with that down-curved oh-shape that his mouth took on when he was annoyed. He wouldn’t understand. She couldn’t expect him to. Tiger Balm in America, after all these years.
- Late 1960s: Estelle by Sheila Scott
‘It was on the clipboard at the last check.’ The commander pulled open a small drawer beneath the seats and rifled through its contents, sending odd items drifting into the air around them.
- 1985/now: Once Upon A Time In Philadelphia by Tia Ja’Nae
Steel melts at 2500°F. Pigs made sure it’s hotter than that so our dark, meaty flesh roasts to a crisp at the police barbeque. Feels like I’m melting. Can’t barely breathe.
Guess that was the end result they were counting on.
Image of sun and moon attributed to Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) from scanned from the Nuremberg Chronicle, by Hartmann Schedel, 1493, via Wikimedia Commons.
