Woohoo! My short story, “White Rose, Red Rose” is now available online as part of Uncanny Magazine’s issue 43!
The resistance has left a white rose on her windowsill. It can only mean one thing. Her brother is dead. How can she help him if he’s already gone?
I’m excited to be able to share this story with folks. I first wrote it as part of the Weekend Warrior flash fiction contest on the Codex message boards (run by the excellent Vylar Kaftan) where it got one of my highest scores ever. I hope it will resonate as much with the audience as it did with my fellow writers!
Sometimes stories come very easily in one burst. If only it happened all the time! This story was like that. I sat down and wrote something very close to the published version in a couple of hours. (I had to cut it down by a third to fit the word count for the contest version.) Once I had it on hand, I pinged Michael and Lynne to see if they’d be willing to take a look because the story reminded me of “If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love” which they published back in 2014 in Apex Magazine. I’m so happy they liked it and I’m glad to be back in Uncanny for the second time this year.
They say the dead see the world as if it’s a nightmare. Everything they knew is remade as an incomprehensible, unpredictable assault on their senses: too loud, too bright. A dog rolling on the grass is no different from a subterranean monster writhing out of the earth. Love and shock and pain are one merged, hungry thing.
In my brother’s nightmares, it seems, he can cry.
Well, in mine, so can I.
Just read it. It’s SO GOOD. Thank you.
I agree with Amp. It’s a tight, well written, gripping short story.