Back with a new selection of short stories I’ve read recently and am happy to recommend to others. I think there is a fairly good mix of stories this week, though there are a lot of looking to the future in them, and quite a bit about dealing with childhood and friendships.

“All of Us” by Kathleen Naytia from Speculative City

Here is an interesting, short, alternative history and horror story. In this world the American Civil War did not end in a victory for the North but a stalemate and truce. One where the South’s slaves would be freed…slowly. Very slowly. 100 years later Laura and her family are some of the last slaves to be freed and trying to make their way to The United States of America. There is only one safe reliable transportation for the journey: The Miracle Bus, but Laura and her father have to survive the first part of their trip just to get on the bus and to the relative safety of community.

“To Look Forward” by Osahon Ize-Iyamu from Fantasy Magazine

Here we have a story about friendship and entering the liminal phase of childhood where adults expect you begin not being a child, but a person preparing to become an adult. It is a story about figuring out who you are and how to embrace that. Mariam, Ebuka, and Funke seem to know who they are and who they want to be, whether their parents like it or not. They have confidence in the story of themselves they create and share out on the swings as they look to the future. Our protagonist and narrator isn’t so sure. Not sure of being ready for the future, not sure of who she is, what she wants to do or indeed, if she is even enough to do anything. More comfortable listening to others stories than taking a spotlight to tell her own. Even that story of who she is though, the unsure, unknowing, unready child is perhaps not completely accurate. The story really hits me in the feels and nostalgia. I see so much of my past and even present in the narrator. What a strange thing to be sure of oneself. What a truth that we are often afraid to embrace ourselves even when we know the truth, but won’t admit it. And what a very accurate look at what growing up and trying to deal with the pressures, both internal and external, to know yourself can sometimes feel like.