As Above

A quick announcement that my short-short story "As Above" has been published by Flash Fiction Magazine at this web address.

Under a thousand words, and, of course, fundamentally a gimmick story indulging my predilection for astronomy.  Yet in developing what it would take to make the gimmick work, there turned out to be some depths and disturbing implications, more topical than I had planned - in the accumulation and arbitrary exercise of vastly uneven economic power, in careening technological advance, in matters of character and personal history and whether to come to terms with loss.

It's common enough to seek to draw down some meaning from the stars into our own lives - perhaps by checking the horoscope column in the morning newspaper, perhaps by firing a red sports car out toward the asteroid belt.  Not everyone's cup of tea, certainly.  But the daydream of somehow, against all evidence to the contrary, finding a way of turning back time and undoing that one crucial mistake - I take that to be universal.

P.S.  While researching the astronomy for this story, I discovered that the superlative Randall Munroe had independently struck upon much the same concept.  For an exquisite visual demonstration of Tighe's task, you need look no further than here.