Has interzone ever published any Flash fiction recently? I recall a one page story for Christopher Priest a while ago, not sure on the word length.

Shaun – The original version of {1} was 180 words long. Maybe I cut too much out of this version?

For the record, the original went like this:

Two of the guards dropped the dead woman off the quay, into the sea. Her legs twitched as they let her go. Her eyes were still open. The other refugees shrank back, muttering with fear.

Why had she run into their bullets like that? What did she know?

On the edge of the crowd, Kate took a tight hold on the duffel bag containing the bomb as the guards, using batons and curses, tried to get the queue moving again. A single tear ran down her cheek. The dead woman had been a decoy, a distraction allowing Kate to slip unquestioned into the queue for the ship.

In her pocket, she carried her insurance policy – a memory stick containing a download of her own personality, aged eight, which she’d treasured for the last decade.

“I’m doing this for you,” she said to her stored younger self. And then she dropped the stick into a plant pot, knowing someone would find it after the explosion, that they’d revive the little girl stored within.

“I hope you make more of your life than I have,” she said.

Looks like you won a different prize, Gareth!

If the intent of flash fiction is to explain *everything*, then {2} is obvious the superior piece. If (flash) fiction must answer all questions, it loses all resonance, and becomes a lecture.

I agree that {2} is witty and ironic, but once it’s made its point its gone: it doesn’t resonate. A bit like a good party joke: high enjoyable on the moment when it’s told, but the next day for the life of you, you can’t remember it anymore.

{1}, on the other hand, forces you to think. To wit:

why the bomb?

Indeed, why? What goes through the minds of people that commit those acts? On the banks of the Jordan, in Baghdad, in Afghanistan, New York, London, and Madrid.

why the quay?

She targetting a boat full of refugees. Why does she target them? I don’t know, but there are more acts of terrorism/mass murder/genocide that I fail to understand. Ask the Hutus and Tutsis, the Serbs, Croats and Bosnians, or the people in Darfur.

Sometimes the line between genocide and terrorism is blurred. Also, isn’t the killing of unarmed, unprepared bystanders for politcal purposes a hallmark of terrorism?

how did she record her personality as an eight year old?

I don’t know, but is it important for the story at hand? In SF, not all technologies are explained or possible (FTL, time travel anyone?). The point is that she *has* a record of herself as an eight year old, which will be used for her cause.

“I’m doing this for you,” she said. Then she dropped it into a plant pot, knowing someone would find it after the explosion, that they’d revive the little girl stored within.

There you have it: a suicide bomber *who leaves a message*. Possib, through her eight-year-old self, she intends to glorify the act (here’s a possible link to the theme). Maybe she intends to show the futility of it all through this desperate act. I can only guess, but for sure I am *interested*. I want to know, to find out.

Quite a few of the stories in the anthology don’t tackle the issue of ‘Glorifying Terrorism’ alone, but also terrorism itself, and its causes. One man’s terrorism is the other man’s heroism. What one will call ‘glorifying something evil’, the other considers ‘the telling of the truth’. Just depends which side of the fence you’re on.

In an indirect, evocative way, {1} reminds us of that. If one cares to make the effort, it makes you think, long after the very short story itself is finished. It raises question in a very good way, it makes you wonder why the girl did this, makes you hunger for more.

And while I certainly enoyed {2} (I never said it was bad), {1} keeps spinning through my head.

At least, it does for me. But if flash fiction must be fully self-contained, then I know why it’s not for me…;-)

(And any flash fiction that makes me write more words than the actual piece itself has something going for it. To put it bluntly: if this is expanded into a short story, I want to see it. Got that, Gareth?)

By contrast, I thought {2} was a witty response to the concept as well as an erudite commentary on the British media, a principle generator and expeditor of the concept of terrorism.

They’re both good, but the flaws of {1} but {2} on top for me.