Collected Fiction 2024 Edition Beth Goder
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Jerry eBooks
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Beth Goder worked as an archivist at Stanford, processing the papers of economists, scientists, and other interesting folks before becoming a full-time writer and parent to her wonderful twin girls. She has a degree in Information Science from the University of Michigan. Now she enjoys writing speculative fiction stories about memory, records, and the relationship between the past and present. Her fiction has appeared in Escape Pod, Mothership Zeta, Fireside, Flash Fiction Online and Zetetic.
Collected Fiction
Beth Goder
(custom book cover)
Jerry eBooks
Title Page
About Beth Goder
Short Fiction Bibliography: chronological
Short Fiction Bibliography: alphabetical
2015
The Sound That Carries Across the Ocean
2016
Windows
Eating the Sun
Murder or a Duck
The Forgetting Place
The Wish Giver
2017
To the Eggplant Cannon
Pulling Secrets from Stones
When All the Clocks Are Wrong
2018
The Great Scientist Rivalry on Planet Sourdough
Our Weight on Other Worlds
Move Fast and Break Things
How to Identify an Alien Shark
The Fermi Loneliness Problem
2019
Streetlight Discovers Kandinsky
How to Say I Love You with Wikipedia
Fairy-Tale Ending
Seeds Travel
2020 Memories of a Rose Garden
The House That Leapt into Forever
True Colors
The Punctuation Factory
2021 History in Pieces
Candide; life-
Echo Echo Heartbeat
Last Words and Little Rebellions
Sisyphus and the Sun
The Space Mermaid’s Garden
2022
Make Your Own Happily Ever After
The Appliance Crisis
The Cinnamon Thread
An Expression of Silence
One Day in Infinity
Dinosaur Portal Mayhem
The Ocean Waits
The Restaurant of Object Permanence
The Time Loop Device is Counting Down
The Forgotten Bakery in the Valley of Ears One Pinch, Two Pinch
2023
SHORT FICTION BIBLIOGRAPHY
CHRONOLOGICAL
2015
The Sound That Carries Across the Ocean, Freeze Frame Fiction, Vol VI, 2015
2016
Windows, Escape Pod, February 29, 2016
Eating the Sun, Mothership Zeta, Issue 4, July 2016
Murder or a Duck, Escape Pod, October 13, 2016
The Forgetting Place, Zetetic: A Record of Unusual Inquiry, November 2016
The Wish Giver, Zetetic: A Record of Unusual Inquiry, February 2016
2017
To the Eggplant Cannon, Metaphorosis, April 2017
Pulling Secrets from Stones, Mythic #3, Summer, June 29, 2017
When All the Clocks Are Wrong, Escape Pod, September 7, 2017
2018
The Great Scientist Rivalry on Planet Sourdough, Reading 5x5, April 2018
Our Weight on Other Worlds, Factor Four Magazine, Issue 1, April 2018
Move Fast and Break Things, Factor Four Magazine, Issue 2, July 2018
How to Identify an Alien Shark, Fireside, September 2018
The Fermi Loneliness Problem, Unidentified Funny Objects 7, September 17, 2018
2019
Streetlight Discovers Kandinsky, Constellary Tales, Issue 2, February 2019
How to Say I Love You With Wikipedia, Fireside, April 2019
Fairy-Tale Ending, Flash Fiction Online, June 2019
Seeds Travel, Nature, August 28, 2019
2020
Memories of a Rose Garden, Community of Magic Pens, May 2020
The House That Leapt Into Forever, Clarkesworld, Issue 166, July 2020
True Colors, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, September/October, September
2020
The Punctuation Factory, Unidentified Funny Objects 8, October 2020
2021
History in Pieces, Clarkesworld, Issue 173, February 2021
Candide; life-, Clarkesworld, Issue 179, September 2021
Echo Echo Heartbeat, flashfictiononline.com, September 2021
Last Words and Little Rebellions, Nature, September 2021
Sisyphus and the Sun, Martian, November 2021
Photobombing the Apocalypse, Cossmass Infinities 2020: The First Year, December 2021
The Space Mermaid’s Garden, Mermaids Monthly, December 2021
2022
Make Your Own Happily Ever After, Trenchcoats, Towers, and Trolls:
Cyberpunk Fairy Tales, January 2022
Rundle 105, Dark Matter Magazine, January/February, January 2022
The Appliance Crisis, Flash Fiction Online, February 2022
The Cinnamon Thread, Podcastle, March 2022
An Expression of Silence, Clarkesworld, April 2022
One Day in Infinity, Cast of Wonders, May 2022
Dinosaur Portal Mayhem, Rockets & Robots: Out of This World Adventures, July 3, 2022
The Ocean Waits, Martian, September 2022
The Restaurant of Object Permanence, Diabolical Plots, November 2022
The Time Loop Device is Counting Down, Unidentified Funny Objects 9, November 2022
2023
The Forgotten Bakery in the Valley of Ears, Kaleidotrope, 2023
One Pinch, Two Pinch, Lightspeed, March 2023
SHORT FICTION BIBLIOGRAPHY
ALPHABETICAL
A
An Expression of Silence, Clarkesworld, April 2022
The Appliance Crisis, Flash Fiction Online, February 2022
C
Candide; life-, Clarkesworld, Issue 179, September 2021
The Cinnamon Thread, Podcastle, March 2022
D
Dinosaur Portal Mayhem, Rockets & Robots: Out of This World Adventures, July 3, 2022
E
Eating the Sun, Mothership Zeta, Issue 4, July 2016
Echo Echo Heartbeat, flashfictiononline.com, September 2021
F
Fairy-Tale Ending, Flash Fiction Online, June 2019
The Fermi Loneliness Problem, Unidentified Funny Objects 7, September 17, 2018
The Forgetting Place, Zetetic: A Record of Unusual Inquiry, November 2016
The Forgotten Bakery in the Valley of Ears, Kaleidotrope, 2023
G
The Great Scientist Rivalry on Planet Sourdough, Reading 5x5, April 2018
H
History in Pieces, Clarkesworld, Issue 173, February 2021
The House That Leapt Into Forever, Clarkesworld, Issue 166, July 2020
How to Identify an Alien Shark, Fireside, September 2018
How to Say I Love You With Wikipedia, Fireside, April 2019
L
Last Words and Little Rebellions, Nature, September 2021
M
Make Your Own Happily Ever After, Trenchcoats, Towers, and Trolls:
Cyberpunk Fairy Tales, January 2022
Memories of a Rose Garden, Community of Magic Pens, May 2020
Move Fast and Break Things, Factor Four Magazine, Issue 2, July 2018
Murder or a Duck, Escape Pod, October 13, 2016
O
The Ocean Waits, Martian, September 2022
One Day in Infinity, Cast of Wonders, May 2022
One Pinch, Two Pinch, Lightspeed, March 2023
Our Weight on Other Worlds, Factor Four Magazine, Issue 1, April 2018
PPhotobombing the Apocalypse, Cossmass Infinities 2020: The First Year, December 2021
Pulling Secrets from Stones, Mythic #3, Summer, June 29, 2017
The Punctuation Factory, Unidentified Funny Objects 8, October 2020
R
The Restaurant of Object Permanence, Diabolical Plots, November 2022
Rundle 105, Dark Matter Magazine, January/February, January 2022
SSeeds Travel, Nature, August 28, 2019
Sisyphus and the Sun, Martian, November 2021
The Sound That Carries Across the Ocean, Freeze Frame Fiction, Vol. VI, 2015
The Space Mermaid’s Garden, Mermaids Monthly, December 2021
Streetlight Discovers Kandinsky, Constellary Tales, Issue 2, February 2019
TThe Time Loop Device is Counting Down, Unidentified Funny Objects 9 , November 2022
To the Eggplant Cannon, Metaphorosis, April 2017
True Colors, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, September/October, September 2020
When All the Clocks Are Wrong, Escape Pod, September 7, 2017
Windows, Escape Pod, February 29, 2016
The Wish Giver, Zetetic: A Record of Unusual Inquiry, February 2016
W
2015
The Sound That Carries Across the Ocean
The Finta could not entice any boats to sail his way. He lured them with pineapples, laid out neatly on the shore, and mangoes, and bright kiwi slices. But when the sailors spied his hulking mass, a red and yellow mottled shell rising up from the island, they gave the whole place a wide berth. They did not believe him when he cried out that he only wanted company, or perhaps they simply did not understand his language.
During his naming ceremony, the Finta had been dubbed Talain, which meant “tiny and stubborn”. After the other Fintas accepted the offer of the Bantal and took to the stars, Talain was alone, for he could not bear to leave his island, with the quietly swaying gulnig trees, and the wind washing over his body, and the sun that rose warm and bright. He had lived for many years on his island, which he had never named, but simply thought of as home.
When the sailors were not lured by his offering of fruits, Talain sang. He sang every song he knew, songs of valor and romance, songs of brave deeds, songs only sung when one had drunk too much Yunta beer, and songs of sorrow that he had heard his grandsire chant when the tide brought only dark water.
But still, the sailors would not come.
With a great heave, Talain uprooted his island and paddled farther out to sea. The water felt cool and crisp beneath his flippers, reminding him of how he swam as a child, before he became big enough to settle in one place.
Talain could not travel very fast, and sometimes he simply drifted, happy to go where the ocean would take him. Although he saw no more sailors, Talain sang. Drinking songs were his favorite.
He was singing in just this way when he heard another voice match his, a clear octave above his own. They sang together, a raunchy song about a drunken Finta who passed out and woke up with a note tied around his small flipper.
Talain swam towards the source of the voice, but he made slow progress, for the current was not always his friend. But sound carries far across the ocean, and Finta have loud singing voices.
As the years passed, he learned many new songs.
Three times, he lost the sound of the other voice, for the wind obscured its direction, scattering the melody until he could hear it no more. Three times he despaired, and three times rejoiced when his ears again caught the sound, as if it had never disappeared, as if it had always been with him.
In his fifth year of swimming, he spotted a speck on the horizon. Perhaps a boat or an island, a whale or a mirage. By his sixth year of swimming, the speck had morphed into an island topped by a mottled red and yellow shell.
That year, Talain composed a new song. An ode to Yunta beer, and mangoes, and the smell of the ocean. The sort of song that can only be
sung as a duet.
2016
Windows
After just three years, most of Gurt’s downtown was nearly unrecognizable. Roldan Street boasted a new tea shop, and the roads had been repaved with greenish eco-tar. Even the old sign at Marta’s Bakery, which had been shaped like a pink cupcake, was replaced with sleek blue lettering.
Score another one for the prophetic soup.
The library sported new windows, stained glass whorls of teal and gold, while Grocery Plus had removed the panoramic window which used to overlook the river. That was the first thing I noticed when I came back, the windows.
I’d spent a lot of time looking out of windows, back when I lived in Gurt. I couldn’t go outside during the dust storms, because of my asthma, so I’d waited inside wherever I happened to be when the storm hit. But dust is all the same, just one blank, swirling vortex, so instead of watching the storms I started looking at the windows. Marta’s Bakery used to have the most beautiful violet windows, circular, like a morning bun with icing on top. Not that I eat morning buns, anymore.
I promised myself when I moved away from Gurt that I’d never come back, not after Sara left me at the altar. On the day of our
wedding, I waited for hours at the church window (clean, but with the latch rusted off), fingering the beading on my beautiful white dress, while all of the guests snuck out, except for my family, who had transported in for the ceremony. Dad enveloped me in a hug, while Mom said that she had never liked Sara anyway, reminding me of the time Sara had ruined our trip to Seldar by whining about the swamp smell. It helped, but not very much.
Sara never returned my pings or responded to my emails. She’d already requested vacation time from the library for our honeymoon, and she must have taken it, because I couldn’t find her anywhere in town.
When Mrs. Vineweld stopped me at the grocery store and said, “I’m crocheting a blanket for you, my poor dear,” I packed up and moved as far away from Gurt as I could get without transporting to another planet.
Tilandy was much more developed than Gurt, one of the seventeen original colonist sites on Prata. The dust was milder there, too. Overall, a much better place, even if most of the windows were standard issue, and not many people knew my name.
But then the soup started talking to me.
I don’t have any particular fondness for alphabet soup, but it’s the cheapest thing on the menu at the Tilandy University Cafe, and adjunct professors of xenoanthropology can’t afford to be picky.
I was reading an ethnography of the Feld aliens of Yuno Planet when I noticed that the soup was trying to get my attention. The letters formed up into words, swirling in the bowl, even though I hadn’t touched the surface with a spoon. I ignored it.
When Professor Bando sat down across from me, the letters scattered. Bando looked like a swan today, blinking at me through tiny, beaded eyes.
He switched off his hologram, revealing a huge grin. “I’ve finally worked out the kinks with model S5-12.” Professor Bando, who worked in the Holograms Department, was always claiming that his inventions were bug free. By now, most of the graduate students knew to run extensive tests on anything he invented.
“Very realistic.” I spooned up some of my soup. “How’s the new grad student coming along?”
“Nothing’s exploded in the lab, yet, so I’d say quite well.”
Professor Bando reached into his pocket and pulled out a rumpled scientific journal. “I saw a copy of this in the lounge and thought you might want to take a look.”
I pulled the journal across the table and unrolled it, revealing the latest issue of Alien Cultures and Customs. The main article was titled, “The Under-Margua of Prata: Will We Ever Meet Them?”
Professor Bando pointed at the cover. “I’ve always wondered about the Under-Margua. All that strange math. Incomprehensible. And their art. It’s too bad they’re so reclusive. And it’s strange to think they might be living right under us. ” Professor Bando glanced at the floor suspiciously, then bit into his burger. “But you ’ re a xenoanthropologist, so you must know a great deal about them.”
I sipped my water, then shook my head. “No one really knows all that much about them.”
When the first colonists landed on Prata they were surprised to find that a sentient species was already living on the planet. The space
reconnaissance probes hadn’t uncovered any activity because the Under-Margua settled underground to avoid the dust storms. Negotiations for the settlement of human colonies took place as a series of messages written in Interplanetary Galactic Common, implying that the Under-Margua were already in communication with other intelligent life, although they never admitted to it.
No one had ever met an Under-Margua in person.
“So you never made a study of the Under-Margua?” Bando forked some salad into his mouth.
I motioned to my haptic pad, still displaying the ethnography of the Feld. “I’m more interested in aliens who are physically similar to us, because I believe comparing our similarities and differences could provide insight into aspects of human culture that are biologically determined.”
l perused the journal, and when I glanced up, I found myself looking at a swan. “Did you activate your hologram?”
“No,” said the swan, its beak moving in perfect time with Professor Bando’s speech. “Blast. It’s projecting, isn’t it?”
When Professor Bando scurried from the cafeteria, the soup resumed its antics.
The soup had been sending me messages for weeks. First, simple things like, “hello, Talia Misk” and “happy lunching,” but then it started forming more complex sentences spread out over several meals. “Watch out for the green hatted man, ” my soup once said, hours before Professor Wilder, who was fond of his green beret, stumbled into me and spilled his coffee all over my white blouse. “Student 391 is
plagiarizing,” the soup warned. “Do not buy fish or cucumbers from William’s Grocery.”
The soup was always right. Helpful. And I started to take its advice, all the while pretending it was my idea. I’d tell myself that Shelly Stillwright had been producing more complex work than her earlier papers suggested was possible, and perhaps I should look into it. Luckster’s Food Emporium was closer to my apartment, so why not shop there?
That’s when the soup got pushy. “Go back to Gurt,” it wrote.
Every day, a version of the same message. “Gurt has changed,” or “ your help is required in Gurt,” or “two for one sale on jigsaw puzzles, only in Gurt.”
I ignored it, until the soup said, “You will find Sara there.”
Gurt had changed a lot in three years, but Marta’s Bakery still smelled like baking bread and fresh icing. As I stood in the doorway, Marta waved me in cheerily. “We’ve got a special on cinnamon rolls today.”
Out of habit I pointed to the morning buns. “I’ll have two of those.”
“There’s something familiar about you. ” Marta picked up a morning bun with parchment paper. “Do you have a relative living here?”
Instead of answering her question, I said, “It looks like there’s been some construction recently.”
Marta beamed. “The settler money from the planetary government came in. Most of it was earmarked for rebuilding. The dust this far out does wear everything down. But everyone living here also received
some money. ” She pointed up. “I took down my silly old sign and put up that lettering out there.”
I had liked the cupcake sign, but of course I couldn’t say anything. “Must be hard, living this far away from the original colonies.”
“We’ve had to do without some of the conveniences you might get in the more developed places. It’s hard to get shipments of fresh eggs and milk, what with the closest dairy lab being a few hundred miles west. And the dust storms are quite something. But I wouldn’t leave, just the same. ”
When Marta handed me the morning buns, wrapped up in a pink bag, my face flicked for a second. She blinked a few times, but didn’t say anything.
Before leaving the university, I’d borrowed a holographic facial generation band, model T-6F, from Professor Bando. He’d reassured me that, although the hologram was still in the development phases, it was basically flawless. His exact words were, “I’ve finally worked out all the kinks.”
When I’d first put on the hologram, I didn’t know what to expect. The band fit snugly on my head, and when I looked in the mirror of Professor Bando’s lab, I saw a face not unlike my own. Smaller ears, larger mouth, slightly darker hair. But my eyes were exactly the same shade of dark brown. Completely unchanged. As I thanked Professor Bando, the holographic mouth moved exactly in time with my speech.
The world looked different from within the hologram, a little less crisp, as if everything had a halo of light around it, but the effect wasn’t too distracting. I found it strangely comforting to have a barrier between my face and the world.
The display of cupcakes reminded me of how I used to buy treats for Sara, so I quickly said goodbye to Marta and headed outside.
A man in a blue jacket was waiting for me. His arms were pulled up awkwardly at his sides, reminding me of a tyrannosaurus. “You’re here,” he said. “You must have received my soup vibrations.”
Time to find out who was interrupting my lunches. “Who are you?” I asked.
“A former resident of Gurt, just like yourself.” He extended a hand. “You can call me Hank.”
I reached out to shake his hand, but he pulled it away before I could grab it, and gestured at the library down the street. “Gurt doesn’t look like it used to, does it?”
I zipped up my jacket as the wind gusted past. We walked down Roldan Street, while Hank pointed out improvements to the hardware emporium, Tan’s Coffee, and the bookstore.
After examining the new buildings, I turned to look at him. “Why did you want me to come here?”
Hank stopped in front of the library and admired the teal and gold stained glass window. “I’m just a concerned citizen, and I think you could help Gurt. Even though you left, I know you still care about the town.”
“Not about the library,” I said. The wind rushed around me, faster and faster.
“That’s a shame. It’s a beautiful building, the first public space established in Gurt. I’d like you to sketch—” The wind gusted hard against Hank, swirling bits of dust around him.
I really had been gone a long time. I’d forgotten the warning signs of a dust storm.
Hank surveyed the sky. “Looks like this one is going to be fierce. You’d better get inside.”
“I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to see her,” I said, but Hank was already scuttling away.
“We’ll talk after the storm,” he called back.
I thought about running back to Marta’s Bakery, but the storm was picking up. Coughing, I stumbled into the library.
The library was a small building packed with rows of books on sturdy metal shelves. The smell of crisp paper hung in the air. After I slammed the door on the dust, I glanced around the room, but I couldn’t see anyone in the stacks.
I knew Sara would be sitting at the reference desk, but it was still a shock to see her there. When my coughing abated, she called out, “Welcome to Gurt Library. Can I help you?”
“I’m just here to wait out the storm.” I made my way to the stained glass window, staring out at the dust, then at the window itself, beautiful and fragile.
Sara came up beside me and leaned against the wall. “I love watching the storms, when the library is silent like this.”
I nodded and surreptitiously touched my holographic band, checking that it was still on.
Sara peered at the swirling dust outside, and no one said anything for a while. I realized that I was still holding the bag of morning buns.
“Are you hungry?” I asked, holding out the bag to her.
“We really shouldn’t eat in the library,” she said, taking a bun.
The only sounds were the storm and our chewing. I thought about how we used to eat morning buns every day, how she’d cut hers into quarters, and I’d bite mine whole. How she’d drink orange juice, even though she disliked eating oranges. How she combed her hair during breakfast. I’d found that endearing, at first. Living with Sara, I’d learned the intricacies of her life, her daily habits, all of the little things that make up the routines of a person. And I was sure she had that same knowledge of me. It’s hard to forget those things, even after three years.
She took a deep breath.“Your voice reminds me of someone I used to know.”
I examined the thick wooden jamb of the window, sturdy enough to hold up, even against a storm like this. The dust beat against the window, a constant tapping.
When I didn’t say anything, Sara continued. “She was this brilliant student of xenoanthropology. On our first date, she told me about the Feld, how they have this custom called beech-letting, where they fold up a huge zawana leaf, pass it around, and the last person to touch the leaf before it springs open will have good luck for the rest of the season. But that person also has to say three hours of prayers every day. It’s a religious thing.”
I looked up from the window. “That’s a common misconception. The Feld don’t have religions.” I was about to launch into a description of the complex belief system of the Feld from the south of Yuno, with
