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1. Dreams R Us Division

Too busy to sleep?

No problem!

You begin a dream,

and the dream sensor

starts the dream deactivator,

which wakes you with a mild electric shock

equivalent in effect

to two cups of coffee.

Meanwhile, the incipient dream

is transferred and stored

in the company mainframe.

There, the dream completer software

massages the story line

and develops alternate dreamlines.

When it's convenient,

you can select whichever variant suits you,

and, when the market slows

or you are longing for a respite,

the dream of your choice

will be returned to you, fully realized,

to enjoy at your leisure.

For the busy man or woman,

it's almost a dream come true.

2. Nightmare Outlet

In this branch of the greater dream factory,

the wages are lower,

the workers disgruntled,

and an inspector from the dream division

constantly intrudes to insure

that the output is defective.

Here, on a creeping assembly line,

the factory seconds pass for hours.

It's not really good news,

or a relief,

that this division's products

are almost always recalled.




Duane Ackerson's poetry has appeared in Rolling Stone, Yankee, Prairie Schooner, The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, Cloudbank, alba, Starline, Dreams & Nightmares, and several hundred other places. He has won two Rhysling awards and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. He lives in Salem, Oregon. You can find more of his work in our archives.
Current Issue
16 Mar 2026

The garden is the resting place of your vulnerabilities; there’s a reason you’ve left them here instead of carrying them with you. Typically you enter hardened and hurried, beelining straight for the correct plot and quickly releasing whatever is clutched in your hand without a second thought—today, an attempted weaving of leather and lace, strength and suppleness that your body cannot figure out how to wear, nor your words to narrate.
If you say there are rats, I will believe you, though I don’t hear or see them.
A ruffling of branches as they resettle for the night. We dare not ask why they are here.
Spec Fic and the Politics of Identity 
As part of a collective of African writers who have created an Afrocentric Sauútiverse of five planets, two suns and a spirit moon, a world of science and fantasy, where there is no written language, we play with technology and sound magic to scrutinise the world as we know it, and use speculative fiction as a response to our world. 
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By: Lio Abendan
Podcast read by: Jenna Hanchey
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Strange Horizons invites non-fiction submissions for our March 30 special issue on “Fungi in SFF.”
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