hmmm....... top 5 short stories, for the ask game?

oooh. okay, thinking! (<- as many as several minutes after typing this out, future sparrow here to say: UH okay i have so many tabs open now! oops! i didn't realize i had so many short stories i liked! this turned out to be a bit trickier than anticipated, but in a fun way :] )

Termination Stories for the Cyberpunk Dystopia Protagonist by Isabel J. Kim - I Like It When There Are Stories About Stories. I Like Metafiction. I Like When Saying Something Is True Makes It So. I Like Weird Fucked Up Cities. And anyway, Isabel J. Kim just writes great stuff in general. I'm also obsessed with The Narrative Implications of Your Untimely Death.

Exhalation by Ted Chiang - There's something so lovely and gently curious about this one. A friend of mine sent me the link several years ago and I have never quite been able to stop thinking about death as an explosion of gold flakes.

Twilight Mirage Episode 63: Guaranteed Events, Or: An Accounting of the Time When We Built The Machine by Austin Walker - Every time people ask me for recs. I point at Friends At The Table Twilight Mirage. This is almost always cheating on account of It's A Podcast but LOOK THIS IS A STAND-ALONE SHORT STORY AND HERE'S THE TRANSCRIPT. I'm saying it counts. The last sentence stuck in me as soon as I heard it and has not unstuck from me since.

Alien Hand Syndrome by Molly Ofgeography - This world and these people are so specifically weird; it's unbelievably charming and I like it so so much.

L'Esprit de L'Escalier by Catherynne M. Valente - Retelling of Orpheus and Eurydice. There were a couple others I considered for this spot but I've been in a rotting bodies mood lately and this is REALLY good for that. Also type of thing I cannot stop thinking about. Came back wrong in the sense of 'the whole world knows she's supposed to be dead, herself included, and it wants to make this right.'