Zach Smith

Time and Art

Pop Lit Fiction

ANYONE interested in figuring out an art form’s place within a society, a culture, a civilization, begins thinking about such things as waves and cycles, growth, peaks, plateaus and declines, as if everything’s on a long-term rollercoaster-style chart. The universe pulses and breathes, as does every part of it. Far be it for our tiny human brains to understand the patterns or plan– but we try. A key part of this modest project is understanding where literature is— where it’s been and may possibly be going. Determine that, and we might just own the literary future. In the same way, maybe, Brian Epstein saw a raw working-class band performing in a smoky underground club in Liverpool, England, and realized that he witnessed the future of popular music.

One writer we’ve published, Zach Smith, writes imaginative stories centered around ideas of time, space, aging– and about the universe itself. His newest story, “Millennia After Millennia After Millennia,” which we’re running as our newest feature, delves speculatively into those questions as much as anything we’ve seen from him. We hope you find it entertaining and thought-provoking!

“One hundred years ago, we took off from the launchpad of Quark. Our planet was dying, and we set forth with all the raw materials we needed to build a new society on a planet in the Zygorch Star system. The starship was a wonder, the pinnacle of what our society could create. She was covered fore and aft with panels that drew power directly from the stars, sails that could ride the wind of the stars, and twenty-seven rockets to blast her off the planet. We called her the Eringostar.”

The old man took a sip of his whiskey, a drink he claimed to invent, the recipe a secret he shared with few, as the potion was quite powerful.

Traveling In Space

Pop Lit Fiction

How many planets are there in our solar system?

Do you know?

We ask the question, because the question is asked– and tentatively answered– in our new feature short story, “Hey Mr. Tombaugh Won’t You Name a Star for Me” by Zach Smith. Whether you answer the question eight or nine might depend upon what year you were in school– a question of time. Any question involving space, as this story does, also gets us thinking about the question and meaning of time: our own, and maybe that of the universe itself.

Anyway, the story is an unusual one– science fiction and science fact. Zach Smith is a unique writer, with the gift of writing with clarity but also intelligence and meaning. We can safely say there’s no writer out there quite like him, nor so consistently worth reading– if you wish to expand your boundaries, your sense of time and space, as you escape for a few minutes the hectic pace of life, and jump into that alternate universe known as a short story–

I’ve been waiting for you for a long time, said Xarlox, as he reached out a beam of energy, that by a certain definition could be described as a hand, toward the probe.

The Art of Narrative

Pop Lit Fiction

AN EXAMPLE OF SHORT STORY ARTISTRY

Our new fiction feature is about a church in the woods. A simple story which shows what can be done with the short story by keeping it simple. What matters most with this particular writing genre– the short story– is not how many well-wrought sentences and long paragraphs you can string together as an example of talent– but the form of a particular story. Its construction. Design. Momentum. Flow.

NOT MUCH MORE can be said about this particular tale, “The Narrow Path,” by Zach Smith, without giving away the key to its plot. Suffice it to say it’s in the tradition of classic short stories from when the short story was THE popular American art form. When the form of the story was all. When story endings were the point of the works, as exhibited by masters of the art such as O. Henry, Jack London, or Frank Stockton.

There’s a clue somewhere within the last part of the previous paragraph– about the story’s plot– if you can find it!

(Note: It’s also a Christmas story.)

The church is two stories, taller than it is wide, without a second floor. A taut wire, an inch in diameter stretches from wall to wall, ten feet above the pews, with a second shorter wire intersecting it above the altar.

The door opens for Sunday service, and the congregation files in. The church is open to everyone, but few people come, less and less every year.

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(Art: “Deer in Forest” by Franz Marc; “Indian Church” by Emily Carr.)