Crystal Sidell

Apr 30, 2024 | strangehorizons.com | Crystal Sidell |Caroline Hung |Arthur Manners |Emma Murray

The thing is; I don’t set out to write neurodivergent characters. I write people – fictional people who are drawn from the people around me, the way I experience the world, and my understanding of these experiences. Too bad if other people refuse to afford my experiences as being real or relatable.

Apr 30, 2024 | strangehorizons.com | Emma Murray |Caroline Hung |Arthur Manners |Crystal Sidell

My back drags along the riverbed,catching on rocks. Limbs flail with the currents thatsweep me over and undersomersaulting in continuous turnslike the acrobat I dreamt ofbecomingas a young child,under the spell of dazzling kaleidoscopic lights,smell of popcorn and buzz of circus music pumped through ancient speakers. The light teases me each trip ‘round,rippling through the barrage of bubbles and cutting through clear waterlike glass. The rays whisper with a giddiness, “There’s air up here. Waiting.

Apr 30, 2024 | strangehorizons.com | Caroline Hung |Arthur Manners |Emma Murray |Crystal Sidell

The Lightning Road cuts far across the Cosmos, a streak of dazzling gold amidst the star-studded void. Paved in otherworldly stone, the road climbs over sleeping giants, past ringed planets and frozen worlds, connecting one unknown to the next. Xiaofei used to like watching it from the hills outside home, the grass soft beneath her bare feet as fireflies sang in the night. This time, she walks along the celestial route herself. Her sneakers crunch over the gravelly path.

Apr 30, 2024 | strangehorizons.com | Arthur Manners |Caroline Hung |Emma Murray |Crystal Sidell

I have bees in my brain. A venom-fanged hydra prowls my chest. My mind is loosed onice skates and all the world is a rink. You used to tell me I’m fine,man up and put yourself right. Real men don’t fret, being weak is achoice, just get a job and keep it,everyone else can handle it sowhy can’t you? Exasperated, you take me on a job,piloting two-person drones,our minds melded by the box in your vanusing science neither of us understands.