Preview Excerpt – Zoetrope: All-Story

As a special online supplement to the Winter 2022/2023 issue, the editors present the prizewinning story from the 2022 Zoetrope: All-Story Short Fiction Competition, as judged by Ling Ma. She lay motionless on a tray in the tube of the machine, stripped of the clothes she had arrived in, stripped of her jewelry (the ring that was her mother’s), a cage over her face, a cloth folded over her eyes, listening to the banging of the magnets. I’m not here, she thought. There’s a body in this tube and a head with a soft brain inside—full of rivulets, full of folds. But I’m not there, in that head. She pressed her lips together and willed the head still. The action consisted not of any adjustment, but of feeling intensely the weight of the head on the pillow that cushioned it. She retreated from this weight. She pictured herself wriggling out of the tube, leaving the head in its cage, walking out of the room. A voice came through the machine: “Next sequence. Doing great.” The magnets began vibr

As a special online supplement to the Winter 2022/2023 issue, the editors present the prizewinning story from the 2022 Zoetrope: All-Story Short Fiction Competition, as judged by Ling Ma. She lay motionless on a tray in the tube of the machine, stripped of the clothes she had arrived in, stripped of her jewelry (the ring that was her mother’s), a cage over her face, a cloth folded over her eyes, listening to the banging of the magnets. I’m not here, she thought. There’s a body in this tube and a head with a soft brain inside—full of rivulets, full of folds. But I’m not there, in that head. She