Shannon Phillips

So I recently signed up for the Daily Science Fiction mailing list, where they e-mail you a short (usually 1500 words or less) science-fiction story every morning. It is free! I don’t know why I didn’t do this ages ago!

Here’s an excerpt from today’s story, “A Note to Parents Regarding the Beginning and End of Time Diorama Presentations for Ms. Miller’s Third Grade Class”:

Dear Parents,

It’s diorama time again, and I thought I would send home a few notes for parents about this annual project. While your child is encouraged to approach this project creatively, there are a few ground rules that will help ensure success—as well as the safety of the class.

Time:

If your child chooses Eternalism or “brick time” he or she may not use marshmallows, M&Ms, or any other food item to illustrate the discrete blocks of time. Also, while space-time may be infinite, the dioramas are meant to be a representation to demonstrate your child’s knowledge of the beginning and end of time. Keep in mind that we have sixteen students in the class and all their dioramas must fit on two tables.

Any dioramas depicting N-dimensional space-time, or “time foam,” must not infinitely generate soap bubbles (it creates a terrible mess).

I would recommend restricting any diorama to 6 to 8 dimensions, even if standard string theory’s 12 dimensions are achievable, the results are both difficult to view and, in reality, cannot be contained within the confines of the class. Although it has never happened, we would hate to lose a child to another dimension on diorama day.

I don’t know how they make enough money to pay their authors (because they do pay their authors, which is awesome), but I hope they keep it up, as the stories are fun and just the right length to be a quick daily dose of imagination and possibility.