Congratulations to the winners of the second Jerboa Lit 250!
April 2026 prompt:
Genre: Sci-fi
Character: (An) Icon
First Place
Veneration
By Eva Schultz
The separatists don’t know that I’m watching them. When we slipped a camera-embedded panel into their materials purchase in the market, we thought it would be used in their ship construction. I’d monitor them, capture the evidence, and send in troops to shut them down.
Instead, an elderly member of the sect put this panel aside, labored over it with a paintbrush for days, and hung it in their secret workspace. Throughout the day, while they construct their ship, they approach to whisper their prayers to me – a young girl scared to travel to a new planet, mechanics asking for their work to be blessed, a man desperate for his children and grandchildren to all survive the journey.
I don’t know what my painted face looks like – I can only imagine that I’m a beatific figure gazing down at them, eyes soft with love, an earnest rendition of their holy figure. As they murmur their secrets and hopes, I listen, watching grainy footage of weary but hopeful faces.
On the day that their ship is set to launch, they move the panel inside and press in close, holding hands. Here at command headquarters, I report a server failure. I don’t recover my report in time to dispatch a squad before we receive word of an unauthorized launch from the southern canyon region.
I listen to their prayers until their ship moves beyond transmission range. The last thing I hear is their sweet voices raised in hymn.
Eva Schultz lives in Aurora, Illinois, where she is a business proposal writer by day and a fiction writer by night. She was thrilled to see sci-fi selected for this contest, as it is her favorite genre to write, and she was delighted by the opportunity to meditate on the theme of love and respect for God in this little story. She lives with a sweet orange cat and spends her free time painting, drawing, board gaming, and collecting typewriters and fountain pens. Her work has appeared most recently in 101 Words, Flash Fiction Magazine, and Epic Echoes. Visit her online at www.evaschultz.com.
Second Place
Coming soon!
Third Place
What He Made
By Kari Carlisle
The L doors opened, and Irena stepped onto the Adams/Wabash platform and into the chill of Chicago in autumn. She walked deliberately, quietly, as everyone did since the beings arrived, avoiding notice. Waving her Art Institute ID badge over the sensor, she passed through the door and headed to her office.
So far so good. Since she hadn’t attracted any attention, she decided to start her day with a condition inspection of Toulouse-Lautrec’s At the Moulin Rouge, one of her former favorites.
As she checked boxes on her inspection sheet, the telltale pressure in the back of her head made her eyes close.
Open your eyes.
The Unbound, they called themselves, but people usually called them Eaters.
She sighed and opened them.
Who are they?
“They are artists and dancers enjoying themselves in a nightclub,” she offered blandly.
Show me.
Irena began to move, twirling and undulating, feeling an imagined green spotlight on her face. She pulled an arriving student into the dance.
Irena’s face reddened. “I have a better one,” she said, and the student walked away without acknowledging her.
Irena began walking through the galleries and used the time to plan. If anything could starve it, it was Pablo Picasso. She arrived and stood facing The Old Guitarist.
Why is this better?
“Because this is about its maker. He had nothing, and he made this.” She wrapped her blue sweater tightly around her.
I don’t understand. I'm hungry.
Irena took a deep breath. “Yes, you are.”
Writing from the Arizona desert, Kari Carlisle finds inspiration in history, science, landscapes, and the ways people create meaning through community and memory. With degrees in theology and anthropology, a career leading museums and cultural organizations has given her a curiosity about stories of identity, belonging, and change. She loves reading, walking her retired racing greyhounds, and looking up at the night sky.
Honorable Mentions
Reconstructed Playback
By S L Jones
The cinema is empty when it happens.
I’m finishing my shift, sweeping popcorn from under the seats, when I hear a click from the projection booth behind me. Just for a second. A hitch, like the projector catching its breath. Film stutters on an archival reel.
The screen flickers on.
A familiar scene. Horse and buggy. Two famous figures, no longer inside it.
Rhett Butler stands in the aisle, brushing invisible dust from his white sleeve, as if stepping out of a film is an everyday inconvenience.
Scarlett O'Hara follows more slowly, her green gaze already moving—over the seats, the EXIT sign.
Then me.
Neither speak. Rhett tips his straw boater to me with a grin.
They sit.
Middle row, like ordinary patrons.
On the screen, the reconstruction continues without them. Two stand-ins—wrong in ways I can’t name—deliver lines that fall flat, like echoes of something better.
Rhett watches with mild interest, one arm draped over the back of his seat. Scarlett leans forward, intent, almost hungry.
I should say something. Call someone.
Instead, I stay where I am, broom in hand.
Scarlett tilts her head, listening to her own voice coming from the screen. Then, she shakes her head.
Not like she’s confused.
Like she disagrees.
Rhett glances at her, amused. “Never satisfied, are you?”
She doesn’t look at him. “That isn’t us.”
Onscreen, he delivers his famous line.
In the theatre, he doesn’t.
He just watches himself say it—as if watching a stranger.
S L Jones is a sleep-deprived Sydney-based writer who balances her day job in the health sector with writing whenever she can. She re-commenced writing in 2023 after a long hiatus, dipping her toes into flash fiction competitions and short story submissions. She loves writing micro fiction and has placed highly in several competitions in this format. Her work has appeared in Penstricken, Specul8 Publishing, Globe Soup, Ratbag Lit, and Twist in the Tale Magazine. Some might say BORING!, but she is an avid fan of classic film noir and loves reading, writing, and spending time with her children and grandchildren.
Iconoclast
By Brian White
I've taken down many bronze statues since the Collapse. Heroes on horseback, sabres raised in the service of principles worth killing for; worth dying for. They’ve all fallen to my acetylene cutter. But this is the farthest from shore I’ve had to travel.
A hand-drawn chart led me through the bayou—all that remains of the mainland—to “Sea-to-Lake”; a sandbar four nautical miles offshore. Nothing’s left but a few mangroves; a brood of abandoned peacocks yee-owling from the branches; the sticks of buildings slipping beneath the waves; and this bronze monument erected by the subject himself. The murky water laps at its plinth.
I spark my torch, narrowing the blue flame, and begin to cut this last statue apart, first at the inseam. A castration too late, but a fitting emasculation still. Glowing slag and dross float down in flashes like the flameout of empires. Each orb of blinding light extinguishes in the swamp sucking around my gumboots.
I, too, am a destroyer of worlds; at least their memories. Old worlds governed by Old Testament thinking. War should’ve been waged for the sake of the world, not amongst its conquerors. Now my torch is a sabre rattling in my rickety skiff against the monument’s smoking cross-sections; its 4-horsepower motor whining on bartered-for corn alcohol.
My chart is in English. Few remember the sandbar’s Spanish name. Mar-a-Lago’s final marker is my scrap metal now. I will trade it for a season’s worth of food; It’s the currency of humanity’s Second Bronze Age.
Brian White is an everyday writer of boring stuff but loves to write short stories and has a working manuscript for his first novel. He lives in California with his wife, daughter, cat, and a pair of mooching horses. His work has been published or is forthcoming in Twist Magazine, Flash Phantoms, and Rat Bag Lit.
Syndicated
By Deidra Whitt Lovegren
“And now the one you've all been waiting for . . .” A voice booms through the convention center's loudspeakers. “Admiral Godfree!”
It’s Mort's cue. Ignoring his arthritic knees, he leaps to the stage and flashes his veneers. Hundreds of conventioneers clap, awaiting his famous catchphrase.
“Star Planet—” Mort gazes skyward “—is my home!”
The crowd erupts.
Mort checks his dopamine gauge. 52%. Good.
A row of security personnel holds back enthusiastic groupies. He recognizes the type: they didn't love Admiral Godfree. They loved loving something.
68%. Even better.
“My fellow Planeteers,” Mort begins, arms unfurling. “I’ve spent the past four decades with you in remembrance of everything that made Star Planet a stellar television series, syndicated in over sixty countries.” Mort flashes the quintessential Admiral-Godfree side-eye. “Shows today get cancelled after six episodes. We ran for eleven years!”
“I love you, Admiral Godfree!” a shrill voice screams from the back.
“Pow-pow!” Mort spins on his heel, then flashes his finger-guns. “I love you, too!”
Dopamine gauge: 88%. Nearly there.
“The world’s changed,” Mort whispers, and the audience quiets. Theme music swells overhead. “But as we learned from our last season, mankind will always find a way to survive — and thrive!”
Thunderous applause. He almost believed himself.
Dopamine gauge: 100%. Complete.
Mort leaves the stage. The black market loan sharks remove the harvesting tubes and wires.
“They like it fresh, don’t they?” Mort mumbles, sinking into a chair.
“They like their dopamine authentic,” one of them replies. “See you in Poughkeepsie.”
Deidra Whitt Lovegren frequently competes in international writing contests. Her published works include The Medicine Girl, The Medicine Woman, and 21 Conversations—a collection of dialogue-only short stories. The Lady of the Match, an anthology of her work translated into Arabic, debuted at the 2024 Cairo International Book Fair.
Throughout her career, Deidra has taught English and composition at every level, from preschool to college. She currently lives in Virginia with her husband of 30 years, their three sons, and two rescue cats.