Lacuna

when the aether evaporated

nature vacuumed abhorrently

bubbling foam, particles virtual

hurtling backward through time

existing but not now

the universe’s carpets are clean

as a whistle unheard with no medium

the nothing that grows

accumulating time, its very wake

∿ a sine from the heavens

void where prohibited

…the little matter of you…

look through boiling tears

feel with ballooning flesh

sucking in nothing

airlocked on the wrong side

of near-absolute zero

Author’s Biography

Jean-Paul L. Garnier is the owner of Space Cowboy Books bookstore and publishing house, producer of Simultaneous Times Podcast (2023 Laureate Award Winner, BSFA, Ignyte, and British Fantasy Award Finalist, and has been longlisted for the Hugo Award 3 times). He is the editor of the SFPA’s Star*Line magazine. and deputy editor-in-chief of Worlds of IF & Galaxy magazines. He has also guest edited for Eldritch Science Magazine. In 2024 he won the Laureate Award for Best Editor and for Best Anthology (Simultaneous Times Vol.3), which also won the 2024 Next Generation Indie Book Award and the Critters Readers Poll. In 2023 he also won the Laureate Award for Best Fanzine (Simultaneous Times Newsletter). He is the host of many author events as well as the acclaimed Flash Science Fiction Nights reading series. He is the author of many books of poetry and science fiction and has been the recipient of the Arts Connection Arts Innovator Grant and the James Patterson Holiday Bonus. His work has also been nominated for the Elgin, Rhysling, and Dwarf Stars Awards. Garnier has also served as a juror for the Speculative Literature Foundation and the Omega SF Awards.