Lunch Ticket
  • Current Issue
  • Archive
    • Issues Archive
      • Issue 26: Winter/Spring 2025
      • Issue 25: Summer/Fall 2024
      • Issue 24: Winter/Spring 2024
      • Issue 23: Summer/Fall 2023
      • Issue 22: Winter/Spring 2023
      • Issue 21: Summer/Fall 2022
      • Issue 20: Winter/Spring 2022
      • Issue 19: Summer/Fall 2021
      • Issue 18: Winter/Spring 2021
      • Issue 17: Summer/Fall 2020
      • Issue 16: Winter/Spring 2020
      • Issue 15: Summer/Fall 2019
      • Issue 14: Winter/Spring 2019
      • Issue 13: Summer/Fall 2018
      • Issue 12: Winter/Spring 2018
      • Issue 11: Summer/Fall 2017
      • Issue 10: Winter/Spring 2017
      • Issue 9: Summer/Fall 2016
      • Issue 8: Winter/Spring 2016
      • Issue 7: Summer/Fall 2015
      • Issue 6: Winter/Spring 2015
      • Issue 5: Summer/Fall 2014
      • Issue 4: Winter/Spring 2014
      • Issue 3: Summer/Fall 2013
      • Issue 2: Winter/Spring 2013
      • Issue 1: Spring 2012
    • Genre Archive
      • Creative Nonfiction
      • Essays
      • Fiction
      • Flash Prose
      • Interviews
      • Lunch Specials
      • Poetry
      • Translation
      • Visual Art
      • Young Adult
  • About
    • Mission Statement
    • Lunch Ticket Staff
      • Issue 26: Winter/Spring 2025
      • Issue 25: Summer/Fall 2024
      • Issue 24: Winter/Spring 2024
      • Issue 23: Summer/Fall 2023
      • Issue 22: Winter/Spring 2023
      • Issue 21: Summer/Fall 2022
      • Issue 20: Winter/Spring 2022
      • Issue 19: Summer/Fall 2021
      • Issue 18: Winter/Spring 2021
      • Issue 17: Summer/Fall 2020
      • Issue 16: Winter/Spring 2020
      • Issue 15: Summer/Fall 2019
      • Issue 14: Winter/Spring 2019
      • Issue 13: Summer/Fall 2018
      • Issue 12: Winter/Spring 2018
      • Issue 11: Summer/Fall 2017
      • Issue 10: Winter/Spring 2017
      • Issue 9: Summer/Fall 2016
      • Issue 8: Winter/Spring 2016
      • Issue 7: Summer/Fall 2015
      • Issue 6: Winter/Spring 2015
      • Issue 5: Summer/Fall 2014
      • Issue 4: Winter/Spring 2014
      • Issue 3: Summer/Fall 2013
      • Issue 2: Winter/Spring 2013
      • Issue 1: Spring 2012
    • Achievements
    • Community
    • Contact
  • Weekly Content
    • Friday Lunch Blog
    • Midnight Snack
    • Amuse-Bouche
    • School Lunch
  • Contests
    • Diana Woods Award in CNF
      • Issue 26: Winter/Spring 2025
      • Issue 25: Summer/Fall 2024
      • Issue 24: Winter/Spring 2024
      • Issue 23: Summer/Fall 2023
      • Issue 22: Winter/Spring 2023
      • Issue 21: Summer/Fall 2022
      • Issue 20: Winter/Spring 2022
      • Issue 19: Summer/Fall 2021
      • Issue 18: Winter/Spring 2021
      • Issue 17: Summer/Fall 2020
      • Issue 16: Winter/Spring 2020
      • Issue 15: Summer/Fall 2019
      • Issue 14: Winter/Spring 2019
      • Issue 13: Summer/Fall 2018
      • Issue 12: Winter/Spring 2018
      • Issue 11: Summer/Fall 2017
      • Issue 10: Winter/Spring 2017
      • Issue 9: Summer/Fall 2016
      • Issue 8: Winter/Spring 2016
      • Issue 7: Summer/Fall 2015
      • Issue 6: Winter/Spring 2015
      • Issue 5: Summer/Fall 2014
      • Issue 4: Winter/Spring 2014
      • Issue 3: Summer/Fall 2013
    • Gabo Prize in Translation
      • Issue 26: Winter/Spring 2025
      • Issue 25: Summer/Fall 2024
      • Issue 24: Winter/Spring 2024
      • Issue 23: Summer/Fall 2023
      • Issue 22: Winter/Spring 2023
      • Issue 21: Summer/Fall 2022
      • Issue 20: Winter/Spring 2022
      • Issue 19: Summer/Fall 2021
      • Issue 18: Winter/Spring 2021
      • Issue 17: Summer/Fall 2020
      • Issue 16: Winter/Spring 2020
      • Issue 15: Summer/Fall 2019
      • Issue 14: Winter/Spring 2019
      • Issue 13: Summer/Fall 2018
      • Issue 12: Winter/Spring 2018
      • Issue 11: Summer/Fall 2017
      • Issue 10: Winter/Spring 2017
      • Issue 9: Summer/Fall 2016
      • Issue 8: Winter/Spring 2016
      • Issue 7: Summer/Fall 2015
      • Issue 6: Winter/Spring 2015
    • Twitter Poetry Contest
      • 2021 Winners
      • 2020 Winners
      • 2019 Winners
  • Submissions
  • Search
  • Menu Menu
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • X

Where Fiction Fades

March 25, 2022/ Semaj Saint Garbutt

Celestial explosion, sky, stars, black, gold

I gazed up to the sky in tears.

The breath caught in my throat. The moon was utterly absent, and in the resounding darkness there were so, so many stars. Their shapes are the same as ours. The sand beneath me felt cool as pool water as I pondered my infinitesimality. I took pleasure in rolling the ancient grains between the grooves of my fingers. I felt inside that I was mountain and sand, an insight guided by my first experience with psilocybin. Oh reader mine, the government must have been listening to my revelation, for when I got home, YouTube was prepared with a baggie of forbidden fruit. They knew that I craved to comprehend what all is out there. With no prior search history, the algorithm suggested to me several videos of black holes. Those cosmic bodies that would suck you in and spit you out in another dimension? I was never one for physics, but that changed after the first video. The light poured into me, bathed me in my own ignorance as I sank into my sheets. My mind was swirling like my son’s tail through pets and purrs (she’s a cat). How could single objects out there be as massive as 66% of our entire galaxy?

What really is the universe?

I required perspective, some idea. In this, my spirituality was reignited. During the following weeks and months, I ran through channel after channel, devouring all information within reach. I wanted everything: the standard model, general relativity, origin theory. I needed to know god.

Once my obsession pervaded my life, my work, my writing, a friend then suggested a book: Remembrance of Earth’s Past. Page after feathery page, the wonders of hard sci-fi nursed the hollow ache in my soul. Each story was a real potential world to explore, awash in the anguish of knowing that my life will be too short to witness it live and breathe. They painted alternate portraits within the same canvas as the one we presently populate, as unrealized possibilities. Resin and wax fantasies walked with me, over the metro bridge and under the softest sunbeams warming the 101 during rush hour. Pixels and polarized glass helped me imagine a fractal spreading, in my mind, in this timeline, on this planet, where there are children of physics not yet seen. Through the most accurate fantasies I could find, I’d project into a world in which I don’t survive.

With more understanding, the future threatened to reveal itself. I was sitting at work, under a velvet sycamore for one of the last sunny days of another COVID summer, browsing Deepmind’s recommendations. There were several stories with the same focus, a battle of arguments. Common sentiment is that nuclear fusion’s false promises were always 30 years away, despite progress’s continued demonstration of exponential growth. Yet through thread after thread, I witnessed fusion whisper her promises in the ears of blue bird scientists and freelance writers, to disseminate hope in a bleeding field. Just listen. She has never come, yet she’s scientifically possible, and can’t any non-magical possibility play out in eventuality?

Science fiction offers many imaginations, and she has proven her conviction well. In fact, so many of her children have come to exist, it’s like a new branch of life. I wish I could endure long enough to see the end of her tale. I remember in The Three Body Problem, characters enter cryo-sleep to see the story through. If I entered hibernation, instead of the no-longer-free 51 bus on a Tuesday morning, what would I wake up to?

The fractals flow forward. Money progresses tech, and the rich like weapons. Science fiction uniformly predicts similar future military technologies. From birthing stars to the utilization of a black hole – I’ve seen it all over my journey as a budding science nerd: lost throughout space, at the end of all eras, and in major Hollywood media properties. But reality tends towards the dark. Through glimpses of a future as bleak as the present, I am left disturbed. I know Hollywood has deep ties to the U.S. military. I know how the military manipulates information and technology. So wherever the digression between fact and fiction lies, I know the military will be tied up in it.

I might have never cared about physics. I might have suffered a faux peace waiting for a future rife with infinite energy and prosperity. I might have waited for fusion’s beautiful lies to transform into world healing promises. Or I might have been left in the wonder of what could be until my turn in the light that comes before the end. But the Deepmind had other plans for me.

One morning, I scrolled through my recommendations and saw my usuals: How to outline your novel. Physicist reacts to some film I don’t care to see. Another black person killed in broad daylight. China or Europe or MIT or some new player broke the longest ignition streak. The U.S. Navy patents fusion tech… With arid eyes I scanned that again. My stomach pulled like I discovered something plainly horrible, personally embarrassing, bitingly obscene. Behind real life closed doors, a force of violence flaunting massive reservoirs of funding, discussed the potential of not only Plasma Compression Fusion Devices but a Spacetime Modification Weapon. Capable of producing absolute hell on earth.

I stopped in my tracks. My phone fell away and swung on my arm like its final moment on the gallows. So early after my journey began, I see science fiction fading. Fantasies are being realized, and weaponized, and brought into our realm. Their words are no longer sticks and stones and I am no longer sure I want to witness what will be left when the facts settle.

Semaj Saint Garbutt Headshot

Semaj Saint Garbutt is a queer social death theorist residing in Los Angeles. They write in bouts of lucidity, but mostly just try to survive spiraling with their cat Ju Ju. Some of their work can be found at riverfurnace.com.

Midnight Snack Archive

  • 2025
  • 2024
  • 2023
  • 2022
  • 2021

Friday Lunch Blog

Friday Lunch! A serving of contemporary essays published the second Friday of every month.

Today’s course:

Meeting My Child Self at the Trauma Play

May 9, 2025/in Blog / Gale Naylor
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Gale-Headshot-01July2024.jpg 1791 1587 Gale Naylor https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Gale Naylor2025-05-09 11:55:262025-05-11 09:48:03Meeting My Child Self at the Trauma Play

Products of Our Environment

March 14, 2025/in Blog / Mitko Grigorov
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Mitko_Grigorov.jpg 378 300 Mitko Grigorov https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Mitko Grigorov2025-03-14 11:00:082025-03-31 11:51:57Products of Our Environment

Mother-to-Mother: An Open Letter about White Privilege and Fragility

November 22, 2024/in Blog / Dr. Valerie Nyberg
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Nyberg-stairs-2.jpg 1600 1200 Dr. Valerie Nyberg https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Dr. Valerie Nyberg2024-11-22 11:55:082024-12-04 15:05:42Mother-to-Mother: An Open Letter about White Privilege and Fragility

More Friday Lunch Blog »

Amuse-Bouche

Little bites every third Friday to whet your appetite!

Today’s plate:

we don’t spend our lives in the belly of the fish

May 16, 2025/in Amuse-Bouche / translated from French by Gabriella Bedetti and Don Boes
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/headshot-translator-Gabriella-Bedetti.jpg 400 400 translated from French by Gabriella Bedetti and Don Boes https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png translated from French by Gabriella Bedetti and Don Boes2025-05-16 11:00:362025-05-14 17:05:21we don’t spend our lives in the belly of the fish

Fourberie

May 2, 2025/in Amuse-Bouche / Terese Coe
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Head-shot-TC-new.jpg 377 311 Terese Coe https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Terese Coe2025-05-02 11:00:092025-05-01 15:09:24Fourberie

Vernacular

April 18, 2025/in Amuse-Bouche / Mary Morris
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/mary.jpg 576 480 Mary Morris https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Mary Morris2025-04-18 11:00:362025-04-16 16:24:31Vernacular

More Amuse-Bouche »

School Lunch

An occasional Wednesday series dishing up today’s best youth writers.

Today’s slice:

I’ve Stayed in the Front Yard

May 12, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Brendan Nurczyk
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/SL-Insta-Brendan-Nurczyk-2.png 1500 1500 Brendan Nurczyk https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Brendan Nurczyk2021-05-12 10:18:392022-02-01 13:24:05I’ve Stayed in the Front Yard

A Communal Announcement

April 28, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Isabella Dail
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/SL-FB-Isabella-Dail.png 788 940 Isabella Dail https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Isabella Dail2021-04-28 11:34:132021-04-28 11:34:13A Communal Announcement

Seventeen

April 14, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Abigail E. Calimaran
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/SL-Insta-Abigail-E.-Calimaran.png 1080 1080 Abigail E. Calimaran https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Abigail E. Calimaran2021-04-14 11:22:062021-04-14 11:22:06Seventeen

More School Lunch »

Word From the Editor

The managers of Lunch Ticket all agreed that issue 26 needed to have a theme, and that theme had a responsibility to call for work relating to what we are seeing in society. We wanted a theme that resonated with Antioch University MFA’s mission of advancing “racial, social, economic, disability, gender, and environmental justice,” and we felt it was time to take a stand…

More from the current editor »
Current Issue »

Connect With Us

lunchticket on facebooklunchticket on instaX
Submit to Lunch Ticket

A literary and art journal
from the MFA community at
Antioch University Los Angeles.

Get Your Ticket

We’ll keep you fed with great new writing, insightful interviews, and thought-provoking art, and promise with all our hearts never to share your info with anyone else.

Newsletter Signup
Copyright © 2021 LunchTicket.org. All Rights Reserved. Web design and development by GoodWebWorks.
Scroll to top