Matt Kendrick
Writer | Editor | Teacher
WELKIN MINI 2025 - HIGHLY COMMENDED
A Parable of Slow Songs
by Guan Un
Now, Mia and Tao are lying on the roof as the projector threads light into the sky—their memories, captured and set free, playing out into the black.
Twenty years ago, they are watching a video—a song slowed down eight hundred times—but he is distracted by the way the sun curls into her hair—the moment thickens in his throat.
Three months ago, the diagnosis: “I’m sorry to say.” Four words make time go still.
One hundred years from now, light and story stream out into space, a slow song among the applause of stars.
Guan Un is an Australian-Chinese writer of speculative fiction based in Sydney. His work has been featured in LeVar Burton Reads, Year’s Best Fantasy Vol 2, Strange Horizons and more. A former theology student and luggage salesman, he lives with his family and a dog named after a tiger. You can find him at @thisisguan.bsky.social or guanun.com.
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Judge's comment:
What mesmerised me with this piece is how it creates such a rich mosaic of life (both the individual life of these two characters and the life of the universe) in so small a space. All of this is brought to the page in such a beautiful and poignant fashion.