In this afterword, I compare the different ways the ordinary is invoked in the articles of the special section “The Ordinariness of Cross‐Time Relations: Anthropology, Literature, and the Science Fictional” and compare it to my own research experience in Havana, Cuba with writers of speculative fiction. I argue that the ordinary is something relative to the author's experience, as Alejo Carpentier describes in his writing on “lo real maravilloso,” and should be considered as having a utility in the communication process between creator and intended or ideal audience. This enables the information conveyed through the trope of the ordinary to be both far‐reaching and highly specific, depending on the author's intention. [writers, science fiction, quotidian, lo real maravilloso].