I love the smell of antiseptic in the O.R. as the cool, dry air penetrates my mask. Even the acrid odor of cauterized flesh is tolerable after thirty years of incisions and excisions. However, this morning the room is foreboding.
Continue reading “Asimov in the Operating Room by Barry Yedvobnick”
Part I:
HELLS KITCHEN
An arachnid-type beast roasts portions of sin-marinated corpses from inside a furnace in hell. Its tentacles slither along the hallways that connect Hell’s kitchen to the abyss, while holding onto non-silver platters filled with well-done souls for beings of the underworld to feast on.
As a passerby behemoth helps itself to a portion of sin-glazed appetizers, an ascetic’s essence is delivered as an array of gourmet selections to the holiest orders in Hades’ lounge. The martyr’s soul bears too much essence for Beelzebub and his priests, and so most of it is served to visiting heathens from heaven.
It’s here in Hades’ lounge where all energies made manifest by man’s thought, word, and emotion are fed to the holiest of deities after death—to again manifest life through rebirth.
Continue reading “Hades Lounge by Jacob Otira “
The first message on Elana’s iCom pulsed red as she stepped out of harassment training. This job gave her no time to breathe. When she’d signed on, they’d told her the cadence would be intense, like drinking water from an Old World firehose. Ironic, for obvious reasons. Just the thought of filtered droplets made her throat hum. Given the time, given her title as Head of Human Resources and Logistics, making jokes about water wasn’t ever in good taste.
It was her tenth day.
Continue reading “Human Resources by Salena Casha”
The metallic aftertaste of recycled oxygen lingered in my throat, each breath a sweltering struggle to survive. I tracked the merciless white sun as dust devils spun in the distance. Their swirling forms juxtaposed against the still figures before me.
Continue reading “Chrome and Marrow by Maudie Bryant”
They want some blood, so it’s time to tell Benji, my seventy-year-old grandson. His wrinkles came earlier than his father’s, yet he’s trim with little gray hair. He sits in the frayed recliner his father jumped on as a toddler. I hand him a cup, and he caresses my hand.
Continue reading “Last Call for Grams by Barry Yedvobnick”
Ashley Lefey had seven outfits, a different colour for each day of the week. She’d developed the system whilst interning at Facebook, inspired by Mark Zuckerberg’s famous elimination of small unnecessary decisions. Unlike Zuckerberg, her wardrobe routine didn’t condemn her to a life of monastic grey t-shirts.
Continue reading “Fortune’s Gambit by Ed Dearnley”
I am standing on the beach. The sand under my feet feels like soot. An uncanny, organic look emerges from the bowing, rusting skeletons of the sea-view skyscrapers. He is gone, like his father, into the ominous, omnipotent water.
Continue reading “Disconsolate Chimeras by Jie Wang”
“Got any juice?” I asked Stewart when he pulled up.
“Hello to you too,” he said, as his helmet collapsed into his collar. He pulled a charge off his vest and tossed it to me.
“How long she been up there?” he asked, shielding his eyes against the hazy, setting sun as he looked to the top of the bridge.
Continue reading “Cryobaby by Sean Burke”
Once per year, Vicar meets her child at Altar. The event is a scheduled appointment, and means as much to both participants as an annual dental cleaning had meant to a First Form human being. For whatever reason, Awesome insists on yearly Vicar-class “mother-daughter” contact, which will terminate the year the color of the child’s skin changes from topaz to jet, thus signifying spiritual maturity. At that point onward, they will neither see nor think about each other again. Vicars are happily solitary beings, in keeping with Awesome’s self-image.
Continue reading “This God is Going to Happen by Leila Allison”
Adkins sat looking at the latest videolazered spread of the soon to be launched Pandora Perfume advertizing campaign when Cardin burst into the room. “Julius Caesar – I’ve got a lead on Caesar!”
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