Ida hates the sunset. She also has a profound dislike for the ocean, Greece, Italian villas, and all 30,000 islands of the Pacific Ocean. But every morning she wakes up to one of them, rotating views out her window: a nightmare cycle of 5 star resort views. Sometimes she thinks she is already dead, stuck in a penitentiary of hell’s ennui where every day is more passive then the last.
Continue reading “After Dark by Nico Gurdjian”
I do not recognise the face of the man who sits across from me at my dining table. Like a patchwork quilt, his skin is stitched together with different shades of white, pink, and brown. He does not blink; one glassy grey eye gazes listlessly at nowhere, while the other stares directly at me as it flits and shutters like an old-fashioned camera lens.
Continue reading “After the Robot Wars by Kim Morrissy”
The woman at the door stared at the children. She was pregnant. Seven months low to the ground with what she knew to be a boy. She ran a hand up and down her stomach. It had snowed overnight, and it was snowing still.
The boy and the girl were sixteen or seventeen. Maybe younger. Neither was dressed for the weather. Blue jeans and black t-shirts. Black sneakers.
“They want to come in,” she said.
“Who did they say they were, again?”
The woman looked through the glass eyehole, past the strange children. A white horizon absent direction. There were no tracks in the snow. It was windy, and the wind pushed and pulled the fallen snow. Still, it would have been nice to see tracks.
Continue reading “The Other One by Richard Leise”
Marku 3 was a planet with a sun in eternal eclipse.
I landed there just over a week ago, careful to make camp within a small clearing in a forest full of pale, leafless trees. It was midday. It was brisk. There was a calming eeriness about the way the dim orange sunlight painted everything in shadows.
On that first night a group of the planet’s natives came to the camps’ perimeter and watched me in wonder. They were primitive with skinny inverted legs, bulbous heads covered in wire-like hairs, and a single eye embedded within the center.
They communicated amongst themselves with clicking noises made by tapping two bone plates on the inside of their knees together.
One came as an emissary, approaching within feet of me. As it stepped within the harsh glow of a floodlight behind me it suddenly froze.
It’s single eye dilated. Every hair was out like spikes.
It started with a low rumble in its chest. A soft frequency vibrated inside me, growing stronger by the second.
It was warm.
It was mesmerizing.
A dopamine rush flooded my system. Nothing else existed but ecstasy.
Continue reading “Step 13 by Joe Jablonski”
“16 years? Seriously, 16 years? You’re killing me!”
Why do they always yell? I didn’t know this guy, but I knew his story. He was in over his head. That’s how it was with most clockers. Give ‘em a second, they’ll take a year, right? Okay, I know that’s not original, but it’s still true.
“Not yet,” I countered. “Unless you keep borrowing more than you can pay back. And it’s 16 years and 47 days, plus a few hours. How do you want to do this?”
Continue reading “Borrowed Time by Rob O’Keefe”
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”
Bob the same backwards and forwards existed. In every universe in an upholstered mustard colored armchair watching the Eagles who were no goddamn good and why did they ever let that guy Michael Vick be their quarterback? In the Farrago quadrant, 34th century, he was known as the constant and studied in advanced quantum mechanics classes, but was unknown to lesser beings in our 21st.
Continue reading “The Eternal Bob by Lewis Braham”
The cloud came in low over the horizon as if it was holding hands with sky and Earth, and shadows fell from its silhouette forming strange figures of shade across the landscape. Gurley Kindreck, at the lookout post on Foster Creek, grabbed the phone and twisted the crank on an old army land phone. Behind him, wires snaked all the way back to headquarters in the heart of Burrell, Kansas, much of its corn crop already pulled, the rest of it dying in the after-lights of the enemy’s rays.
Continue reading “Ray Guns of the Invaders 1202 by Tom Sheehan”
1.
Alarms blare. It is the end. David knows it as much as he knows anything else. Below, glorious golden clouds meld in a blue atmosphere. So much like Earth. But his family won’t see the light of this star system for twelve years. They will grow old and die, and if he ever makes it back all that will be waiting is a grave. Assuming, of course, there is a planet to return to, and a way home.
The ship falls, and David with it. McLonsky’s blood bubbles and flutters around the cockpit in globules that have minds of their own.
This is it. The end. David closes his eyes, and he waits for his Maker’s embrace.
Continue reading “Home Again by Keith LaFountaine”
Tick-tock tick-tock goes the Digiclock. My leg is shaking vigorously and I’m trying to get it to stop. My whole body jolts as I hear Siri’s voice. I didn’t think it’d be this soon. No time to waste in here I suppose. A lot of clients for them to get through to.
‘Next up for Reality Awakening session 1 is Ms. Isa Tinny. ‘
Continue reading “Magical Demise by Ailbhe Curran”
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