Li Tsai stood beside the groundship and studied the ruins of the ancient city. She’d learned in school that the inhabitants of that unhappy place called it Denver, in honor of some forgotten politician. Today those people were naught but dust and troubled memories, she thought, shifting her glance towards the new city standing alongside the bones of the old: Deng Xiaoping, city of the people.
On the planet Sellinger-Shapiro, in the country of Marr and Etta, near the banks of the River Hoochee, Haud Nomen- the handsome long-haired boy- grew up with his best friend, the common citizen, Sisellia.
Continue reading “The ASKii Of Aikido On The Planet Sellinger-Shapiro by Rabbi Steven Lebow”
It was on a summer night that Suki jumped out of that train and into that basement, not a winter one. She remembers the stale cigarette smell, still feels it scratching the back of her throat as she talks about it.
Continue reading “Suki’s Unabridged Journey to The Train of Thought by Sharon Mertins”
An Homage To 1951 Movie “When Worlds Collide”
The astronomers first noticed the approaching star and its one planet on February 10, 2043. How this caught them by surprise was never explained to anyone’s satisfaction, because we were told that it would ruin our whole solar system within a year. I don’t know if the conspiracy theories about giving more lead time to important people to prepare, while leaving the unwashed masses at the mercy of a shattered earth, were true. I’m an agnostic on the various stories.
The following has been taken from a series of verbal testimonials in the regards to the disappearance of David Thomas, 25, reported missing on April 30th, 2016, as well as in regards to a number of other supposedly connected events.
“What was all that fury on our sensors about?”
“A Viridian delegation from Viridian Prime unveiled at close range, sir.”
“Viridian Prime?”
Continue reading “All They Wanted was Angry Meat by Piyali Mukherjee”
I need to thank Tom Sheehan for my inspiration this week. I don’t know if anyone noticed but we published a relevant story on the holiday of its relevance, if you see what I mean. We don’t normally do this. We published an old friend of ours near Christmas on our first year (Hope you are well Sandy) but that was more by sheer coincidence as we were trying to get established and we were very short of stories. We wanted to keep it until June but the numbers wouldn’t allow.
Continue reading “Week 81 – Holidays, Relevance And Bad Poetry”
I probably shouldn’t be doing this, but can’t think of a good reason not to. Maybe it’s true what my parents say about a teenager’s frontal lobe or cortex or whatever not being fully developed. Anyway, I’ll be back before they’re home. I slip the bracelet over my hand and slide the switch to Future.
Ku was named with a rare consonant and the last vowel her wordless family had to spare and she had fallen on desperate times indeed. The Qxlb recruited Ku when they discovered that she sold slang on the black-market, desperately moving from alphabet to alphabet to feed herself. Ku had always considered them her last resort, and now that she had succumbed to it, she felt her end very near. The Qxlb chose their unpronounceable names from scraping the remnants of burned lexicons on the streets, an act which endeared them to the wordless majority. They made bold claims to restore the depleting vocabulary and often acted on them, using methods that Ku could neither accept because of their extremity nor reject because of their results. The government could not capture or describe that which they could not name, which served the Qxlb’s purposes quite well.
Continue reading “They Who Were Wordless by Piyali Mukherjee”
A gust of wind blew around the outside of the house as Mike pried the bottle cap off his fourth beer with his teeth. It was a trick one of his old classmates had taught him—a trick he used to use to impress women in bars, but now, domesticated, he only used when he couldn’t find the bottle opener.
Continue reading “You’ll Let the Storm In by Nicholas Siegel”
literally stories 