A honeybee fluttered its wings for the last time. It was the last honeybee, a sickly man-made clone descended from a tragically short line of sickly man-made clones. Its stunted wings were translucent and crisscrossed with veins. The blackish yellow fur on its thorax reminded me of the ducklings I saw at the zoo when […]
Attempt 1: Talk to her. “Hi,” I say in the break room at Innovations Worldwide, though this is debatable. I might have only cleared my throat. Regardless, I am counting this as the first word I have uttered to Jennifer. She looks up from her tablet. Her green eyes sparkle in the fluorescent light. She’s […]
Daytime, must be. Birds singing outside. Too warm here, under the covers in my clothes and shoes. All the air’s gone but I won’t move because my Mum and Dad are watching from the ceiling. Floating there, blubbing. Picture perfect they are too, younger than me. Eyes wide and wet as babes’. I can’t bear […]
When it’s dark and no one would notice, we’ll break into the office. We’ll ride the elevator to the fourth floor, alternately giggling and pretending like we have serious work in an office building in the middle of the night. We’ll infiltrate like ninjas, darting from the soda machine to the water fountain to the […]
The rain fell everywhere, ruining our crops, flooding our homes, making rivers of the streets. We gathered, hundreds of us, thousands, half in hope and half because nothing else was left for us to do. I like to imagine how we looked from the tower: the crowd stretching like a turbulent and dark sea toward […]
“Change your life,” the poster says. “With one simple surgery, you can live fully in the moment. No stress, no worries, no lies.” The text is accompanied by the usual images. Smiling adults, laughing children, a couple on a sunset beach walking and holding hands. That’s all, but I pick up a brochure anyway–if nothing […]
The man who smelt of electricity was shown into the drawing room while the maid looked for Mrs Darwin. Emma Darwin was doing the household accounts but was glad to stop. The man’s card read: Andrew.J.Salt Creation Museum Petersburg, KY She bustled into the drawing room and offered her hand, Americans, she knew, being less […]
“Captain, it’s not physically possible—” “Lieutenant, as long as I command this vessel, we will recognize everyone’s beliefs, is that clear?” Lt. Yuwono, who’d spent the last two days measuring every object required to honor someone’s holiday beliefs, passed a hand through her frazzled hair. “Sir, we’ve only the one meeting room—” “That’s the idea! […]
Near the end of his fifteenth orbit as Greenland slipped by noiselessly below, he made the routine measurements that tested the operation of his space capsule and checked the automatic instruments which would transmit their stored data to Earth on his next pass over Control. Everything normal; all mechanical devices were operating perfectly. This information […]
I found the piece of the alien ship out back, right on the marsh edge. I was out fishing, or least I was supposed to be, but mostly I was “lollygagging and woolgathering,” Pa would say. Pa don’t approve of gathering wool, nor gagging no lollies, either. He says a girl my age ought to […]