Irma Splinkbottom loosened the back string of her apron as she shuffled over to the sliding glass door in her kitchen. The temperature on the gauge outside made her hesitate. She knew Fall brought cooler temperatures to the small town of Sapulpa, Oklahoma, but 68 degrees at 2:13 PM. It rankled her to think she’d […]
“Sabotage?” Chief Engineer Hoyle nodded. “I caught Officer Jarimath mucking about with the safety controls myself.” The commander turned around to stare at the dim yellow star that controlled this solar system. “And there’s no way to vent the fuel?” “The relief valve is frozen solid.” He paused a moment to consider how that might […]
Today, the world ends. Tuesday last, Reed grabs his best friend’s shoulders and says, “You’ve got to stop this.” Luke looks at him and wonders why Reed is the only person in the world who hasn’t changed. Three years ago, it starts with Luke covered in blood that is not his own and the life […]
One My sister Chiru has beautiful, rich, warm brown skin. Mine is like onionskin paper, yellowed and dry and fragile. The few wisps of hair that grow on my scarred scalp mock the thick, black waves that fall past her shoulders and would grow to her waist if she let it. She is poised and […]
The image was particularly nice: a yellow and black weaverbird caught in the act of building one of their hanging, gourd-shaped nests on his anti-tank cannon mount. It was a keeper; Akili just had to decide which picture to give up in exchange. He had plenty of power left in his superconductor ring — enough […]
Very elliptical years, the 57th Century, or “Years of the Cat.” Practically nobody uses sentences. Anymore. Very eccentric. Tell story. Am Time Bum. Name of ZigZag, honorable family, agent, sex-linkages. Manipulator and explorer of paraHistory via the Leonardo. Journey to the Age of Styrofoam, the Coke Bottle Century, my favorite time, the 20th, when Giants […]
It was not abduction. I volunteered to go. I trampled out the crop circle in the north field of the Suttlebys’ ranch, at night, just with a board of plywood and a long rope. I did not know what the signs mean, but I copied them. Took me all night, and the sky was pink […]
“I’m Radok,” he said to her when everyone was gone, and steam hissed gently from his vents. Sandra hadn’t noticed him in the audience. How could she have? They came every night and sat at their tables with rattles and creaks. Gray-blue visages bathed in the golden light from Outside. Here a steel leg crossed […]
“Dini went three minutes thirty-two seconds before she couldn’t take it anymore,” Mel said, staring at me. “You think you can beat her, April?” It wasn’t a question; it was a challenge. Mel was my best friend. But last week she’d uploaded a vidbit of her brother snorking milk out his nose, and it went […]
I woke up after a dream where something, perhaps a snake, had sunk its teeth into my ankle. I knew I hadn’t been bit, that it was just my mind, my body remembering what that shock of teeth felt like. It mimicked the squeeze and punch of teeth that my freshman bio teacher’s boa constrictor […]