by submission | Mar 15, 2024 | Story |
Author: Ken Carlson
Mrs Bellingham frowned at her cat Chester. Chester stared back. The two had had this confrontation every morning at 6:30 for the past seven years.
Mrs Bellingham, her bathrobe draped over her spindly frame, her arms folded, looked down at her persnickety orange tabby.
“Where have you been?”
Nothing.
“You woke me up at 3:00 this morning to be let out. I expected you back in a timely manner.”
Silence.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you, Chester—you have things to do, places to go. I understand. Don’t think I don’t appreciate that.”
Chester’s expression did not change.
“How do you expect me to go back to bed and sleep soundly when you’re off somewhere in the middle of the night. You can understand my position, can’t you?”
He didn’t indicate he could.
“Harrumph. I suppose you want some breakfast.” She produced a can of Fancy Feast Savory Salmon. Chester serpentined between her slipper-covered feet. Mrs Bellingham rolled her eyes at the performance, sighed, but went to get his plate just the same.
She placed his food on the laminated placemat with crayon drawing of a lobster by her grandson, she heard a loud mechanical sound from outside, like the din of an auto repair shop, a minute of metal grinding, compression, then silence.
“What do you make of that, Chester?”
He couldn’t say.
She opened the front door. The suburban street was quiet, no passing cars or sirens. Only the Michelson’s house, a tan split level colonial with blue shutters she never particularly liked, was replaced by a new house, one made of a gleaming silver metal and no windows. Mrs Bellingham frowned.
She dressed quickly, her light blue cardigan, gray skirt, and pearls. She grabbed a fruitcake from the freezer, always prepared, and coerced Chester into his stroller.
Mrs Bellingham looked both ways and crossed the street, her Mary Jane flats clopped on the pavement. Along the neighbor’s driveway, she noticed the new house floated about a foot off the earth. She bristled and knocked on the door.
She waited for someone to answer. She had errands to run, a luncheon at the senior center, and some knitting to do.
The door arose silently revealing a small woman, not unlike Mrs Bellingham. Her glasses were larger with darker frames, and her sweater was a crew neck with sparkles and a picture resembling a two-headed cow.
“Hello. I’m Marion Bellingham. I live across the way at 2720. I wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood.” She paused a moment and ceremoniously presented the fruitcake.
The stranger accepted the gift, cautiously, sniffing at the foil wrap and appreciating the green ribbon. She hoped this wouldn’t take long. She had to finish disposing of the Michelsons, arrange a meeting with her fellow adjutants, and catch up on her needlepoint.
“This is Chester. He’s a friendly cat, mostly. He’s goes outdoors but you should’t expect any trouble from him.”
The stranger certainly hoped not. She was still getting caught up on native practices. She found the practice of a furry domesticated animal in a stroller sized for a small child confusing. Perhaps it was a small child and would lose its fur as it grew.
“Well, I won’t take any more of your time,” said Mrs Bellingham, gathering her cat’s stroller. “Let me know if you have any questions about churches, hair salons, and so forth, I would be happy to help.”
The stranger nodded.
“I hope you enjoyed eating the Michelsons,” said Mrs Bellingham. “My kind arrived decades ago and we’ve feasted on human flesh ever since.”
by submission | Mar 14, 2024 | Story |
Author: Soramimi Hanarejima
When the Bureau of Introspection discovered how to photograph the landscapes within us, we were all impressed that this terrain, which had only been visible in dreams, could be captured and viewed by anyone. This struck us as a huge leap, but toward what, we couldn’t say. We thought seeing our own landscapes would tell us.
So as soon as the technology was commercially available for a reasonable price, we all bought the special cameras and took as many pictures as we could afford given the cost of film and developing. We were eager to see as much as possible of the worlds within ourselves. Some of us, we learned, had a single landscape that stretched on and on. Others had as many as 7 landscapes, with little ones tucked within large ones.
But even with the countless photos that have now been taken and studied, we still don’t know where this technology is taking us, and the Bureau of Introspection still hasn’t figured out what the landscapes mean. One possibility, they say, is that the terrain within us doesn’t have any special significance and is simply there.
None of that matters to you. You’ve never been interested in whether your inner landscapes hold any meaning, but you’re still very interested in finding out what animals live there. You’re convinced that our landscapes have to be ecosystems, and you continue to stand in front of your tripod-mounted camera at least three times a day, trying—hoping to catch animals drinking at the lakeshore or crossing the meadow or otherwise making themselves visible.
But you never do, despite having taken hundreds of pictures. Either you’re unlucky with your timing or there are no animals. To know one way or the other, you’ll have to wait for technology that can record video of our inner landscapes.
Though they’re devoid of animals, all the pictures you’ve amassed do show you something that interests you: your landscapes changing over swaths of days. We know that our landscapes have day-night cycles and seasons—can feel them turning from dark to bright, going from chilly to warm—but rarely does anyone get to know those rhythms to the degree you’re able to. With all the images you’ve collected, you determine that the lake has a roughly 46-hour day, the coast a 1.5-week day, the forest and its meadow a 10-hour day; the grassland is always a season ahead of the lake, speckled with wildflowers while the frozen water is blanketed by snow; at the coast, it’s always summer—or summer there is very long.
On a whim, you begin arranging your schedule according to the times of day and year in your landscapes. You sit quietly during lake-time sunrises; only go out with friends when the ocean of your coastline is sparkling with daylight; make it a point to work on creative projects during the meadow’s rainy season. Soon, conducting your life this way becomes a habit, one that you refine until the alignment of your activities with your landscapes’ cycles feels right.
“Maybe that’s what they’re for,” you say. “Or that’s one of the things they offer us. A way to create some structure in our lives.”
The sandstone canyon around us recedes to the background of my thoughts, yielding to the image conjured by your words: the sky just above your ocean a ribbon of deep red that’s slowly, imperceptibly fading. We always go on hikes like this when the sun is setting over your coast. Each one has been a refreshing trek down a new trail that’s brought us unexpected delights. Elk grazing under a double rainbow. Snow geese wading in a flooded field. Hillside shrubs covered with frost sparkling in the late afternoon sunlight as though the bare twigs were coated in diamond dust. Sights I want to remember seeing with you.
So, taking a cue from you, I decide that tonight I’ll try linking these memories to places in my woods—that time we stared at the pygmy owl with, say, the fallen tree that lies across the rocky stream bed. This will turn the pictures I’ve taken into reminders of hikes with you. Then, with ease, my attention returns to the canyon’s steep sunlit walls, alert to anything in this landscape that I might later connect to one within me.
by submission | Mar 13, 2024 | Story |
Author: Frederick Charles Melancon
The scars don’t glow like they once did, yet around my pants’ cuffs, neon-green halos still light my ankles. Mom used to love halos—hanging glass circles around the house to create them. But these marks from the bombing blasts on Mars shine so bright that they still keep me up at night. So, maybe, the scars haven’t changed at all, and it’s just that the people in this lunar town don’t stare like the ones from the last city we evacuated to.
Dad carted me off here when he finally found some work filing insurance claims for war veterans. It didn’t require him to limp around on his legs that aren’t marked like mine but are all one shade of green, so here we are—with the people who don’t stare.
To fight the loneliness, I talk about the injuries, whether the people here ask or not, especially while we wait in line for rations. Usually, it’s quick. The food phases in, and we pick it up. But sometimes, there are delays. One minute the food appears by magic and the next not. Back home-home, these transporter pads are how we got everywhere. We just transferred in—no lines. There’s no system like that here.
Before the bombings started, the only time we actually stood in line was the day of the blast. It was Dad’s idea to get to school first. He’d heard his father once talk about waiting for school to start in the morning. Mom thought he was crazy. Before the energy blasts, people just showed up on time. But Dad wanted to be the first at school with his daughter—waiting in the front of the line like he’d won.
So that morning, we woke up an hour early. While Mom slept in, I fixed breakfast, and Dad packed my bag. When the time came to phase there, I held back a yawn as my eyes adjusted from the lights of our home to the distant security lights outside the school building. And I admit it. I was disappointed, maybe even a little mad, when the two human shadows outlined by the light coming through the glass doors stood first in line.
Worse, they were nice. The mom and boy were from outside the city from the same place where Dad grew up. When they said our family name, it wasn’t like the city people said it. It sounded like music. Our name, Bellicomb, was a country name, and people in the city said it like belly comb just like they do here. At first, it was funny until it was repeated, but that mom said it right—bellacawm. For a minute, I was more than the girl the teachers always made the class giggle at while they read the roll.
She was talking about her old school, and then it seemed like the sun rose too early and bright.
I woke up in the hospital with these scars. The rivers of green down the right side of my body and all over my legs could be seen when the lights were turned out. The other patients regularly complained that it kept them awake.
Dad glowed too, but the mom and boy weren’t ever found by the paramedics. The scars remind me of them and what would’ve happened to us if we were just a little bit earlier for that line—or just stayed home with Mom.
by submission | Mar 12, 2024 | Story |
Author: Majoki
The float bobs and I feel a slight tug on the line, a nip at the hook. A shiver of guilt, a nanosecond’s exhilaration. I finesse the reel, patient. What will rise?
There’s nothing like fishing in a black hole, quantum casting for bits and pieces of worlds beneath, within, among. You just need the right bait. An idea, a snippet, a premise, a promise. Lure the interest, get it close to the gateway, see what comes.
Fish or cut bait they say. Can’t do one without the other as I see it. Put something out there and see if the big boys will nibble up the food chain.
Entropy is fine for those who prefer calm waters. Me? Get me to the center of a galaxy, the edge of the event horizon, to cast a line or two. It’s bumpy there. That’s how you know it’s fresh. On the edges it’s stale, spoiled and sedate, spread thin, energies dispersed. Things there lack focus, become drab and purposeless.
A galactic whirlpool may suck your line dry, but bait is cheap. Lots of action. Procreative types. Yeah, bait is cheap there. Some say I just throw out chum and hope something will be attracted to all that blood in the water.
But, it’s not all blood. There’s some meat. You just gotta have a taste for it. Like I said, you gotta lure ‘em close. Better if they think about it first. Circle it a few times. If something bites, something bites. The game is the anticipation. The wonder. You can’t see what’s below. A minnow or a leviathan—then again, who’s to judge?
We’ve all heard fish stories.
Exactly my point. Put your bait out there and make up the rest. Truth is positional. The good and the bad. Cast away. The wine-dark galaxy is big enough for both.
by submission | Mar 10, 2024 | Story |
Author: Aspen Greenwood
In a world gasping under the heavy cloak of pollution, the Catalogers—scientists driven by a mission—trekked through dwindling patches of green. Among them, Maya, whose spirit yearned for the vibrant Earth imprisoned in old, faded textbooks, delved into her work with a quiet, burning intensity.
Each day, Maya and her team, respirators clinging to their faces and data tablets in hand, chased after remnants of nature. They sought out every leaf and vine like desperate archivists, their work a solemn vow to capture the essence of each plant before it succumbed to the toxic embrace of the world’s air.
It was on such a day, beneath the canopy of an almost forgotten forest, that Maya’s eyes caught the elusive glimmer of an extraordinary fern. It seemed to hold within its leaves the dance of light and shadow, an iridescence that whispered of mysteries untold. Hands shaking with reverence and awe, Maya logged the find, her actions a delicate balance between hurried necessity and the wish to savor this singular moment of discovery.
As the fern’s details spiraled into the digital void towards the global archive, Maya stood motionless, enveloped by a bittersweet solace. Each plant cataloged was a whisper into the future, a desperate plea for redemption. They were warriors in a losing battle, yet it was in these small victories that hope found a way to flicker and grow.
Amid the crumbling ruins of their world, the catalog stood as a beacon—a collection of whispers from the past reaching into the future. It embodied both the promise of resurgence and the lament for a beauty lost. And in Maya’s heart lived the fragile hope that someday, guided by their digital herbarium, humanity would sow the seeds for a new, thriving Earth, rising from the ashes of its own recklessness.
