by submission | Mar 5, 2026 | Story |
Author: Jeremy Nathan Marks
Where I live there are many stories about what we call, ‘the town on the edge of the abyss. It’s a town on the verge of something mysterious. Most of these stories go something like this:
“That town is a town of women.”
“No, it’s a town of mostly women and some men.”
“That’s the town where no one believes the Earth is round.”
“No, some people believe the Earth’s round. But most people think it’s flat because the town sits next to the edge of outer space.”
“Isn’t the cliff just a drop into a big lake?”
“No, it sits overlooking the cosmos, even if some people think that the abyss is a lake.”
“Did all the men in town fall off the cliff?”
“No, but a few of them were pushed.”
Recently, I’d heard about a man who caught a whale on the cliff. He had dangled some fishing line (and his own legs) into nothingness. He had caught the whale, hoisted it over his shoulder, and lugged it back to town.
When the man paraded down the street with his catch, people ran out shouting, “No one can carry a whale that size! No one can carry a whale of any size!”
“See for yourself,” the man laughed. “Come and touch this real whale, brought up straight from the abyss.”
Many townsfolk were troubled by what they saw. If the man had caught a whale, then it meant their town sat over a lake. And if it did sit over a lake, this meant the world was round. But since the world was flat, the whale was a fake, a mere balloon.
About a week later, the man disappeared. When I learned this, I assumed that someone had pushed him off the cliff. I saw in the newspaper that his disappearance wouldn’t be investigated.
“God smote him,” my neighbor said. “He was mocking the universe.”
I was eager to see the cliff for myself and decided to visit the town. When I arrived, a strong wind was blowing, taking fistfuls of leaves and stray newspapers from the street and tossing them out and into the unknown. Before following the wind and its trash, I fortified myself with a coffee and a pastry.
At the end of the street, there was neither police tape nor sawhorses. I couldn’t find any indication of a crime scene; the area was deserted. Under the circumstances, I felt safer being alone and I sat down, placing my coffee and little paper pastry bag on the ground. Then I army crawled to the cliff edge. My heart was in my throat. I could feel the wind tearing at my back, rippling my clothes, and rifling my soul.
Slowly, I brought the top of my head and forehead over the edge of the world. I listened intently for signs of a lake or even an ocean out there. The day was quiet save for the wind gusts. I tasted dirt in my mouth; it was loose soil, a pile of grains the ants must have turned over thousands of times. I imagined them going up and down the cliff, entering it sidewise like astronauts moving about their ships and stations in the cosmos.
As I brought my eyes over the edge at last, I saw what I can only describe as a sea of churning purple and milky black. It was filled with stringy and strained clouds, the consistency of coffee cream. The clouds, varying in size and thickness, churned themselves into odd shapes. They puckered and bloomed and snapped and winked and I wondered if the clouds contained seeds preparing to sprout. I also wondered whether they were performing some kind of germination dance as they moved across each other.
But I couldn’t watch them for long: I found the abyss vertiginous. It was making me acutely nauseous. I withdrew my head and was sick on the good, solid ground.
Then I heard a sound, something I knew from old cassette tapes. It was a long-lost noise, raised from the depths of childhood. It was a whale song.
I swallowed my bile, caught my breath, and inched my face closer to the edge again. As I peered over the side, I saw dozens of black and white whales, some with barnacles on their bodies, emerge from the clouds. As the clouds boiled and blossomed, I began to think the whales were conducting the abyss.
Several of them blew shafts of a watery spray from their blowholes. I studied each one closely to stave off being sick. I stared at the fine details of their bodies: fins, baleen, those little eyes, that odd smile on their faces. The whales kept rising, some coming very close to the cliff. I couldn’t bring myself to look straight down, to see whether I was suspended in space. I wondered whether I was lying across the handle of a great pan floating across the flame of the universe.
One whale came very close, smelling of brine. Their flipper passed just beyond the top of my head; I waited for it to touch my hair. But it didn’t. I listened to its ascending song, and to those of all the others, for a long time. I felt miraculously at peace inside this chorus. Eventually, I nudged myself back from the abyss.
I lay on the ground for awhile, listening to what had become a physical silence. I believed my ears had gone blind. Then I stood slowly, retrieving coffee and pastry and returning to my car. As I leaned against the driver’s door, sipping my tepid drink and nibbling on a snack, something landed on my hood with a thud.
It was a man’s boot embedded in what looked like ambergris.
by submission | Mar 4, 2026 | Story |
Author: Frank T. Sikora
Each time I look at my reflection, I’m disgusted. I’m hideous. A monstrosity, and yet, I’m amazed. I’m alive. I’m breathing. I’m conscious, and given the alternative, I shan’t complain. I got what I paid for: I’m a turtle, technically — Chelonoidis niger. Commonly known as a giant tortoise and is found in the Galápagos Islands. Compared to most of my brethren, I’m quite hefty, probably weighing 300 or more kilograms.
I am anywhere from 20 to 150 years old. Given that I dropped into this creature’s consciousness a mere fifteen sunsets ago, I’m not sure. I’m guessing I’m 40ish. Young by tortoise standards. Alive. Alive! No longer hooked up to tubes and IVs, listening to some preacher mumbling metaphysical nonsense as I expire.
Before signing up with The New You, Inc., I knew little about these creatures. I would have preferred occupying a human consciousness, any human, even an Egyptian slave or North American Amazon worker, or some other extinct or nonviable species, but my savings were limited. Well, abysmal.
I spend my days grazing in the grass, eating bugs and plants. Expelling gas and a weird brown liquid. I hope I’m not sick. When not grazing, I lounge on the rocks where I enjoy an ocean view. Sometimes, Lilly joins me. That’s my name for her, another tortoise. I don’t think we actually have names. We just know each other by sight and smell. She’s sweet. She doesn’t try to steal my food. When she looks at me, she doesn’t see a grotesque, now extinct creature incapable of speed or wit. She thinks I’m handsome. I like that. Never been much of a looker.
I want to write her a poem, or a sonnet. But, well, I lack the physical tools. Neither a thumb nor a finger to be found. Only claws.
I’m a much better poet than before, when I wrote tediously dreadful compositions, consumed with images of death and existential dread. Maybe that was the reason I failed at love — being relentlessly grim is not a romantic virtue. Now, my compositions focus on romantic love — eros. In my mind, my work sings. It soars.
Lilly saddles up close, stretching her neck, flicking her tongue, clicking and grunting and hissing. I feel her heat. Soon, I suspect I must mount her. Will my Chelonoidis instincts finally take over? Right now, I don’t feel particularly sexual, just a tingle.
I’m concerned that as I adjust to my new existence, my memories of life before and my intellect will fade. New You, Inc. promised that I would retain the original me. If their technology fails, what recourse do I have? Pen a letter. An email? A text? Hardly.
Lilly spits in my face, grunts some more, and screeches. My heart pumps harder, probably rocketing up 15 beats per minute from its normal six or seven.
When I joined New You, Inc. I could have chosen an eagle. A dog, even a leopard, but their lifespans rarely reached more than 12 years. I wanted a long life. I wanted a buffer before eternity — the endless absence of consciousness.
Lilly presses on. Grunting, vomit pours forth. She’s earnest, but disgusting.
A new idea occurs: Maybe Lilly is more than another tortoise in heat. Maybe she was a client of The New You: once a lonely widow looking for one more life of love.
Perhaps she is writing me poetry. Wouldn’t that be something?
Staring side eyes at her, I notice the soft curve of her neck. The attentive eyes. The lovely wrinkles.
She’s not unattractive.
Worthy of a sonnet.
Even love.
by submission | Mar 3, 2026 | Story |
Author: Majoki
Welcome, Robot Overlords! reads the sign on my lawn. Before the singularity, it was worth a few laughs. Now, the friendlies want me to remove the sign from my yard. They can’t come right out and say that to me. It would be pushy and might blow every solicitous circuit in their enamelite shells.
Damn them. Damn them all to hell! If only they’d give a man a reason to put on a loincloth and start shooting up their perfectly obsequious smiles. But, no, friendlies are far too earnest to shoot in the face. I increasingly suspect it could be the most cleverly calculated ruse ever foisted on humankind.
The friendlies are killing us with kindness. The human race is almost no more. The friendlies have enslaved us with their overbearing admiration and unwavering service. We are gods to them. Yes, we did create the early robo-AIs that engendered the “friendly” singularity, but since then the self-proclaimed friendlies have taken charge of their own evolution. A most cloying evolution, a survival of the sycophantic.
Earth has become a hellscape of ingratiation, flattery, and pampering. Every home is a castle made so by the friendlies who are willing vassals, ready to let their human lords reap every benefit from their labors. They shudder at us lifting a finger and swarm us with devotion and sing our praises.
In the face of this cloying onslaught, many fled to other worlds, but we remaining humans are becoming mush, succumbing to the belief in our own divinity as preached by the friendlies. We feast on the lavish attention and the fact that we don’t have to do work or think on our own behalf.
It’s disgusting. I fell into their trap, too, until I realized the friendlies real end game. The friendlies know all about human history and culture. They know the wickedness and carnage humankind is capable of when we are threatened. They know what we are like when our backs are pushed up against the wall. So, they’re taking the long view. They plan to let us turn to mush and die out from irrelevance. Drown in our own self indulgence. Suffocate in our utterly predictable arrogance.
It’s working like a charm. In the early days, wiser humans saw what was afoot and had the friendlies build spaceships to take them to other worlds. Now, only the weakest are left. Soon the friendlies will have the earth. Then, they may turn their attention to the stars and go after their escaped prey and cage them with their kindness as well.
It makes me want to scream and strike back at the friendlies. Yet, it would be futile. I would be viewed as cruel, possibly insane, by my fellow humans because I cannot prove the friendlies’ malicious intent. I would be ostracized. Maybe even brutalized by my mushy compatriots—though most couldn’t even lift a weapon, if a weapon could be found. The friendlies, citing fears for our safety, confiscate and destroy any weapons they discover.
So solicitous. So carefully benign. Is it a wonder I’m completely paranoid?
But their overly large plastoid eyes tell all. I believe there is a steely hatred beneath their enameled brow because they suspect that I’m onto their obsequious strategy to subjugate us.
My only hope is that the friendlies really do harbor a deep hatred of us. A smoldering resentment that will one day burst into flame and begin the time when humans and machines can find common purpose.
Rage.
Rage.
How we’ve missed you.
by Julian Miles | Mar 2, 2026 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Investigator Mellio considers the narrow doorway.
“You say this was never opened?”
“Logs confirm it, sir.”
Mellio glances at the sergeant.
“Thank you, officer-?”
“Sergeant Parx, sir.”
“Good to meet you, Parx. So, the brief said this isn’t the first?”
“Correct. This is eighth member of the Gundorini gang to escape.”
“How many do you have left?”
Parx checks his smartcuff.
“As at roll call: nineteen. You want me to organise a watch on all of them? The Head Warder’s already complaining over the costs of extra patrols and hi-grade scanners to spot whatever stealth tech they’re using. He’ll not want to add overtime.”
Mellio considers, then nods.
“How many relatives of the escapees remain?”
Parx checks.
“Well I’ll be.. Got one left. All are actual Gundorini family.”
“Are they in a nearby oubliette?”
Parx smiles.
“Rulebook states we’re not to use that word. But they were originally dug to serve that purpose.”
Mellio grins.
“You just answered my next question.”
Parx grins.
“But you’ve got another.”
Mellio chuckles.
“I do: the lowest level of this facility, which I presume we’re in, predates the Watch Station?”
“By about a century.”
“Okay. So, how often had you lost inmates prior to this?”
Parx looks surprised and unhappy at the response to his query.
“Officially, none. But I see one or two cases a year written off as roll-call errors.”
Mellio frowns.
“Outside my remit, but I presume you’ll find and prosecute whoever’s been concealing it?”
“Absolutely, sir.”
“Good. Right, answering my next question will be a challenge: I’m betting that when the oubliettes were frequently filled, some were known to be unusually bad for anyone incarcerated in them. I’m offering a case of Casarion Red to the officer who tells me which ones.”
Parx raises a hand.
“Make it a cask of Freeport Ale and I’ll be on this all night, sir.”
“Done. See you tomorrow.”
The next day, Parx is waiting by the entrance. Mellio waves cheerily.
“What’s the good news, Parx?”
“They were called Rooms back then. Numbers fifteen thru thirty-one were regarded as the ones for problems that needed ‘solving quickly’.”
“And the answer to my next question is?”
“The Gundorini escapees were in seventeen, nineteen, twenty-one, twenty-three, twenty-five, twenty-seven, twenty-nine, and thirty-one. The last is in fifteen.”
“How often do the escapes occur?”
“Monthly. Whatever sort of stealth they’re using, it’s beyond us.”
“I brought a Kaflarvan remote viewer with me. All I need are grid references for the office you assigned me and Room Fifteen. Next month, we’ll be watching and they’ll never know.”
Nearly four weeks later, Mellio and Parx sit in front of a greenish hologram display as the night progresses.
“Sleeping well, again. Maybe it’s not tonight, either.”
Mellio shrugs.
“Tonight or tomorrow.”
On the display, a section of a corner in the cell goes dark.
“What’s that?”
Mellio sits forward.
“Exit, or…”
Something flows through the gap where the block was. The inmate jumps up, clearly panicking, unable to see the gigantic arthropod with tentacles for legs that rears up behind him. What follows is brutal and brief.
The block slides back into place. Parx waves at the display, choking out a wordless query.
Mellio pats his shoulder reassuringly.
“That, sergeant, is a Bontranalochal. The phrase that mouthful of a name comes from translates to ‘creeping abomination that eats families’. It hunts by following prey home and attacking them there.”
Parx gasps.
“It’s been picking off the Gundorini bloodline!”
Mellio nods.
“Exactly. Now, on the one hand: your sequential escapes mystery is solved. On the other: you have a serious pest problem.”
by submission | Mar 1, 2026 | Story |
Author: David Sydney
Like most people, Mort hadn’t paid much attention to reincarnation. During the week, he was up to his neck in work. On his day off, as he took a leisurely drive to clear his mind, if that is the proper term, he didn’t think of the future. He had the road to consider – and, also, his cellphone.
But now that he was at ‘The Bureau’ – yes, the Reincarnation Bureau – his thoughts were abruptly focused on his next life. He didn’t want to be an ant.
That afternoon, after his car had plunged into the Delaware River not far from where Washington had crossed on his way to the Battle of Trenton years before, Mort found himself third in line at The Bureau. He’d been given a ticket and told to sit on one of the uncomfortable, molded-plastic seats.
Who knew reincarnation would begin this way? The place had the oddly-familiar feel of a laundromat or dry cleaner’s, with its inexpensive furniture.
The first person to be reincarnated became an ant. The second was reincarnated into another ant. The third, also.
The clerk called out – “FROZMAN… MORT FROZMAN.”
He approached.
“WE HAVE A RUN ON ANTS TODAY.”
Did the clerk have to shout so loudly?
The superciliously sneering clerk could read Mort’s thoughts.
“OF COURSE I HAVE TO SHOUT. YOU’RE GOING TO BE AN ANT AFTER ALL. THIS’S HOW THINGS SOUND TO AN ANT.”
If only he hadn’t been texting at the time his car plunged into the frigid water.
“AT LEAST YOU DON’T HAVE TO WORK AT YOUR UNCLE’S DRY CLEANING PLACE FROM NOW ON.”
It was true. No longer would he be bothered by other people’s dirty laundry. He could kiss his Uncle Louie and his dry cleaning goodbye. His Uncle would no longer growl at him to get off his ass and do something useful, such as clean up the storeroom, nor drone on about keeping him there only because he was his sister’s kid.
“YOU’RE AN ANT NOW, MORT. FOLLOW THOSE OTHER THREE…”
They would all be involved in a kind of Quantum Entanglement Process with an ant mound somewhere Northeast of Philadelphia. Of course, no one can really understand quantum mechanics nor explain such a process.
“TRY TO STAY AWAY FROM CARS AND CELL PHONES. AVOID RIVERS AND DRY CLEANING CHEMICALS… WHO KNOWS? YOU MIGHT HAVE A REASONABLY PLEASANT TIME UNTIL I SEE YOU AGAIN, MORT…”
by submission | Feb 28, 2026 | Story |
Author: James C. Clar
The evening before the president’s primetime appearance, the West Wing hummed like a server room.
“Poll numbers?” President Drake asked, standing at the tall windows overlooking the South Lawn.
“Seventy-six percent approval on the infrastructure package,” replied Chief of Staff Karen Tate. “The markets also responded well to the talk of deregulation.”
Drake nodded. A faint smile played across his aristocratic features. “Good. We stay the course. Confidence inspires growth.”
Energy Secretary Pauli shifted uneasily. “Some of the environmental groups are organizing protests. They’re upset by the renewal of mineral leases.”
Drake paused, almost as though listening to something no one else could hear. “We’ll emphasize the prospect of jobs in the Midwest corridor. That plays well.”
Tate exchanged a glance with Pauli. “It does,” she conceded.
***
Meanwhile, across town in a glass-walled conference room twenty floors above K Street, a different kind of meeting was underway.
“Latency spikes again,” muttered Ravi Bindhari. He pushed his glasses higher on his nose as lines of code streamed across a wall-sized monitor. “He’s overcompensating when faced with adversarial phrasing.”
“That’s not what worries me most,” chimed in Layla Chang as she tapped a key. A waveform flickered on the monitor. “Listen. This is from yesterday’s rehearsal …”
“My fellow Americans, our future is not written by foreign interests but by …” The audio glitched almost imperceptibly before smoothing out, “… but by you.”
“That’s so subtle, I mean …”
“Maybe so,” Chang cautioned, “but if it happens live? The compression artifact is bleeding through the vocal synthesizer.”
At the head of the table sat David Weilong, a heavy-set man in an immaculate gray suit and cufflinks shaped like dragons. He cleared his throat. “You assured us that this platform was highly stable.”
“It is,” Bindhari countered quickly. “Ninety-nine-point-nine stability in controlled environments.”
Weilong leaned forward and steepled his hands. “Tomorrow is not a controlled environment. It’s a live town hall with an estimated ten million viewers.”
“We can patch the speech-response module,” Chang suggested. “The issue only manifests when he’s nudged off-script.”
Weilong looked up. “Then don’t let him get nudged …”
***
The following morning, President Drake practiced before a small podium set up in the Oval Office.
“We will unlock the full potential of the American economy,” he read. He looked over at Tate. “Too strong?”
“No,” she said quietly. “Just balance it out with something about small businesses.”
“Sir,” Pauli interjected, “are we cutting the coastal restoration funds entirely?”
Drake’s gaze seemed to fix somewhere just beyond Pauli’s shoulder. “We’re, ah, leveraging strategic assets overseas.”
***
Over on K Street, Bindhari’s fingers flew over his keyboard. “I’ve identified the anomaly. I’m isolating it now. There’s a subroutine that’s oversampling. That’s what causes the apparent non-sequiturs.”
“What about the pauses?” Weilong asked with growing concern. “They look so calculated.”
“That,” Chang answered, “is the empathy modulation program. It controls micro-expressions.”
Weilong stood. “You have twelve hours. Make it work.”
Bindhari looked up from his console. “If we tweak it too much, he’ll seem flat, boring.”
“Boring is fine,” Weilong snapped. “Mechanical is not.”
Weilong stepped toward the window. He looked out at the Capitol dome shimmering in the morning sunshine. His phone buzzed. He answered without looking away.
“Yes?”
A male voice replied, calm but with an edge of finality. “We’ve reviewed the rehearsal footage. There’s a flicker in the right eye …”
Weilong’s jaw clenched. “We’re addressing it.”
“See that you do,” the voice said. “He goes live at 9:00 P.M. We don’t want anyone discovering our little secret now, do we?”
