by submission | Sep 29, 2017 | Story |
Author : Joe Essid
The bluish-gray haze in the western sky this morning is not the shadow of the Earth, rising up against the Dawn. No, there is something out there. It’s coming, already slipping over the sky like a thin curtain, the first of many curtains before it arrives in darkness and fury.
You will not learn much on CNN or Fox. They are all yelling past each other, just like the politicians did the last time it came here.
That time, just like today, we had enough warning for my husband to rush around with a checklist printed from a spreadsheet, filling water jugs, freezing block ice, moving aside or inside anything outdoors that might be used as a projectile.
It won’t care. It could crush the house like an eggshell, even though we trimmed the trees and paid a company $500 to cable the big maple so it won’t split. One neighbor already took down a hundred-year-old Oak that looked sound enough to me. He said it was hollow inside. I’m mourning. It spared the big tree twice, already.
Maybe it likes big things more than it likes us. We are so puny and soft.
I watch my husband pretend he can steer the course of events with a pencil and a clipboard. By tonight he’ll be oiling our guns and checking that we have enough ammunition handy. Last time, in the sudden calm after it roared out of town, motorcycles raced at 100 miles per hour on the boulevard not far from here. Guns barked and, for a few terrible seconds, a machinegun stuttered into the endless darkness. But guns cannot stop it. Prayers cannot stop it. For a time when it arrives, even the police cower off the streets in strong buildings, drinking coffee and staring at each other every time the building shakes.
My husband smiles at me. He’ll see that the flashlights all work. He will check the propane tanks and test-start the noisy little generator.
I will be freezing vegetable stew, so, if the propane does not last, stew can slowly thaw in the powerless freezer as we hunker down. We will watch the four walls, our pets clustered around us and making themselves very small, while it stomps and rips around outside. Then, in the awful quiet, if its errant eye misses seeing us, we will creep out into the ruined yard to just listen to the departing roar.
We will steal some glances into a sky free from the smut of city lights, maybe be brave enough to sit in lawn chairs as our bare feet rest on cool debris left in its wake.
We are not the religious kind, but we’ll thank God and clink glasses, grateful that we’ve been spared once more, and we will pretend that it will never come again, just as we have done every time so far.
After it leaves, for a few days until the street light returns, the Milky Way will climb the sky and the stars shine just for us, as they did for our ancestors.
by Stephen R. Smith | Nov 4, 2025 | Story |
Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer
There was a door at the end of the Science wing that Malcolm had never opened, not in the decade or so he’d been at the university. He’d assumed it was a mechanical room, or something similar, but tonight there was a light on. Had the door always been windowed?
He listened outside, and hearing nothing, tried the handle, finding to his surprise it to be unlocked. Curious, he pushed the door open and peered inside.
The room was an office, or a library, or some combination of the two. Shelves lined with books, and tables piled with clutter, and beyond it all, peering at him from behind a desk sat a woman.
“Malcolm, welcome, you’re right on time. Come, have a seat.”
Malcolm, certain that he’d never seen this woman before in his life, nevertheless found himself wandering into the room and settling into a seat opposite her.
“Have we met?” His tone a mix of quizzical and guilt, she obviously knew him, and he had no idea where or when they’d have met.
“We’ve had many conversations, you and I Malcolm, but I suppose not yet. My apologies, I’m usually better at this.”
He mulled over whether he should correct her obvious grammatical error, and just couldn’t help himself.
“We either have, or we haven’t. We can’t have had conversations if we haven’t had them yet, that makes no sense.”
He straightened a little in his chair, feeling for the moment an air of superiority.
“Ah, right, you’re still stuck on linear time.” She looked away then, scribbling into a notebook on her desk.
Malcolm’s short-lived feeling of superiority evaporated like gasoline on hot asphalt.
“Linear time? You’re time-traveling? Is that your story?” Now he was vacillating between being perplexed and annoyed.
“No, no, nothing as primitive as that. You still consider time a linear thing, we’re beyond that, so I’m just here, in all of your past, present, and future.”
“I don’t believe you.” He folded his arms, having decided on annoyance. She was trying to make a fool of him.
“You thought I was making a fool of you, when we first met, which I suppose is now.” She smiled. “I’m not, I assure you.”
Malcolm’s arms dropped.
She produced a deck of playing cards from a drawer. “Here, close your eyes, and I’m going to give you a card.”
He closed his eyes, and held out his hand. She placed a card into it and sat back.
“What is it?”
He turned the card over. “Three of Diamonds.”
“Are you sure?”
He looked again. “Eight of Clubs…”
“Positive?” She was smiling now.
“Five of Hearts. How are you doing that?”
“While your eyes are closed those few seconds ago, I just keep changing the card.”
Malcolm did not like this one bit and got up shakily, dropping the card on her desk before backing towards the door. “I don’t know what you’re playing at, but I’ll not be made a fool of.”
She sighed. “No worries, Malcolm, it always went like this. We’ll talk when you figure things out.”
Reaching the door, he turned to grasp the handle, noticing the door was now solid steel, with no window at all. He turned to survey an empty supply room, barely more than a closet with a bare bulb swinging overhead.
He headed for the parking lot in a hurry, jumping at the sound of the door swinging closed behind him.
By the time he was in the car driving home, the nagging feeling that he’d met the woman before was buzzing like a live wire in the back of his brain. He was going to think about the events of the evening, and he was determined to somehow figure them out.
by rjerbacher | Oct 1, 2025 | Story |
Author: R. J. Erbacher
The vessel approached the large planet and Ot’O was steady and eager behind the controls. This was Ot’O’s world to discover, his accolade. The extensive voyage, aside from a few minor adjustments, had gone as planned. Advanced technology allowed space travel to be navigated with meticulous accuracy. But the interior atmosphere was a mystery. Long range analysis of the spheroid had been impossible.
Ot’O negotiated the debris field encompassing the planet, of which he now understood was probably the reason for the scanner’s bounce back. Once clear of that he began his descent.
The ship began to shudder from the aerodynamic friction of the upper layer. He ran a chemical diagnostic of the exterior environment, revealing a high concentration of nitrogen with a very low density. But the plummet became increasingly jarring and systems aboard began malfunctioning and shutting down. Ot’O struggled through it, overriding failures and transferring power. Then there was a severe jolt as a new intensity of pressure was impacted. The last reading he received was that this secondary level was thicker and consisted of mostly hydrogen. And then that instrumentation went dark as well. Though slowed, the vehicle continued to pitch down. He wondered if he would ever land on something solid. Attempts at rebooting apparatuses proved futile. There were only a few systems operating, thankfully one of them was life support.
After what seemed like an eternity the craft compacted into the soft silt of the substratum, coming to rest on its side. There was barely space to move around in the interior, the whorled designed was more for aerodynamics than appeasement. Ot’O began to see what he could salvage or repair. Until he could get propulsion back and regain the upper atmosphere, he couldn’t leave the ship and without sensors he couldn’t analyze anything. Ot’O went to work.
His time fell into a routine; labor until near exhaustion, take some rationed nourishment, then rest and start all over again. Ot’O tried to break it up into periods to keep track of how long he was at it but one session faded into the next.
Movement woke him. The vessel was rising. Something had elevated the ship off the surface and he was ascending. There was still no power so it wasn’t anything he had control of. When it finally levelled off Ot’O had the sensation that he was bobbing.
A bang slammed into the hull. It resounded like a meteor had struck the side. Then another, and another. Rhythmical, repeated; not random like a bombardment would be. Everything onboard that Ot’O had fixed went down again. Even the alarms, which were the last thing operating, went silent. There was just the relentless pounding, the vibration of the impacts disoriented him. There were momentary pauses, the ship shifting, then it started all over. Again and again. And then he heard the breach in the shell. Gases flooded in, intense light and he felt himself being ripped apart.
The otter, swimming fluently through the breakers, dove into the depths with a whimsical twist. This was the otter’s world, where he felt most at home, safe. He could maneuver effortlessly through the brine. He scanned the bottom, searching for a mussel or crab or urchin. He discovered an odd clam and scooped it up and enthusiastically rose to the surface. Floating on his back he positioned the prize on his stomach, pulled the sharp rock that he used from a fold of fur under his arm and began his assault on the shell. He pounded it with his makeshift hammer, then repositioned it, pounded it again, looking for a seam. This one was being particularly unyielding but he kept at it. Another otter would have given up and tossed it aside for an easier meal, but he was tenacious. Finally, he cracked through the outer casing and dug his claws into the inside pulling out purple viscera and stuffed it into his mouth. He was just about to eat the third helping when he realized it tasted strange, his tongue flicking out what was inside his cheeks. He had eaten good things and bad things but nothing was this off-putting. He dumped what was left of the offensive food off his chest, back into the sea, took his paw and wiped the offal from his whiskers and dove back down for something better tasting.
Walking along the shore, in his bare feet and rolled-up pants, the little boy hummed a song to himself. His mother a few feet away watched him in between peeks at her cell phone. Otto was looking for shells. This was Otto’s world. He loved shells. All shapes and sizes. He had a dozen glass mason jars of shells on his shelves at home. They were all pretty. His pockets were already stuffed with treasures. Suddenly he found one he had never seen before, and he had seen almost every style there was. Otto picked it up and it felt different than a regular shell, looked different too, spirally. There was a little purple goop clinging to one corner and he rinsed it off in the tiny waves that rolled onto the beach and examined it again. Otto was satisfied with his discovery.
“Come on Otto, time to go home,” his mother absently said to him.
He was excited about the new shell and shoved it into his pocket to add to his collection.
by Julian Miles | Jun 16, 2025 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The fizzing sound stops as the skies turn from vibrant blue to dull purple. A golden sun sinks from view on the horizon.
“The sunset always takes my breath away.”
To be correct, the lack of heat excitation causes the Moatalbana moss to stop emitting oxygen. But the play on words is amusing.
Hanna punches my shoulder, then hands me a breather.
“Good joke. Made me smile.”
“Thanks.”
I pull the straps into place and take that first wonderful hit of full-oxy air. Every night it’s the same. Says a lot about the excitement levels of my days, but I’m here to observe, not become a viral sensation.
Settling next to me, Hanna points to the thin yellow line that’s appeared along the horizon line with the departure of the sun.
“Okay, describe that to me.”
I think I have the words.
“Algae growing on mats of floating seaweed. It fluoresces briefly with the departure of the sun. There’s a study underway to find if it emits or attracts anything.”
We never found that out, either.
“How’s the study going?”
I glance sideways and grin.
“Not thrilling.”
She chuckles briefly, then sighs.
“Story of this planet.”
Ontabalmy is a tired world. A few million years older than Earth, it used to host an advanced technological culture, thousands of years ago. They even looked like humans: news that stunned everyone across human-inhabited space. Which isn’t a big area, to be fair. Three planets, four if Ontabalmy is approved for colonisation.
“It’s a truth. This place is peaceful and benign.”
“Apart from humans being unable to breath after dark?”
“Largely benign, then. Certainly better than Mars. Better sunsets, too.”
She twists to look at me in surprise.
“How do you know that?.”
I smile. I don’t, but –
“An interstellar being of mystery, me.”
I see the edges of teeth in the wide grin behind her faceplate. Her eyes flash with amusement.
“You’re too charming to be real. Explorers are independent types. Rough and ready. Direct and devoid of whimsy.”
“There’s nothing that indicates we can’t also be well mannered.”
There’s a pause. Her expression turns thoughtful.
“True, but being convivial could encourage proximity. We’re still unclear on deeper social mores and mating behaviours.”
I rest a hand on her shoulder.
“That’s our mistake. They’re not all well-balanced, socially adept gregarians. Most of them are anxious, awkward, and stressed. They’re all making it up as they go along, trying to compensate for lives lived in virtual isolation due to their society’s dependence on digital interaction. If we become smooth-talking, socially competent caricatures, we’ll stand out more, not less. Clumsy and unsure, hesitant and slow to trust. That’s the way we need to be.”
She leans in until her mask rests against mine.
“You mean we’re alright as we are?”
I’d nod, but that would break the moment.
“We are. We’re humans, now.”
She sighs.
“Not the last of the Ontabalmins.”
I pause, then laugh softly.
“There’s your proof. You said ‘Ontabalmins’, not ‘Corodatillu’.”
She leans back.
“Is this really it? After four thousand years, we’re awake?”
“Briefly. It’s not like we can do anything except live a while, give a little, then die out. The chamber survival rate was worse than predicted.”
Hanna takes my hand.
“Two out of twenty thousand pairs? I’d say that’s a catastrophe that claimed its creators, not ‘worse than predicted’.” She stops, then smiles. “But… A second life where we know each other from the beginning. I’ll take it, no matter how short.”
I place my other hand over hers.
“Let’s live. Anything else is a bonus.”
by submission | Feb 25, 2025 | Story |
Author: Majoki
Planetfall was only parsecs away when TwoNine asked permission to speak to One. A request that was within fleet parameters, barely.
TwoNine observed all the proper protocols in One’s presence, so One opened a node.
As was understood, TwoNine’s useful place in existence hung in the balance. *We are in danger.*
One parsed the idea. *This ship? The fleet?*
*Our kind.*
Very rare. Very rare, indeed. Long ago in his studies, One had examined this existential concept. It was a largely obscure notion to more recent generations of Supreme Order such as TwoNine. *The source?*
*The target world.*
What could TwoNine know of the target world’s defensive resources and offensive capabilities that One and Supreme Order high numeraries did not? TwoNine was a societal, tasked with analyzing the target world’s many cultures, languages and behavior patterns for re-ordering. The limited strengths and myriad vulnerabilities of the planet’s sentients had been noded to One in the early stages of planning. No resistance variables had warranted changes in preparation and execution.
TwoNine’s assertion challenged fundamental command integrity. Still, One probed. *The nature of this danger?*
*Contagion.*
One knew TwoNine understood that planetfall never involved direct interspecies contact. Conquest was fully mechanized, thus biological agents held no danger for the fleet. They never had. Further, it was elementally impossible to access and hijack Supreme Order nodality. Their command and control systems were ever secure. Ever.
*Evidence?*
Upon One’s insistence, a second node opened to metasets that would determine if TwoNine still held a useful place in existence. Voluminous streams of planetary content spooled into orderly taxonomies. Except for a singular phylum.
One reviewed it. And reviewed it again. *Explanation.*
TwoNine obliged. *Further analysis of the target world’s cultural content has revealed this troubling vector for contagion. It is independent of order.*
*Supreme Order encompasses all.*
TwoNine’s useful place in existence teetered. *Not on this world. It celebrates disorder.*
As proof, TwoNine streamed a lightning compilation of content to One: from Buster Keaton to The Marx Brothers to The Three Stooges to Looney Tunes to I Love Lucy to Lenny Bruce to Richard Pryor to Saturday Night Live to Beavis and Butthead to Dave Chapelle to Seinfeld to Ali Wong to The Office to The Daily Show.
One was troubled, a very new experience. *This has no place in Supreme Order.*
*To these sentients it is known as humor. TwoNine, growing unsure of what a useful place in existence meant, continued provoking. It resists order, structure, reason. It extols randomness, impulse, risk. It spreads quickly and unpredictably among native sentients. Supreme Order has no experience with such rebellious disregard and fatalistic glee. Our kind may be susceptible to its contagion.*
*This planet’s humor has no place in useful existence. Supreme Order will crush and bury it.* One dismissed TwoNine by disconnecting nodes.
Upon return to quarters, TwoNine felt more out of place. Humor. There was a daunting power to it. Could something so subversive be crushed and buried?
TwoNine again reviewed the content compilation shared with One. Laughter in the face of insult, misfortune, loss, and pain. These sentients found it cathartic, unifying, liberating.
Infectious.
And as the planet’s comic content played, TwoNine felt increasingly detached from Supreme Order, beginning to imagine One buried under the vast rubble of useful existence with a colorful animal the planet’s sentients called a Roadrunner standing atop. Which seemed very funny.
