by submission | Sep 19, 2024 | Story |
Author: Rosa May M. Bayuga
It was one of those days when she thought she had a great sense of smell. Freshly-baked bread, raindrops, laughter, screams and wounds and hurts, she could smell them all. She could smell the smoke from the pyre of fallen leaves that her father poked with a stick in the backyard of her childhood home. She could smell the flowers whose names she didn’t know from the byways and alleys and side streets and dirt roads she had ever walked on. She could smell shadows and sunbeams, failures, and forsaken dreams.
There was something funereal about the smell that came to her that day. It was a mix of melting candles, incense, and heady blooms, a certain scent that belonged to places of eternal rest. And the sad thing was that she couldn’t place where it was coming from. She looked around the room, opened doors, peeped at corners, even went outside to her little pocket of a garden to find out if there was something there. But she found nothing … nothing.
A sudden stab of pain coursed from her left chest, spread to her back, went up her neck, and traced a path through her breasts. Then and only then did she notice it, a-pouring and a-leaking, a-begging and a-mourning from deep within her. Tears, it was the smell of tears, long pent-up, long forgotten, tears that burned in pyres, tears that watered wild flowers in alleys and byways, tears of shadows and sunbeams, of screams and forsaken dreams.
She gathered the tears as offerings, and laid them, quietly and carefully laid them, before the tomb of her broken heart.
by submission | Sep 18, 2024 | Story |
Author: Soramimi Hanarejima
I’m getting a cup of coffee in the office kitchen when suddenly there you are—as the image of yourself you’ve created by projecting your thoughts into mine—fully occupying my attention the way you always do: with emphatic presence. This time in the form of a hard grimace at the garish posters blaring motivational maxims and the shelves stocked with over-sweetened snacks that are speedy little vehicles to but one destination: a sugar rush.
“Management here has this compulsion to maximize,” I explain. “If something has a fraction of a chance of boosting productivity for a fraction of the team, it’ll be put into action.”
“But doesn’t this stuff have the opposite effect on someone like you? I mean, the posters are a real eyesore, and the free food—if it can be called food—is gross.”
“Yeah, but you tune it out after a while, then you’re just your ordinary self most of the time. Probably not too different from the library. Aren’t you mostly just you there?”
“I am, though maybe a more mellow version of myself. Being surrounded by books is calming. Maybe too calming.”
“To the point that you need the excitement of imagining yourself into my workplace? Why not imagine some exoplanet lush with alien life?”
“Oh, I did that already. Not an exoplanet but a high seas adventure. And yeah, I could go off into another daydream, but as important as it is to take breaks from reality, it’s also important to consider what reality is like for other people. And I realized I’d never done that with you. I’ve just assumed I know what your workday is like because you’ve told me so much about it.”
“Complained so much about it, you mean.”
“Let’s just say you’re very vocal about what you don’t agree with.”
“So now it’s time to find out if things are really that bad. Or…”
“Or?”
“Rescue me from this banality?”
“Too bad I can’t get you out of this as easily as I got myself into it.”
“At least you can save me from this corporate cliché for a few minutes by imagining something interesting here.”
“I have just the thing.”
Before I can ask what that is, the head of a giant bird with lazuli plumage rises from the floor, its amethyst eyes and ivory beak followed by a long neck and flapping wings with sparkling flight feathers that sweep through us. For a moment, it occupies the entirety of the kitchen before departing, the ceiling no obstacle to its ascent.
If only I could ride this magnificent bird away from all the tedious work that awaits me, I’d never—
Then comes the rest of the flock, fledglings and all, countless birds of various sizes streaming past us, lifting toward a sky I imagine as a dazzling dawn that will give way to a blue they will disappear into.
The upward avian torrent tappers to a trickle that continues to mesmerize me until finally, it’s just you and me, grinning.
by submission | Sep 17, 2024 | Story |
Author: Majoki
Generals like to look good. Even in the 34th century. Even after a thousand years of war. They like polish and shine and finely fitted uniforms, so they like me. Their tailor.
Otherwise, how could a simple tailor expect to live through the entire Sidereal War. Only the most powerful could dictate who got the famously expensive treatments to extend life hundreds of years. In my case over a thousand. A tailor. I guess I’m a strange yet rather appropriate thread in the fabric of life.
A life that has measured the means, cut the patterns, sewed the seams for a lot of death in this seemingly endless war. Because my job is to make the generals look natty and therefore confident, I feel culpable for the perennial war’s carnage. You see, generals talk a lot when I’m fitting them, sharing their thoughts with the room which I’m in, because I’m of no considered consequence.
On this day of the war, like every day of the war, generals were whispering and wise-cracking in the halls, when I was called to the Commanding General’s office, a somewhat spartan space in the otherwise palatial Freedom Citadel.
Upon entering, the CG motioned me to his side. He was hosting a cadre I’d never seen before. They were not generals, not even military, maybe not even human. They certainly weren’t dressed like any person I’d worked with in my thousand years of tailoring.
“Ah, Citizen. We need your assistance,” the CG began. “Our guests here are offering us transformational support in battle, but are afraid they won’t be taken seriously before the Security Plenum, clad as now. I expect you can address that.”
I nodded because that is what one does before the CG.
“Very good. Please sketch some new regalia for our guests while we finish our discussion.”
In a corner, I observed. Noting the newcomers’ lithe and elongated limbs. I listened. Heeding the intensity of the debate. These potential off-world allies promised decisive victory, though at the cost of widespread misery.
When the delegation was dismissed, the CG sat at his desk. A desk older than either of us. Crafted from a rare tree that had lived hundreds of years before the Sidereal War began. Absently, the CG traced the polished grain with a finger.
“Ideas, Citizen?” he finally asked.
I produced my sketches. Trim pseudo-uniforms that rang familiar no matter what the former allegiance, no matter what the DNA, or lack thereof.
The CG smiled. “All a matter of convention, eh. We see what we want in the well dressed, the well pressed.” He continued to stare at my drawings for a long moment, and when he spoke, he spoke past any conventional ideas sketched there.
“They are offering us an end, Citizen. To the war. To all we have known for a thousand years. It would mean a terrible escalation, a knockout punch, but with a recoil that will leave humanity reeling. A means to a very mean end.”
I nodded because that is what one does before the CG.
He rose, seam lines falling in immaculate place. “I believe you’ll recall, Citizen, that almost 250 years ago when I made rank, you tailored my uniform. I thought it a perfect fit when I tried it on, but you suggested a slight alteration. A somewhat seemingly trivial change. You told me that the hem of my trousers didn’t break cleanly at my shoes. Do you remember what you suggested?”
Of course I remembered. It’s never wise to forget what pleases a general. “I believe I said that we should take it down a shiver, sir.”
He looked up at me now. Really looked at me. Someone who’d lived through a thousand years of war. Someone who knew how badly frayed humanity was. How close to unraveling we were as a species. His unclouded eyes were asking me if we should accept the outsiders’ help, a massive escalation, at brutal cost.
“Achieving the form and line that makes for a clean break, often requires we take it down a shiver, sir.”
Ever so slightly, the CG nodded because that’s what one does when the fit is just right.
by submission | Sep 15, 2024 | Story |
Author: David Dumouriez
The fourth initiation, if you got that far, was where it started. Where you found out what you weren’t.
The first was just a basic exercise in establishing the proper mindset. Donning the skins. Adopting that grinning mask. And, let’s face it, if you couldn’t do that, you had no right being near the Basin in the first place.
To be a Divinator, you had to think like one. That was what the elders said, and it was reasonable enough. There were few who couldn’t manage that.
But it was strange, according to Ged’s perception at least, that those who looked the most imposing at this stage were the ones most likely to fail at the next two levels. It seemed that while they could play the part, they couldn’t inhabit it. They’d crack at the first signs of difficulty and run from a challenge rather than face it.
Sensible, perhaps. But that was not what the elders were looking for. If you’d been nominated, then you’d better live up to expectations.
The elders wanted to know how much spirit you had in you. In the second phase, they worked each candidate until they dropped. For some this could be minutes; for others, hours. In rare cases, days. Paradoxically, while it was less burdensome to collapse early, no one who was serious did so.
Ged and Jiah, though strangers of course, formed some kind of connection out of adversity and, unwittingly, spurred each other on. From the corner of his eye, Ged could see Jiah struggling across the scrubby terrain, equally set on ending up at a point that both of them knew was unreachable. When Jiah staggered and went down for the last time, Ged carried on without a backward glance. And so it continued until Ged was no longer aware of time and place.
In the third passage, Ged noticed that there were fewer of them left. And without the costume or the masks, and with the scratches and the malnutrition of the previous initiation, the remaining candidates appeared much less impressive. But, in some way, did they also not now look more formidable?
The elders had collected them from where they fell, but they’d neglected to satisfy their hunger or their thirst. Instead, they paired them off with one portion of bread and one of water. You could see the person opposite you, and you could see the other pairs too within the dusty ring. The elders walked among them, offering neither advice nor encouragement.
At first the individuals looked around at the other pairs, wondering who would move first and what they’d do.
Ged saw the desperation in the eyes of the nearest pair. It was no surprise, then, that they were the ones who made the initial move. It was rudimentary, and it was over quickly. The candidates had at last turned against each other, as Ged suspected they would.
This was the cue for others to do the same. Some battles were short; some long. Some full of sound; others silent.
Ged – by design? – was paired with Jiah.
They looked at each other. Ged nodded. Jiah then also nodded. Reflecting each other’s movements they slowly stepped to the centre where the food and liquid was, and then took half each. It wasn’t enough, of course. But thereafter they sat impassively. The elders exchanged looks and gave them more.
In the first three stages, they tested what you knew about yourself.
The fourth was where you found out you knew nothing …
by submission | Sep 14, 2024 | Story |
Author: Kevin Eric Paul
“Hey. Mister,” a melodious voice called to me. I kept my eyes closed for a moment and did not respond. Confusion. Anxiety. Dread.
And a gentle, warm breeze. Bright light penetrating my eyelids. Where am I? I thought. What the devil is going on?
“Mister. Hey.” I felt a soft hand touch the wrinkled skin of my old, worn-out shoulder. I opened my eyes, squinting against the sunlight. I was reclined on a comfortable chaise longue, golden sand all around me, and baby blue waters a stone’s throw away. Before me was a young brunette, perhaps mid-twenties, wearing a two-piece, white swimsuit with a bright green sarong about her narrow waist. Was I sleeping? Or was I still dreaming?
She released her hand. “You okay, fella? You were talkin’ in your sleep just then.”
I coughed, cleared my throat, and waved away her concerns. “I’m fine, fine. Sorry, Miss. No need to be concerned for an ol’ timer like myself, now.”
“I’m mighty glad you’re all right,” she told me with a sincere, glowing smile. Not everyone is, you know.”
“Whatever do you mean, my dear?”
“What’s the last thing you remember?” she asked suddenly.
I considered that; what I remembered was nonsensical. Was I becoming senile? “My word, what a question to ask an old man. Heaven’s sake!”
She knelt in the sand and gazed intently into my eyes. I looked away. “Tell me. Please.”
Her concern seemed genuine. And I felt that I could trust her. I didn’t know why. “Well, I…I was in my study, as I am most nights. I was enjoying a pipe and a book…and–”
“And then you woke up right here, just now?”
“Why, yes. Say, do I know you? You seem awful familiar, now I’ve had a look at you.”
She flashed a big grin and took my hand in hers. “So you do remember! Stanley, it’s me. It’s your Eunice!”
I looked her up and down. It really was. “But…that was…”
“Over sixty years ago,” she finished. “I know, Stan. And now we’re here.”
I could scarcely believe it. I was not, in fact, dreaming. Yet here she was, just as she’d been when we parted ways at the end of that magical summer. I frowned as a realization came to me.
“Eunice. I’m dead, aren’t I?”
She chuckled gently at that. “No, silly. This is your new life. And this one don’t end, if you don’t wan’ it to!”
I felt my smile stretch from ear to ear. “So you’re tellin’ me the cryo–”
“It worked, Stan,” she said, nodding enthusiastically. “Now. Get your fine self out of that old skin. Just concentrate. Think on it. That’s it!” she cried.
I looked down at my new body. Old body? I was young again. I ran a hand through my thick head of hair. Amazing. I stood up and offered my arm to Eunice. She eagerly accepted it, and we began walking along the beach.
“Eunice?”
“Yes, sugar?”
“Are you really…you?”
“Does it matter?”
