by submission | Mar 29, 2020 | Story |
Author: Evan Whitbeck
Light . . . warmth. It’s far, but what I begin to feel rouses me.
Where am I? I guess if I’ve woken, I must be someplace again.
Ping.
A sound? A sound! And I felt something! Something hit me, flew into me — I crashed into something, but I know it because I felt it. I felt it! It has been a long time since I last heard or felt: the warmth of the radio and then the growing brightness, the sound of being hit and the feeling of it. It has been a long, long time. But there is still more time yet, I think as I doze off again. I want to move, to stretch my limbs. But it’s too early, though the temptation is great.
I take small naps as I move forward, rebuilding and conserving my strength. I wonder if I’m here or if I was thrown off during my rest. I will know soon. But . . . I have to be here . . . if something happened, if here isn’t where it should be . . . the time wasted — the time is nothing — means everything.
I’m moving faster every moment. Happy to be getting closer. Closer to where I can know if I’m actually getting closer this time. I’m pushing myself more, staying awake longer. I’m gaining strength. As I warm, I know I am close enough to save my strength and rest before I am there. I am glad, I am awake, I am warm, I am the pop and snap of the sails unfurling. These sails . . . I feel these sails warming me, catching the light, and a shudder built from joy, anticipation, and dread runs through my body. As I shudder, as I feel these sails pull, I know soon that I will know.
I get closer still, and I have woken up enough from my long sleep and warmed while planning and waiting. I am strong enough now to look and to listen. I slow down to better see through all of my open eyes; I keen my ears, I turn and look and listen.
I am not in the wrong place. The dread is gone and the anticipation fades. There is only joy. This is here. I pick up speed, trying to keep myself from rushing. I arrive as the star crests the horizon and the sails come in. I turn and feel the heat of the atmosphere as I drop, faster and faster, before slowing and putting myself on the ground. Ground. The ground here, I am here.
How long has it been? There were stops and mistakes and sleep and isolation. I am awake, I am here, I know I am here. The signal is unmistakable; it fills my eyes and ears and body as it thrums out. We had decided, we knew it was right, here was where we will be. The preparations were made for here to be what it needed to be and I left.
I have found the spot. I dig into the ground, drinking deeply from the prepared, from the reactor and the refineries. I grew stronger yet and become the ark, the mother I was been before and will be again. I was ready. My life and my machinery intertwined and soon, after a season of growing and worrying, we were. We are here. We were again. I am again.
We are here. I am home and we are.
by submission | Mar 28, 2020 | Story |
Author: Mark Renney
The road is becoming much more difficult to follow and there are places where it disappears entirely and each time it does the road becomes a little harder to locate. Davis is now spending most of his time meandering back and forth, searching for it.
He is stalled on the edge of the plain and if he is to continue, to keep making for the centre, toward the point of impact, Davis will have to abandon the road and venture out there. Although the debris is still plentiful, here he can see quite clearly that on the plain it begins to lessen, to thin out.
On the road he hasn’t had to stray very far in order to find what he needs, taking what he wants as and when he wants it. Food and drink, of course, and there is still an abundance of cans and cartons and packets and bottles or a change of clothes or a new pair of boots.
On the plain, it will be necessary for him to carry provisions. Davis searches for something with which he will be able to do this. A rucksack would be ideal, or a suitcase, one with wheels. But he is unable to find either of these, or even one of those sturdy carrier bags the supermarkets used to sell: ‘A BAG FOR LIFE’ had been the motto. Davis remembers how he had always forgotten them and so whenever he visited a store he would have to purchase another until, eventually, there were so many kicking around the house he had been forced to gather them up and throw them in the dustbin. Now, when he really needed one, there were no Bags For Life, not out here.
Davis considers constructing something himself, anything with ropes attached would suffice. A makeshift sledge he could drag along behind him. But it doesn’t feel right to use something he has cobbled together. No, it has to be something from before, something still intact, still useful.
by submission | Mar 27, 2020 | Story |
Author: Janet Shell Anderson
I’m driving up 34, but no one’s on the road. Tractors sit in the muddy fields; nothing’s planted. Where’s everybody?
Usually they’re on I-80 anyway, so that’s probably the reason, plus it’s Sunday morning, and except for church traffic in maybe say Aurora or Utica, little towns, I wouldn’t expect anybody because they’re young out here on this flatland and they sleep in. But still.
The Rainbasin’s awfully full of birds, snow geese mostly, but I see in a shallow pond, in the middle of what ought to be a newly planted cornfield, a pair of swans. I’ve never seen swans out here before, though they migrate through sometimes.
Odd days.
Clouds have been hanging about eight hundred feet off the ground, wooly bunches like somebody forgot to do wash in heaven. Not normal. I haven’t seen a star at night for weeks. A cold funnel came over, never touched down, poked down like some bizarre tendril.
I’ve called on Skype, Portal, texted; none of my family’s answered. Social media’s down. TV’s a mess of static, blizzard of digital goofs. No radio, not even the station on the rez that broadcasts every bit of local news.
I see crows in all the trees. Big ones. We don’t have ravens out here, but, man, these look like ravens. I roll down the car window, because ravens mutter, “jerk,” but these are silent. No cawing. No nothing.
It’s a colorless world. Nothing’s come up out of the wet fields. The trees are still bare. The few yards I’ve passed are mostly beige. No robins. I saw a black cat sitting on a white porch of a very weather-beaten farmhouse.
Off in the distance, I see a huge swirl of birds near a horizon that’s flat as a pancake. The birds look like smoke. Sandhill cranes. Thousands of them. I should be getting near the river soon. Still no traffic. Five mule tail deer cross the road in front of me. I’ve never seen them out in the day like this. Then six or seven more come out of a farmyard. Over by distant railroad tracks, in the mist, I spot not cattle, but muleys. A really big herd of deer.
This landscape isn’t right; there should be somebody, driving, walking, opening a door, light on somewhere, sounds of people. The sky’s grey, the land’s grey, the swirl of cranes in the distance, a smudge of charcoal. I think maybe I better not go on. Just an instinct. The twenty birds sitting in the farmstead trees where I pull up are each glistening black.
People thought ravens were messengers from the gods. Not likely. Anyway, these are not ravens, just ordinary crows. The people are somewhere around. Everything’s just a little weird. The horizon’s filling with darkness, fog, low cloud. I pull up on a gravel drive, beside a peeling, unlighted house, stop the engine, roll down the window, listen.
“Jerk.”
by submission | Mar 26, 2020 | Story |
Author: Katlina Sommerberg
Soft red-violet and indigo flog floats off the floor, obscuring my body beneath glittering colors. The fingers that held my boyfriend’s are drenched in sweat and water vapor, clammy in this cold tank. There is nothing but the fog. My body drifts behind me, outside my vision, and I can’t tell anymore when my eyes are opened or not — the colors are the same.
Have I ever felt my body? I hit the ground running during cross country training, but had I ever felt the blades of grass beneath my soles? I listened to the pain, obeying its screams and waiting for a whisper to flare.
Yet the colors swirl. Water vapor collects on my naked skin, running and dripping as I spin. I remind myself that this is zero gravity, but I still expect the steam to act like a shower back on Earth. Back home, where he waits for me and my amputated leg sits in a pickle jar.
Why? I can’t remember now why I wanted to save the flesh. The phantom sensations shrieked for attention whenever I glimpsed the dead piece of myself. Maybe I wanted to remember what it was like to have muscle and skin where there isn’t anything anymore.
In the fog, I’m free of the expectation to see non-existent flesh. Phantom pain becomes indistinguishable from any other.
I float in the sea of shifting red-violet and indigo plumes until all of the pain melts away. Chemicals in the gas, they explained to me, a two-pronged strategy of mindful meditation and medication.
Now I see. I was never whole.
by submission | Mar 25, 2020 | Story |
Author: Greg Roensch
With a slate of afternoon meetings on her mind, Alice Loverly, the long-time VP of Human Resources, hurried into the breakroom for another dose of caffeine. What she saw froze Alice in her tracks and erased all thoughts about meetings, coffee, or anything else. Though she couldn’t articulate her feelings, Alice sensed an immediate attraction to the long-fingered alien sitting at the table by the vending machines.
Crossing the room to introduce herself, Alice fought off an intense urge to run her fingers through the coal-black coif of wild, disheveled hair that gave the alien the look of a 1980s pop star – like one of the guys in Wham! or Duran Duran. What’s come over me? Alice wondered. I’m the vice president of human resources for Christ-sakes.
“Welcome,” said Alice. “Are you here for orientation?”
When the creature didn’t respond, Alice placed her right hand on its sinewy shoulder, her gaze lingering on those wondrous waves of dark, tousled hair.
“Don’t be afraid,” Alice said. “Everyone’s nervous on their first day.”
Alice patted the alien’s shoulder and watched in silence as its fingers twitched on the table. It reminded Alice of how Fritzy, her seven-year-old cocker spaniel, shook his leg involuntary when she scratched his belly just right.
“You’re in good hands now,” Alice said. “I’ll make sure you get to orientation on time.”
Though it didn’t speak, there was something in the creature’s look that let Alice know her words were not only understood but appreciated.
Without warning, the alien reached up and flopped its scaly hand on top of Alice’s. Though surprised, the VP of HR gripped the hand in hers and coaxed the alien to its feet. Now standing face-to-face with the creature, Alice noticed a dab of blue saliva on its chin.
“There, that’s better,” Alice said, wiping away the blue drool and wondering if the blue-saliva-soiled napkins should go in the trash, recycling, or compost bin.
As she led the alien out of the breakroom and down the hallway, Alice made a mental note of anyone who ran in the opposite direction. Looks like we need to ramp up diversity training again, she thought.
“Don’t mind them,” Alice whispered to the newcomer. “They’ll get used to you in time.”
Alice beamed with a sense of corporate pride as she pointed out the company’s state-of-the-art facilities – the recently refurbished cafeteria, the fully equipped gym, and the lush central lawn where employees flung frisbees at lunch.
“We’d better hurry,” Alice said after checking her watch. “I don’t want you to be late.”
The alien voiced its displeasure by emitting a loud gurgle.
“There, there,” Alice replied. “We’ll finish the campus tour later.”
Back in the main hallway, the alien wandered off toward the elevators when Alice stopped at the water faucet for a quick drink.
“Get back over here, you sneaky devil,” Alice called. “We’re going this way.”
When she pointed toward the orientation room, Alice saw one of her favorite co-workers duck behind a cubicle wall in the Accounting department.
“Hey, Max,” she said. “I want to introduce you to…”
Before the perky VP could finish her sentence, the well-coifed alien sprung with surprising agility onto a nearby desk and headed straight for Max Marsupolis. By now, a thick strand of blue saliva streamed from both corners of the creature’s mouth, a clear sign to anyone familiar with the species that the alien, its thin lips stretched open to reveal two rows of piranha-sharp teeth, was extremely hungry.
