by submission | May 27, 2020 | Story |
Author: Michael Hopkins
The root scurried across the garden and stopped. I had just dug and chopped it free from the ground, ripped it up with my bare hands, and threw it to the side. I was clearing some new space behind the old barn for potatoes, garlic, onions and other underground edibles.
The plot of land was sure to be fertile; a compost area on my farm where for years I had been dumping my failed CRISPR experiments. Discarded bacteriophages, gRNA plasmids built from E. Coli DH5-Alpha cells: a viral gumbo I thought would amalgamate with the existing organic and inorganic minerals: chicken droppings, cow manure, coffee grounds, food leftovers, and grass clippings. The spot had direct sunlight most of the day.
The root was pale brown and had four eight-inch legs, a gnarled horizontal body, topped with a bundle of thin tendrils twisted into a head and mobile antlers that fanned out in all directions. It stopped, faced me, self-assured.
My knees cracked when I stood.
It charged and leapt into the air.
I’ve always had great hand-eye coordination. My swing caught the root right on the sweet spot of the hand trowel. It launched in a long arc up and over the barn. I thought I heard it scream, a baby’s voice.
I dashed around the barn to find it. My foot caught on an old, buried piece of rusted barbed wire. I fell, hit my head on a tree stump, and blacked out.
I opened my eyes, and squinted at the bright sun. I was paralyzed, stuck to the ground.
The root moved around me.
It shoved portion after portion of something into my mouth. After each helping, it put a tendril to my head and triggered me to involuntary chew and swallow. I recognized the stuff being crammed into my mouth as the mushrooms that grew in the compost. The root’s active tendrils were stained blue.
An hour after the root stopped feeding me I regained use of my body and sat up. The mid-day colors were extraordinary; I could see the leaves of the trees breath; the breeze was a beautiful music; and the clouds performed a synchronized dance. I dug my fingers into the ground and felt the earth as an extension of my body. I was one with every living creature, every star and galaxy in the universe – pure bliss.
The root and I connected. I now knew its name was Craig.
Craig and I worked twenty-hour days in my lab. He sat on my shoulder. When I was uncertain about a next step, Craig would climb on my head, dig his tendrils into a few spots on my skull and I would know what to do.
Three months into our project I began injecting myself twice a day with the genetic goo we made. Craig just dipped in his trichomes. We both changed.
The water in the toilet bowl swirled; it took three flushes to get rid of all my meds: lisinopril, atorvastatin, lamictal, metformin. I never felt better…except for the warts.
Rough bumps grew everywhere on my skin. The smallest were pinhead sized, the largest about the diameter of a quarter – one or two inches high. Some were white, some red, others blue.
Craig led me to the woods behind the county reservoir. With my new claws, I readily dug a big hole, a grave. I got in and pulled the dirt over my body until there was no room for me to do anymore. Craig scurried above me, with some new helpers, and finished the job.
A heavy summer rain saturated the ground. The dirt around my body became moist. The growths on my skin extended, detonated, in all directions: biophysical renovators, mycelium.
I was home, reunited, at rest, yet restless: samsara. New realms rushed through me.
In time the world would follow.
by submission | May 26, 2020 | Story |
Author: R. J. Erbacher
Joe Shit (that’s what everyone called him, inevitable when you have an unfortunate last name) was a ragman. Not ragman in a good sense either. Not a Scottish legate who compiled records in the 1200’s and he was unlike the catch phrase for early twentieth century jazz musicians, such as Jelly Roll Morton, though he could have been either. And unequivocally not the superhero, although some would say that he had a certain…but never mind. Even the true definition, which is a person who bought and sold old items, a junkman or pawn broker, didn’t fit. Joe Shit the ragman dealt in rags. Plain and simple.
Joe Shit the ragman was old, too. No one could truly say how old. He had an Easter Island carved granite face that did not seem to age, as if he had been old when he was born and would never change. And he went about dressed as you would expect a ragman to dress in muted multi-layer clothing, loose fitting, nondescript and threadbare. You would never pick him out in a crowd.
To be honest the rags that Joe Shit the ragman sold were not especially good quality rags, not the type you would use and say, ‘wow, this is a great rag.’ His rags were old faded T-shirts, tattered towels, stained bed sheets torn into strips, baby clothes that the babies had grown out of. Material that had, at one time, been an integral part of somebody’s life and still carried a little bit of that person with them. They had a mystical enduring value to them that your average absorbent cellulose microfiber rags did not.
Joe Shit the ragman recalls the first rag he sold because it left an impression. It was to a young woman who used it to wipe the bloody face of a poor tortured man. One he gave to an Italian nurse during WWI was used to mend the arm of a wounded Red Cross worker who later went on to write about his experiences. He remembers every rag he handed out. Joe Shit the ragman’s rags have been used to make dolls for underprivileged girls, protection for woman with their monthly struggles or as head wraps for struggling slaves as they labored in the fields of the sweltering south. Actually, a rag he once sold was used by a boy nicknamed Dutch to help his mama tidy their tiny home and his rags-to-riches story eventually lead him to the White House. Joe Shit the ragman’s rags were a part of history. And yet no one ever remembered the rags that he distributed because after all- they were just rags.
A couple of weeks ago Joe Shit the ragman offered a rag to help a woman clean up a mess. A child in a fast food restaurant accidentally knocked over his drink and it enraged the father. He berated the boy, slapped the boy. The mother tried to intervene, and she was slapped and punched as well. New bruises bloomed atop of old bruises. Joe Shit the ragman was at a nearby table and had a rag in his jacket pocket. He always had a special rag on his person. He handed her the rag, staring into her tired wounded eyes, and she thanked him with a nod. The rag did a great job cleaning up the spill. The father looked on in disbelief but did nothing. Soon after, that man suffered an unfortunate accident at work and the woman came into a substantial settlement.
Joe Shit the ragman sold rags that had a certain…but never mind.
by submission | May 24, 2020 | Story |
Author: Geoff Nelder
Xiq curses her commander’s recklessness as the escape pod is buffeted in the atmosphere of the blue planet below. Tempted to go to manual, she turns off the alarms, tries not to breathe in the increasingly smoky air and wriggles to mitigate against the melting seat. No, the computer knows best. All her training simulations prove that.
She wastes moments recalling the mothership’s collision with an unidentified and unseen orbiting artefact. So much for stealth while gathering intel on the planet’s possible sentient lifeforms. She recalls the computer’s unexcited announcement:
“Signs of advanced technology on planet three. Recommendation: go for planet three. Evidence of nuclear reactors, radio transmissions and significant post-primitive activity although not civilised as we know it.”
The buffeting worsens and yet she cares more for her colleagues and lover enduring the same treatment in their pods.
A new alarm cuts through her brain. Overheating! The vessel will not make it to the surface. She has to escape the escape pod.
Only one way left to depart. Upload herself to another brain on the planet. Her entity will be guided to a sentient while this one vaporises.
***
Speed waking up, she looks up through new eyes and sees shooting stars in the night sky. Her friends. And herself.
She checks. Nearest survivor is twelve clicks away. Over there. She makes the body move, but it’s erratic. No straight line and not always in the right direction. Frustration makes her heat up but no matter how much effort, her movement zigs then zags. It will take two of the planet’s days to rendezvous, assuming Kluip is heading in her direction.
Whatever this creature is, its autonomous nervous system likes sunlight, perhaps to warm its wing muscles. And water. Too much. Mirrored sunlight blinds her before a change of course takes her to the shade of a tree. Perhaps that’s why this flier meanders. Needs, yet doesn’t need the sun. Even though Xiq urged speed and direction westward, she couldn’t resist glancing down at a smooth patch. Like a mirror. She blinked at her reflection. Engaged a database.
Ephemeroptera.
Mayfly – imago, adult stage. Life expectancy one day.
Noooooooo
by submission | May 23, 2020 | Story |
Author: Coleman Bomar
Push.
She clenched teeth, winced, her toes curling against the black sand of Tennessee nuclear wasteland. A home birth, on radiated dunes under the metal roof burnt wood shack makeshift, alone.
Press.
She squeezed the bent ring and wished that he was here with her, that she could squeeze his hand instead, squeeze the life out as if to say “this should be your pain too.”
Clench.
She focused, truly forgetting for the first time in months his face like a cooking meatball, the white ash smell flash, people crushed, crawling, pushing.
Push.
Would it just be dirt and early dying for them? She looked to the corner at the jerry-built lead crib, like a meat freezer. Her breathing was harsh.
Push.
She thought of her chest, if the milk would be toxic.
Push.
How many limbs could an infant have and live?
Press.
How many mouth openings? How many hands or lack thereof? She felt the head crown. It felt round.
Push.
The child slid out in what sounded like one piece. She bent over quickly, and cut the cord with her front teeth, picking him up as he squirmed so new and inconceivable. Him. All the fingers all the toes but his face, just one eye adorning his forehead like a round opalescent green jewel, blinking. He had such long lashes. He cried. She looked at him with wide wet pupils, open-mouthed, and held him closer.
by submission | May 22, 2020 | Story |
Author: Ken Carlson
Ensign McDonald, a young officer and recent addition to the spaceship SS Artillery’s crew, stood across from Doc in the galley. Doc suggested they meet there, late, away from prying eyes to take pressure off the kid. Doc poured some coffee.
“It was Dawson who talked, right?” McDonald said. “He probably thought it was hilarious.”
“Nonsense,” Doc said, sipping his own. “You’re new, Ensign. Recently graduated. First time from home.”
McDonald nodded.
“You haven’t been sleeping,” Doc said. “If you’re worried about your file…That’s why we’re meeting here. No charts, nothing recorded, just two men talking.”
McDonald was tall and lanky. He stooped out of habit, leaning against the counter, wiping his fatigued eyes.
McDonald said, “I was in the engine room after my shift working on an efficiency report. Sunday, 22:30.”
“During the Captain’s mission update to the crew?” Doc asked. “All personnel were called to attend.”
McDonald replied, “I was isolated and without my communicator.” Doc nodded.
“I was running diagnostics, and looked out the observation portal. I’m sure looking at space is dull for you, but I find it beautiful.”
“Nothing strange about that,” Doc said, “God made the heavens and Earth. It doesn’t say in the regulations you can’t admire his work.”
“That’s when I saw…her.”
Doc put down his mug. Twenty-seven years since the academy, space coffee hadn’t changed.
“First Officer Donnelly,” Doc said quietly, “you saw her, floating in space.”
McDonald said, “It was her.”
“The same Felicia Donnelly serving on our bridge.”
“Her face, her uniform. Then, flash, she was gone.”
Doc walked to the other end of the room, dimly lit, and clicked the intercom.
“Bridge,” Doc said.
“Please, Doc,” McDonald said, “you’ve got to believe me.”
“Bridge, this is Donnelly.”
“First Officer Donnelly, this is Chief Medical Officer Parker.”
“Yes, Doc?”
Doc paused. McDonald noticed a change in Doc’s expression, a hard look from years in authority. This was when young ensign must decide whether he was cut out for this life, or go home and play it safe. McDonald felt a build-up of sweat.
“Doc, are you there?”
Doc’s expression returned to its genial self, the trusted family doctor. He clicked the button to respond.
“I’ve got the medical logs and supplies request for your signature—and a reminder from last night—never go all in with pocket twos.”
The First Officer laughed gently, “It was twos and sevens. I thought you were coasting on a pair of kings.”
“When will your generation learn,” Doc smiled, “old doctors never bluff. Chief Medical Officer out.”
He walked back to the ensign from the shadows and into the light.
“Son,” Doc said, “you have accomplished more than most in this galaxy ever will. You’ll experience more wonder in the coming years than storytellers at any library could dream. But, it comes with a cost.”
McDonald brought his eyes up, nodding.
“Passing tests doesn’t make an officer out here, being tough does. Sometimes when you’re working hard in a new surrounding your mind sees something to create excitement. You’ll learn the difference between the two.”
Doc tapped the young man on the shoulder and gave a light smile. “You’re fine. Get back to work, Ensign.”
McDonald smiled and left.
Doc returned to his quarters and poured two drinks. First Officer Donnelly took one.
“Doc,” she said, “what did the kid see?”
“Enough. Like your predecessor, he couldn’t keep quiet. I’ll bring him in for the same procedure. A shot in the arm, collect data for a clone, and send him out the airlock to experience outer space.”
