by submission | Jul 20, 2025 | Story |
Author: Cindy Landers
There were disbelievers. No one had built a mega tower taller than seven kilometers. But that didn’t stop Max Ever. Eventually, an eight-kilometer tower rose above the clouds. A massive titanium egg on the roof, the Ever Enterprises logo, lit the sky with a pulsing glow. It guided Max home to die.
His heart kept pace with the pulsing light. His mind raced. Did I make this world better, or worse? A sense of regret and finality flooded him.
Hours earlier, Max had delivered his outbound speech at Exposium. The event was packed. In closing, he said: “This fundamental truth of life is shared by all — the need for sustenance, safety, and a place to belong. It unites all living creatures in the timeless struggle to survive.” Fifty thousand people stood to applaud.
Now, he flew home on his AeroMax, grateful for the freedom. But as the aircycle touched down on the sweeping skyway to his residence, loneliness enveloped him. Despite a youthful appearance, Max was well over 120 and had outlived everyone he loved, except his android butler, Levon.
The bike’s UBHR engine was almost silent as Max drove 500 feet to the transport deck. He removed his helmet and breathed in the spring air. It was laced with the scent of peach blossoms from the rooftop gardens.
Exhaling, Max shrugged off melancholy. Today marked 80 years since the release in 2025 of his first big idea, Android SmartParts©, to replace damaged human body parts. Then, two years later, he wrote the algorithm that changed everything.
Levon was waiting when he arrived. “Welcome home, sir. How was your outbound speech at Exposium?”
“Thank you, Levon. It was a huge success.” Max held his black helmet, unconsciously using a sleeve to polish its egg-shaped Ever Enterprises logo.
Originally, he wrote his algorithm to ensure repeat customers by predicting body-part extinction and preparing a replacement. It was an unprecedented extension of human lifespan. Then, Max detected a problem. He couldn’t prove a human existed once all its parts were replaced. So, he left the heart and brain in the body. This pleased everyone and brought good publicity to Ever Enterprises because it prioritized humanity.
“Nothing’s changing, Max. You’ll see,” Levon said, taking the helmet as the lift grabbed the air cycle, cleaned it, and placed it in storage.
“You’re right,” Max said. He was too tired or reticent to argue. Was the fault in the algorithm? It wasn’t clear. He needed to know if the algorithm controlled the transition or the android controlled the algorithm.
Max and Levon strolled up the curved ramp to the omnidirectional elevator. They waited for the large, sculpted bronze egg on the elevator doors to crack open.
Reminded of his father’s words, Max spoke quietly. “Ideas are like eggs waiting to hatch. They only need a little nurturing.”
“What?” Levon looked confused.
Max said, “Nothing. I’m just surprised nobody complains that the algorithm makes them an android.”
“That’s because they get to live forever,” Levon said, entering the elevator. “Their DNA-synthesized android parts simply take over.”
“It’s easier not knowing.”
Levon nodded. “I know you’re afraid, Max. Fortunately, you will have your memories and dreams, plus, Ever Enterprises.”
Considering this, Max smiled.
That night, in his bed above the city, Max lay awake watching clouds scoot by and stars twinkle. I want to remember… But before he finished the thought, Max awoke in a hammock on a Caribbean beach, swigging a beer in his right hand, as his signet ring, embossed with an egg, flashed in the sun.
And still, I dream.
by submission | Jul 19, 2025 | Story |
Author: Don Nigroni
I was in awe of my uncle since I was a child. He was handsome, athletic, funny and brilliant. Even as he aged and his dark hair showed signs of gray, he still emanated a larger-than-life presence. Unlike Uncle Jim, I was awkward and shy.
My uncle was an eminent research neurosurgeon and worked at a prestigious medical center. He was wealthy and lived in a mansion with a spacious lawn. I stocked shelves and wrote adventure stories.
Nonetheless, my uncle had something to prove. He thought minds and ideas existed just like bodies and objects. He was convinced that it was a mere chance of indeterminism that led us to believe otherwise. So, he devised a psychophysical method to flip perception so that we’d perceive the physical as we now see the mental and vice versa. And, last year, I was his guinea pig!
He not only inserted wires into my brain but also had a psychic enter into my mind. At a signal, a switch was flipped, and the psychic did her thing. Ideas immediately seemed vivid and durable while objects presented themselves as indistinct and fleeting.
I only learned after the event that my uncle, though sure he could find a method to reverse the procedure, hadn’t actually yet found a way. Nonetheless, in less than two months I was able, with lots of help from my guilt-ridden uncle, to navigate the world pretty much like an ordinary human being.
And I’ve learned that a material lapse can be just as dangerous as a mental lapse. I didn’t intentionally push my uncle down the stairs last week. He just briefly slipped out of my center of attention.
Now I’m doomed to my unusual existence for the rest of my life. If truth be told, I really didn’t believe my uncle could have reversed the outcome. Nonetheless, I miss him. He was the only person who fully understood me.
by submission | Jul 18, 2025 | Story |
Author: Rachel Geman
“So, yes, I can go? Mom! Hello!” Lara looked at Kate expectantly.
“Where?” Kate asked.
“Upstate. The mushroom hunt. You promised. Everyone is going. You SAID I could go.”
Kate fiddled with the slime-covered handle of the lilac mug. A second ago she could have sworn it was corporate branded.
“YOU said I could go.”
Giving in felt pre-ordained
“You said I could GO!” Lara softened. “Please, it would make me so happy.”
Kate relented.
** ** **
“She wants to read the line three different ways to decide. That ok?”
“Long as no overtime, and please don’t let her steal the mug.”
** ** **
That weekend Kate took a friend’s advice to travel as well. A metallic taste reminded her of pregnancy. Kate arrived at “Tandem” at twilight to bike with the last group. At a market during an unplanned rest—one rider’s inflammation level was in zone orange—Kate selected a water box and some protein. She wondered whether Lara was hydrating and whether Kate’s own adventurousness would make Lara more careful in subconscious preservation of parent-child balance.
At dark, the bikers had to decide: continue, make camp, or split the bike four and four. Kate feared choices.
“I’m so very sorry in a way that our words cannot express, but the time to choose is now.”
Who said that? Kate demanded, heart pounding, before the night swallowed her.
** ** **
She woke up to the strong sun, among a group of four, re-closing her eyes as a couple described a diner to the man who needed the rest. The voices deepened. With all the new elements, was there a balloon that was the opposite of Helium?
“We’ll get more work done.”
“I’d love some air.”
“Someone needs to monitor these clients, we’re down a person.”
Four, Kate, mentally corrected, they were down four people. The metal was back.
** ** **
“He mined the profits. Company’s in receivership. We have orders to stand by. Diner?”
“We’ll get more work done with delivery.”
“True, though I’d love some air.”
“As long as the diner, fine.”
“Someone needs to monitor these clients, we’re down a person.”
** ** **
The foursome arrived at a fruit and bug stand in front of a field of gleaming corn. No one was around. A loud rustling made Kate’s throat tighten. Two people emerged from the field, one swatting flies, his hands propeller like, the other still even in forward movement, her hands by her sides. Lara.
“Lara?” CRISIS, Kate thought, there was a crisis, and Lara had come to find her. But that was not how things worked, was it, the child finding the lost mother?
Lara remained inert. Kate feared the worst, travel with a strange man, trauma-based inversion.
“Mayday. Cut it,” she heard, then her phone beeped. A video call, Lara, fluid and relaxed. And far away. “Mom, you look weird!”
Kate looked from the phone to the Lara right in front of her, confused. Her vision blurred, then nothing but a sea of metal and buzzing.
** ** **
During the children’s pandemic, some spent their life savings for even one year in the virtual machine. A baby who died at one would be two. Lara died at 11. Kate, wealthy enough, selected the indefinite option.
A former child model with an extensive digital footprint, Lara was ripe for desperate copying by the Loss Prevention department as company assets disappeared
Kate was offered three children as a settlement, but opted to die a quick death in a freak biking accident when Lara was 16.
by submission | Jul 17, 2025 | Story |
Author: Colin Jeffrey
“Your order will be ready eleven months ago next Tuesday,” the drive-in automat informed me. “And your bill will be minus eighty-four dollars, less tax.”
I put the car in reverse, drove home backwards. When I got there, I put the newspaper back into the door slot and switched off all the lights.
As I backed into the living room, my wife unwaved me goodbye and went back to bed.
I unsmiled at her retreating figure and unbuttoned my overcoat. I walked backwards down the hallway, remembering what it would feel like later that evening when I’d arrive home tired and hungry.
Outside, my neighbour was un-mowing his lawn, his mower carefully disgorging and replanting clippings.
Mrs. Clavicle across the road looked away from me and unwaved as she carried last week’s garbage up from her bins, scolding the dogs that hadn’t arrived yet.
I shimmied backwards to my car and rolled onto the street. By the time I reached the city, the traffic had untangled itself. Accidents reversed in an elegant dance: bumpers undented, panels unscratched, horns untooted.
I saw my destination in the rearview mirror – I had unremembered it from an ad I hadn’t seen: The Ministry of Temporality. A tall glass building, lights blinking out next to advertising signs that turned off.
I reversed my car into the parking lot next door. The valet handed me back my keys.
As I backed in through the ministry’s doors, the desk clerk was already unstamping paperwork I hadn’t filled out.
“We’ll be unfulfilling your request in approximately forty-two minutes ago,” she told me. “Please unwrite your details on this form.”
As I sat on a chair in the foyer, a door closed to my left and a man in a white lab coat walked in, holding a chalkboard. As I watched, he erased the empty board and words appeared:
Hello Mister Fleagle, I am Doctor Happenstance – you are caught in a time anomaly.
I unnodded my head. He erased again:
I can help you if you come to my lab.
Another erasure:
Please unfollow me out of the corridor to your right.
I did as asked and found myself in a room full of complicated machinery.
Doctor Happenstance unhooked me from some unattached cables, then untwisted dials, flipped off switches, and unadjusted some settings. The room distorted. A coppery smell filled the air. My vision blurred. When it cleared, I looked up at the clock. The second-hand was moving clockwise.
“How do you feel now, Mister Fleagle?” asked the Doctor.
“Much better, thanks,” I said, relieved to be moving forward in time. “What happened?”
“It’s a little difficult to explain,” he said, “but it seems a rift has opened between our universe and another.” He frowned. “And bits of time are – to put it simply – out of sorts.”
“Will it ever return to normal?” I asked.
“That we don’t know,” he said. “But we’re working on it. That’s why we created this ministry.”
When I arrived home, the lights were already on for the evening.
“Hi honey,” my wife said. “Everything okay?”
“It is now,” I said, grinning. “In fact, I feel like celebrating.” I put my arms around her waist. “Let’s go out for dinner.”
“Ok, great!” she replied.
“Can you phone the restaurant while I have a quick shower?” I asked.
“Sure thing.”
As I towel dried my hair on the way to our bedroom, my wife was just hanging up the phone.
“How did you go?”
“Great,” she said, smiling. “We’ve got a booking for nine-thirty two weeks ago next Wednesday.”
by submission | Jul 16, 2025 | Story |
Author: Colin Jeffrey
As the steam-powered Queen Victoria chugged its way across the palace forecourt, the sound of a volley of cannon shots rang out through a public address system.
A troop of mechanical horses paraded noisily in front of the queen, boilers whistling, gears grinding. Mannequins attired in military garb rode upon them.
“Preeee…sent arms!” yelled the recording of a sergeant major to a platoon of animated dummies ranged across the parade ground.
“Ooooorder…arms!” the recording continued.
Just then, one of the machine-driven horses exploded, spraying hydraulic oil and boiling water all over the John Brown mannequin mounted upon it. The horse and dummy crashed noisily to the ground.
“Oh, no, no, no!” screamed Jacamo Smith through his megaphone. “Stop!”
As Jacamo leapt from his director’s chair, he swept his hand across an array of switches, turning them all off. He threw his megaphone on the ground, strode out onto the parade ground. “Just once,” he said through gritted teeth, shaking his fist at the cloudless sky. “Just once, I would like to have everything make it through a whole procession!”
Jacamo surveyed the remnants of John Brown’s horse, its brass and steel innards spread across the ground. He knelt beside the mangled automaton, his face softening. “Oh dear, old boy,” he murmured, patting what remained of its flank. “I’m sorry I yelled. A momentary setback is all.” He snapped his fingers, and a clanking gaggle of retrieval automata gathered up the pieces of Brown and his horse, and whisked them off to the workshop.
He stood up, looked out across the silent parade ground. The mechanical Queen Victoria stood majestically in the afternoon light, her polished brass parts gleaming. He glanced at his pocket watch. “Oh my, they’ll be here at any moment,” he said to the ranks of staring dummies. “And we have to be prepared.”
Jacamo adjusted the lapels on a regal-looking mannequin. “Sergeant Major,” he said, saluting. “Please ensure the men are presented at their very finest.”
As he approached Queen Victoria, he ran a loving hand along her wooden superstructure. “Apologies, ma’am, just a little more pressure,” he whispered, finessing a valve. Steam hissed reassuringly.
He turned back to the courtyard, where wind stirred the air, blowing around torn epaulettes and fragments of discarded promenade plans. A soldier mannequin fell forward in the breeze, landing on its face with a hollow clunk.
Jacamo ignored the fallen dummy, clapped his hands three times in rapid succession. “On your best form everyone!” he said. “They’ll write stories about today!”
He strode in front of the platoons of assembled figures, hands clasped behind his back, addressing them in a grand voice.
“I know the council has doubts,” he said. “They laugh at me behind closed doors. But when they witness this, when they see what I have built, they will know the magnificence of Jacamo!” He paused, his voice now barely a whisper. “Then they will release me from this place.”
Suddenly, steam valves hissed, a swaying mannequin creaked.
He turned on his heel to face the timber Queen Victoria and nodded reverently. “Yes, ma’am. It shall be done.”
In the sky, the two suns dimmed briefly as a large cloud crossed their faces and long, late afternoon shadows extended across the arena. The seemingly endless desert stretched away in all directions, the parade ground and its buildings a tiny island in a vast ocean of sand.
Jacamo looked out from his domain, his eyes focused on the distance. “They are coming. I heard their voices in the fog this morning,” he said. “They’ll be here any time now.”
