by submission | Oct 4, 2017 | Story |
Author : Claudia Silva
“How do you want your eggs today, dear?”
He entered the kitchen with a big smile, happy to start the day. “I’m in the mood for some scrambled eggs, a little bit of tomato, onion. Maybe some mushrooms,” he replied.
“I’m sorry,” she said with a broad smile, “I’m afraid we are all out of those.”
He sat back, thoughtful. Not that he was expecting a different answer, but deep down he still had a lingering hope he could try something different for a change. “Scrambled are fine,” he reluctantly replied.
His wife, complete with the blue dress, white apron and the perfect hair, made her smile bigger – if that was possible – and went to the fridge where she produced an unmarked carton with four capital letters printed on it: EGGS.
While she began working hard on her cooking, he said, “I was thinking maybe we could go crazy today!”
“Yes, dear,” she agreed just like she always agreed.
“I was thinking,” he rubbed his chin with one hand as he thought of something completely out of the ordinary, “I was thinking you could go out with me today. Could be fun.”
His wife’s neck twitched a little before saying, “How do you want your eggs today, dear?”
The last of his hope quickly vanished. Whatever he had said hadn’t been wise.
“I’m sorry,” he sighed, “Scrambled, please.”
“Yes, dear,” the smile was back on her perfect face.
The pan began to sizzle as the egg mix touched its hot surface. Suddenly he realized he needed to try something different if he wanted to make her happy.
“You know,” he began anew.
“Yes, dear?”
“I was reading a book today,” he continued.
“Yes, dear?”
“About this guy who has adventures on different planets,” he explained, “It’s like a series. You know? There are many books about his adventures and-“
“Sounds fascinating, dear.”
He stopped to take in her automated replies. “So, I was thinking that maybe you’d like to read it.”
The twitch on the neck returned. “How do you like your eggs, dear?”
Dang.
“No, no,” he quickly muttered, this time standing up to take her arms with both hands. The woman turned from the eggs to face him, her face frozen in that same eerie smile. “Just, just make the eggs, it’s fine.”
It was too late; the damage was already done. The question came once more, “How do you want your eggs, dear?”
For a moment he just stared at her. After weeks of searching he had found someone new to talk to and he had thrown it all away. He always did in the end; he broke them. In front of him, the woman kept staring at him until she finally asked the same question again, “How do you want your eggs, dear?”
Utterly disappointed, he answered, “Scrambled, please.”
“How do you want your eggs, dear?”
He now raised his tone, “I said, scrambled!”
“How do you want your-“
“Aw, just forget it.”
He let her go. She was lost. Malfunctioned. Quietly, he began to walk to the front door. Glancing back, he could see she had not moved an inch. She was still there, staring at the same spot waiting for an answer to her question.
The man opened the door and stepped out. He stared at the wasteland in front of him, at the red sky and rusting cars around him. He was still alone. Everybody else was gone. He would still look for a robot in another house, a pretty looking one; although it always ended the same. Robots were not built to think, to make decisions. They just… obeyed. Would he ever find the exception? No matter how long he searched the truth was he was the only survivor on planet Earth and soon robots would be the only thing left standing.
by submission | Oct 3, 2017 | Story |
Author : Ronald Guell
Day 5482:
Here’s the problem with traveling at light speed. There’s no point in looking out of the window. You can’t see anything. It’s just a vast endless flat black. Trucking at 99.99999999% the speed of light, there are no stars visible to give depth to the picture. There no scenery, not even those clever Burma Shave signs. Do you remember those on our last vacation baby?
Day 5488
I’ve been gone for 6 years now, with 9 left to go. I’m sending you this message of love. I have no idea when it will reach earth but these messages will be put into memory in my assigned vault. There, all the records of your life and death and that of earth’s history will be saved for me to explore. I write these letters to keep your memory alive for all of my life. There, they will be kept safely awaiting my return.
Day 5497
I loved it when you’d call me your Mr. Green Thumb. I’m smart. I innovated growing hydroponics for this mission, but hell if I can fathom this time dilation stuff. Leafy greens for the crew’s , that’s my speed. Time dilation, I know the basics and they are grim. By the time I reach the star AZR8464 and its orbiting planet Azure, 34 thousand years will have passed on earth. I wish we would have had kids, my love. One would have been enough. No family will be there to greet me if I return, just a bunch of strangers in funny clothes. But till then, we’re off to Azure Blue, and as the crew says, we’re rolling with light in hot pursuit. I must sign off now. I’ll miss you forever.
by submission | Sep 30, 2017 | Story |
Author : Henry Gribbin
I am a child of the 60’s, therefore I am a veteran of the Cold War. I had the typical abnormal upbringing of that time, but there was one thing that made me somewhat different from other kids. As a young boy I felt this sense of dread. I know that I wasn’t the only one that felt like this because there were signs all around us that the end was coming. Fallout shelters were everywhere, and there were the occasional air raid drills. We were afraid the Russians were going to nuke us all. Our grade school teachers told us to slip under our desks and not look out the windows in case there was an atomic blast. Then there were the films that we had to watch in the school auditorium. I always remember watching army soldiers standing atop a trench in the Nevada desert watching an A bomb being detonated. So maybe you can see why It was always in the back of my mind that I would never reach my 16th birthday. This was depressing because my big wish was to get my driver’s license.
Then something happened which helped change my outlook on life. I was about twelve years old when I saw the light. It was a hot sweltering summer’s night, and I couldn’t sleep. I quietly made my way down the stairs and went out on the front porch to catch a breath of fresh air. I had no idea of the exact time, but I knew it was late. I looked up in the sky and saw a blazing bright light slowly circling above our street. I was mesmerized. I watched this light doing its tight circles for some time. I was tempted to wake my older sister and let her share this moment, but if I did and the light was gone she would get mad. She had a temper, so I kept this moment to myself. I don’t know why but this light helped ease the dread that I had been carrying, and I was thankful for it. I made my way back to bed and slept peacefully.
Time passed. Over the years there have been wars, natural disasters and stock market crashes. But there were good times too. There were weddings, births and many a fine meal shared with family and friends. But recently that feeling of deep dread has returned. I can’t shake this feeling that something very bad is about to happen. Again there are signs which cause me to worry. The fact that we have one world leader that likes to shoot his mouth off and another world leader who likes to shoot rockets over Japan into the ocean doesn’t help. Epic hurricanes hitting our shores and massive security breaches make matters even worse.
The past two nights I couldn’t sleep, so I got out of bed. It was three in the morning. I went out on my balcony, which is on the second floor of my apartment building, and I saw a startling sight. From my deck I can see a lot of sky. This night sky was filled with dozens and dozens of bright shining lights just circling in a lazy orbit. I looked down. The parking lot below me was filled with people. Nobody made a sound. Everyone just stared upwards at the lights. These bright lights did bring back memories of my childhood. Once again a sense of hope and peace flowed through me. I think everyone looking at these lights felt the same. One by one people started making their way back inside. After a while I did the same. I had a good night’s rest.
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 submission | Sep 28, 2017 | Story |
Author : Laila Amado
Marjorie began freaking out when we lost contact with Earth. I gather she thought she would still get to go home one day, though I can’t imagine the corporation ever paying for this trip. If you ask me, I think the bastards finally blasted themselves into oblivion and I am not terribly sorry about that.
They used to say in my school that Earth is a blue planet, but there it was just a phrase from a textbook one rarely opened. Here, on this world, the ocean is a tangible thing. Indigo, periwinkle, viridian, and all shades of azure, it enters your house without permission and permeates your skin. Day in, day out, lapping quietly beneath the floorboards, it listens to your words and movements, whistles when you fly the scooter over its languid waves, roars in the dark of the night when heavy clouds roll over the invisible horizon. If you choose so, you may never leave the water here at all, merging with its changeful body in perfect harmony. Wading into my laboratory knee deep in the swash, I contemplate the tidal range and the variations of aquatic flow.
Marjorie says no signal means no more ships. No more ships means no more music, no new books and no real chocolate. I think – no more inspections.
I remember when the last ship came, its heavy white bulk an alien intrusion in our world of ever shifting shapes. How they marched down the ramp, so competent, so fully in control, dressed in standard issue overalls and sturdy waterproof boots. Sure, they brought all of that stuff Marjorie pines for but they made such a fuss when they saw the babies. Neither my gills nor Marjorie’s budding wings have drawn their attention, but the young ones are unable to hide. Newborns are so trusting.
They said, “They are growing fins, how could you allow this? You did what? You introduced local DNA?”
They started talking of protocol breach and quarantine, and the doctor, the one with broad glassy nails on carefully tanned hands said they would have to be exterminated, the whole corrupt batch.
No, loss of contact is good. Loss of contact means no new ships and no need to explain to Marjorie what happened to the last one. What I did to that last ship. There are a lot of deep lagoons on this planet and, hopefully, she would never find the one where the good doctor’s white bones rest beneath the floating lilies.
