by submission | May 9, 2018 | Story |
Author: Hari Navarro
Raymond gulps the weight of his breath and it tastes like death as he lays unable to move on his bed.
“Does the name Lucas Lockwood mean anything, Raymond?”, coos the shadow as she paces, her bare-feet crunching on the tattered pile of his skull.
“No”
“Its people like you that throw away old things, precious things. He was your grandfather”
“I never had anything to do with…”
“My grandfather is long dead. But he sent a message. You see Raymond, your grandfather had sex with my grandfather’s wife. The dear sweet woman that I now discover she wasn’t”
“Sorry”
“You aren’t, but give yourself a few minutes”
Raymond bites the cooling sweat at his lip in hope that its brine will jog away this smug thing and return the warmth. That safety, that base upon which his entire being steadies, that which now surely beats from the sleeping wife at his side.
“You know the prime delusion of adultery Raymond? Its that the act is contained, a feast solely for two. My grandad said it was like a hand had reached into his head and punched at his brain, beating it like rising dough in a bowl. It was like dying, he said. The deception a tumor, hooking its tendrils, raping every inch of everything he held dear. It’s not a dish for two, its purulence seeps down, fouling children and their children to come… am I boring you, Ray?”
“No”
“Good, ’cause it gets better. The message was an instruction for revenge, one which grandfather would wait, even past his own death, to exact. Not upon your grandfather… but upon you, dearest Raymond”
“You cant hold me responsible for…”
“The sins of the grandfather? Actually, I can. Mine died seeing himself the coward, an old and broken fool, unable even to enact even this his festered hatred. So he hands it to me. His final humiliation. I could have been a lawyer, an astronaut or the woman who cleans shit stains from the bathroom wall but, such luck, I’m a contract killer. I love it, I get to travel, no two jobs the same… its great. My grandfather wants me to kill you and your wife and if you had a kid… which I know that you do… then I’m to cut him down as well”
“God, please… I didn’t… ”
“But you did… didn’t you? I’m fucking with you, I’m not a killer, actually, I am a cleaner. I’m a dream-sweeper at the Sandman Corporation. You contracted us to help you and your beautiful little family sleep, we get rid of the clutter so you have more… storage. When I saw your name in the database, it was too perfect. Amazing what we find stashed away in your dusty old noggins, its like you want to be caught. You with your best friends daughter whilst your own sweet wife is in labor… that there is cold… Grandad Lucas would be so proud. Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot your name little turtle?”, she whispers to the awakening sub-conscious of the boy who stands at the foot of the bed.
“This isn’t the dish he ordered… but I think he would have approved of its bite. Combining your dream streams, a group chat for all the family, and who doesn’t like cold cuts?”
“Papa…”
Raymond awakens and shudders, he feels the weight of his wife at his back and knows her eyes are open, but he dares not turn. A tiny hand tugs at his pillow.
“I had a nightmare”, says Leo, eyes puff red from crying.
by submission | May 8, 2018 | Story |
Author: David Henson
It was a windy day in the park. I opened my arms, skipped backwards, pretending to be a kite. At first, he seemed pleased. But something tugged away his smile. I knew he was thinking about her again.
I suggested we have a picnic sometime, recalled the memory — her memory— of bringing a thermos of wine. He looked away in silence.
That evening I prepared pasta with homemade sauce. Her recipe of course. He said it was perfect and asked me to never make it again.
My creators fashioned me with the beauty she had before she got sick. They streamed her memories, hopes, and dreams into me where they blossomed like bright flowers. They gave me her undying love for him. And made me a slave to it.
I took her place after she died. As she wished. I was supposed to make him happy. I didn’t.
When we talked, he heard only her. When he looked at me, it was her he saw. When he put his arms around me, he was holding her. Not me.
I knew I was tormenting him, could bear his despair no longer.
One night I began speaking slowly and softly, half closing my eyes. So he would think I was drained. Then I moved quickly, caught him by surprise.
I did it out of love. I believe he was grateful. I know his final thoughts were of her. Not me. Never me.
by submission | May 6, 2018 | Story |
Author: Timothy Goss
Lieutenant Tann wiped his fuzzy torso. Months in a Chrono-tube caused the growth of a downy hair that matted together on the backs of his legs and arse. The computer suggested both Lieutenant Tann and Major Spar rub themselves with oil before taking to the tubes again.
There was a ten-hour window to perform a full systems check, exercise, stimulate brain stems and enjoy some human company before returning to Chrono-sleep.
The computer pumped a little music through the internal speakers:
“Mares eat oats
And Doe’s eat oats
And little Lambs eat ivy
I would eat ivy too
Wouldn’t you”
Major Spar found the weightlessness of the Minotaur craft physically liberating, a relief from the inaction of the Chrono-tube. Bodily freedom offered the chance to stretch limbs and flex muscles, which he did over and over again. As he drifted about the craft fragments of ‘dreams’ or ‘visions’, spiraled through his thoughts. The Major was aware that no one had ever reported dreaming during ‘Chrono-sleep’, but the images were clear and defined to him. They were not memories so they must have occurred in the Chrono-tube. He didn’t bother asking if Tann had experienced anything similar. They had spoken after first call, eighteen months into the mission. Spar had a sense of dreaming then, but nothing certain.
“I can’t say I had any dreams.” Lieutenant Tann had said, “Nobody dreams during Chrono-death! It’s impossible!” The computer offered to strengthen his vice bandage.
Tann discarded the small rectangular wipe into the garbage tube with an audible whoosh and smiled.
The miasma of consciousness flickered at the periphery of Spar’s vision. It had been fifteen years since he had experienced the unconscious sensation of naked, unaided flight. As a teenager, it was a recurring theme. Dreams of unaided flight over fields and oceans, his naked body sensing every twist and turn, every nuance of the atmosphere from the slightest change in temperature to the sudden rush and exhilaration as he ascended the burning clouds into the silence of the cosmos. Because of his dreams, Major Spar joined the CSC, to spread the seed of humanity beyond our quiet corner of the galaxy. Now he was in flight once again and reveled at the majesty of his naked body as it soared.
“Major, you are both due back in Chrono-sleep in six hours thirty-four minutes.” The computers colder electronic tones reminded him, sensing bodily and mental fatigue. “Can I assist you with some pain relief or muscle relaxants?”
“Thank you, but I’ll be fine.” The Major said wincing as he gripped a handrail to steady his drift. Thoughts and dreams once again cramped his cerebrum.
The Minotaur’s destination, Gliese 581g, was twenty lightyears from Earth in the constellation Libra. The furthest any Earthling had traveled, the stresses and strains on the human body and spacecraft were unknown.
In his dreams, he saw old lovers, old regrets and old mistakes, but there was something else now, something he had never experienced in his physical form. It was all around him; in every star, every nebula, every asteroid, every world and every atom. Everything in the cosmos oozed and pulsed with conscious energy. There was no judgment, no conscience, just unconditional love and unconditional belonging.
Hours later, returning to the Chrono-tube, Major Spar looked out at the unfamiliar stars, distant, minuscule. He could sense their warmth and his belonging. He saw himself through the porthole drifting further and further into the cosmos and smiled.
The CSC lost all communication with the Minotaur four years into its mission.
by submission | May 5, 2018 | Story |
Author: John McLaughlin
I took my shot and it landed true; a beam of light, passing briefly through the void and extinguished in a collapse of reality. Well, not exactly. There is no direction, or time, in the Manifold–only the roiling chaos of the quantum fields.
I’ve walked this road since eternity. There are others like me, and beyond my limits of sight, there are more still: the Truthmakers. No one granted us this title or announced the fact, but we’ve always known.
When a die is thrown or a coin flipped, we’re lurking there, ready to snuff out the possibilities and leave one victor standing.
We each have our assignments: I’ve shadowed Orleus Flynn since he was just a boy, trailing my protagonist like a phantasm. Even his most mundane decisions can be tiring work. The Flynn who picks out a red tie for work, vaporized; the Flynn who goes for blue, consumed by the void; the Flynn who selects an appetizing yellow polka dot, fallen by my light-gun. And none the wiser, Orleus Flynn in the plain brown stumbles into the next moment of his existence.
Floating in the Manifold, I once found him at the roulette table and let out an exhausted groan. Myriad possibilities exploded into being, a dozen every second sublimating into new bubbles of reality as the wheel spun its course. Flynn’s wave function rocked my body like a tempest sea as I struggled to keep pace, casting beams until my gun threatened to overheat. One by one they fell: 6 black, 32 red, all down for the count. And when the metaphorical dust settled, the ball sat on 15 black like a satisfied grin.
Do we make the future? The Greeks had their cloth of fate, each thread blindly woven, moment after moment–a creation that carried with it the full weight of history.
We’re not so sophisticated as that; we carve out new realities through a process of frenetic destruction.
And now Flynn is loitering in a crosswalk between Spruce and Pine, his head in the clouds and a van bearing down fast. Will he glance up in time to save himself? Sorry to disappoint but even I couldn’t tell you that.
Once again, I raise my weapon and prepare to work.
by submission | May 4, 2018 | Story |
Author: Jules Jensen
“The wolves are always at the door. Remember that.”
His voice was cold and dark, like an unlit cellar. The intensity in his manic eyes made me wonder if he honestly thought there were real wolves literally scratching at the door, their hungry maws waiting for us to make one little mistake so they could gobble us up.
“Everyone’s gone, so it’s all up to us.”
These four walls held up a solid roof, but they also held up a lie. A lie that he didn’t know I had ascended beyond. We couldn’t be the last. Anyone without a real heart would have survived.
“You can never set foot out there.”
His words sounded like a warning, and this is when the watching started. Eyes followed my every movement. He sat by the door, locked and barred for so long that I couldn’t remember if it squeaked when it opened or not. Four and half years is a long time to be stuck in a windowless hut below the crust of the world.
“No one is to be trusted.”
The hairs on my neck stood up when those words seemed to be directed at me. He started keeping a knife at his side. I told time by the disturbing changes in his behaviour.
“There is no hope for us.”
“No hope for you, maybe.” I retorted before I could stop myself.
In a furious rage, he’d flung himself at me. I fought him off. He fell to the ground, suddenly terrified and whimpering.
“You’re evil!” He accused me, eyes wide, dropping his knife. “You want to go out there and betray me!”
“Is it a betrayal to want to live?” His words hurt me, but not as much as the hate that I felt for him.
“The wolves aren’t at the door, they‘ve been inside this whole time!” He pointed at me as he said this. Fury joined my hate; how was I the wolf, when he was the one that kept me locked up here? And then he tapped a code on his arm, and I knew this was it. I bolted for the door, punching in the override code so fast it was almost like I’d practiced it.
The door did not open. He’d changed the code. I glared at him. He had the gall to smile.
“I’ve been planning this for so long. There’s no reason for me to live anymore.”
“So you’re going to take me down with you? What if I haven’t given up?”
The circuitry that ran beneath the skin on his left arm started to glow. I knew what was going to happen. The electro-magnetic-pulse from his heart would likely short out mine unless I could get away from it.
My fake heart pounded, filled my body with the chemical that was supposed to help me run for my life, but all it did was make my fingers shake and hit the wrong keys as I tried to escape. The quiet, calm part of my mind informed me that this was irony, that the mechanical organs that saved me from the epidemic that killed all the fully-biological humans was now what was going to end me.
The door beeped and then whooshed open so fast I fell down the rusty steps, bloodying my hands and knees.
His incomprehensible scream gnawed like a wolf on my ears, and I ran, forcing myself to get away from the EMP blast that erupted from his chest.
