by submission | Jun 11, 2025 | Story |
Author: Majoki
On the endless rooftop of the fact-ory, they sat in the beat up armchairs amid a bristling forest of antennae and corrugated steel backlit by the godly effulgence of towers and tenements that defined the horizon. It was steamy hot though well past midnight. The heat never quite radiated away these days, but they’d long grown accustomed to it, grateful for the slight breeze that stirred late at night.
The eleven adults who represented Kankuut—their rooftop settlement—sat in a semicircle interacting with the cyglyph. A buzzing hive of media sensation, the holoform display branched to each of their chairs pouring a live netstream from which they made their selections. Consuming and producing content simultaneously, they shaped meme-ing in their lives. Pheromones of thought directed strange dances of conversation that filled the air and airways.
I post, therefore I exist. The city sang. Connected.
Little aYa appeared puffing her cherubic cheeks. “I can’t sleep,” she told the adults of Kankuut as she climbed onto her mother’s arm rest. “Tell me a story.”
Her mother patted her head and sent the image to her cadre of followers. “Who’ll tell aYa a story?” she broadcast.
aBa oLo pinged and his sister positioned his holoform in front of aYa. “Having trouble sleeping, little bird?”
aYa nodded. “Tell me a story, aBa. Please.”
“Of course. It is what we are. You and I, your aMa and aPa, all people, we are made of stories.” His holoform turned a bright orange, not unlike the rising moon through the thick city haze. “I think I will tell you the story of Hupta the Hermit.”
“Was he real?” the child asked.
“Hupta? Little bird, all is real. Creation is creation. Information, information. Thus we are formed. And that is much of Hupta’s tale. Listen, little bird.”
aBa oLo’s form reached out in an expansive gesture which slowly dissolved into a massive tree and then a towering forest. aBa oLo’s voice filled the forest.
“This is a place of old, aYa. A living thing connected at the roots like we are connected by the air and waves of cyglyphs. Creatures great and small lived among these mighty trees, but only two had the knowledge to harness the trees. One creature, Biva had enormously powerful front teeth and jaws.”
An image of the furry flat tailed creature with the protruding teeth floated before aYa who drew back. “It must be enormous to bite through a tree, aBa.”
“Biva was much smaller than you, aYa. It could only bring down a tree very slowly, and generally small trees. Trees that it could easily position to make its home.” A Biva dam and pond slowly rotated for aYa.
“It is like the pools that form behind the fact-ory during monsoon. Oh, to live in water every day, aMa!” She turned to her mother who, once again, patted her head.
“Yes, aYa, water is a blessing. Now let your aBa tell his story.”
“Indeed, the Biva enjoyed his home among the trees, until…”
“Until,” aYa repeated, sensing the cue, “Hupta came.”
“Yes, little bird, Hupta came and sat with his back against the tallest tree near the pond.” aBa allowed aYa to see from Hupta’s vantage, his deep red robe and gnarled bare feet pointing directly to the placid pond where Biva swam.
“Show me his face, aBa.”
aBa chuckled. “I cannot. You must create it. Hupta the Hermit. Beyond ken and kit. Let his words and actions create his features. To partake of the cyglyph, one day, you must contribute. That is the way of the city-zen and the fact-ory”
Her chocolate eyes widened like a newborn’s. “I will try, aBa.”
“That is all that is ever required, little bird. To try is to learn, to learn is to grow, to grow is to connect.
“I do not understand how, aBa,” she said.
“Of course you do not, little bird. Not yet. Hupta’s story, like all tales is a seed. It must grow. Like we all must. Become Biva. Become Hupta. Become the teller of your own story. Ideas, possibilities, lessons, life, oneness are the work which we commit to the fact-ory. It makes the world spin.”
“It makes me dizzy, aBa,” aYa admitted.
“Then, precious little bird, you are of the city-zen.”
by submission | Jun 8, 2025 | Story |
Author: Simon Read
To: All staff
RE: Causality Protocol De-prioritisation
Null/null/null, 00:00
This communication serves as formal notice. Treisman Industries no longer operates under linear temporal constraints. All protocols reliant upon fixed sequencing have been deprecated.
Causality is to be regarded as a legacy framework, maintained only where local perception demands continuity. Departments previously dependent on chronological ordering have been advised to migrate to event-independent processing with immediate effect.
Language reflecting ordered progression, such as “before,” “after,” or “next” should be eliminated from internal correspondence. Refer instead to approved temporal-neutral lexicon entries, as outlined in Bulletin 3.3: Simultaneity and the Compliance Mindset.
Where staff report confusion, disorientation, or disassociation, note that these responses are consistent with initial recalibration. Instances of dissociative temporal memory, such as contradictory recollections, echo encounters, or recursive dialogue, do not require escalation unless they disrupt quota flow.
Adjustment periods vary. Some employees may experience brief intervals of perceptual slippage, including the sensation of non-assigned timelines or the awareness of alternate task outcomes. These are not considered detrimental. Do not attempt to realign. Resolution is typically spontaneous and requires no administrative intervention.
It is not uncommon, during this phase, for personnel to report impressions of presence in rooms believed to be unoccupied, or the recurrence of speech fragments prior to verbalisation. While disconcerting, such events have been classified as alignment echoes and should not interfere with standard operational output.
As a reminder, proximity readings and spatial inconsistencies within certain corridors of the facility are being re-evaluated. Environmental recalibrations are ongoing and are expected to persist across indeterminate intervals. Staff may encounter deviations in architectural continuity, such as corridors not previously charted, doorways leading to non-logged interiors, or extended traversal times between familiar locations. These anomalies are not indicative of malfunction, but rather reflect adaptive infrastructure in response to emergent spatial protocols. Employees are advised to avoid observation of recursive geometries, to refrain from mapping altered layouts, and to disregard auditory cues not originating from verifiable sources. In instances where relocation appears to result in the presence of versions of oneself, or where individuals encountered do not acknowledge temporal sequence, no interaction is authorised. Remain within designated zones and do not engage with non-indexed movement. Deviation will complicate your own reintegration.
Affect neutrality is expected. Clarity of purpose will emerge where sequence dissolves. Theisman Industries remains committed to fostering resilience during this period of temporal transition. Employees experiencing dissonance, identity bifurcation, or resistance to protocol may submit a realignment request via Form 33-A. Pending approval, standard coping resources will be deployed, including Sensory Stream Suppression and Narrative Drift Inhibition. For those requiring additional support, Integration Monitors are now available for short-form synchrony sessions, designed to reduce individual variance and maintain institutional coherence. Continued presence within the organisation is considered tacit consent to procedural evolution.
Attempts to reinstate causality through personal recordkeeping, mnemonic structuring, or unauthorised timekeeping devices will be addressed in accordance with company policy.
Wishing you cohesion across all active frames,
Audrey Treisman
Office of Transitional Compliance
Treisman Industries
by submission | Jun 7, 2025 | Story |
Author: Colin Jeffrey
As the sentient slime mould squelched slowly across the asteroid it lived on, it found its mind – such as it was – occupied by a single thought:
Ludwig van Beethoven.
This was strange for several reasons, most obvious being that slime moulds are not renowned for their thoughts on music. Or thoughts. However, this particular slime mould was not your average gelatinous lifeform.
It had achieved sentience via a spurt of just the right stray radiation, the absorption of just the right mineral dust, and possessing genes agreeable to change. Eventually, it developed awareness and a tendency toward introspection. Its favourite pastime was pondering the nature of Beethoven’s music.
This behaviour had started when its mutated body – acting like a biological radio receiver – absorbed signals from a satellite circling the closest star. Among the data traffic was a faint rendition of “Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony,” occasionally accompanied by the composer’s name. This information lodged itself in the slime mould’s not-quite-a-brain.
For years onward, it waited each day for the satellite’s alignment to return.
Eventually, though, the signals stopped. This upset the creature terribly. It had never been upset before, so its pain was new and all-encompassing. So much so that it determined, somehow, to get those sounds back.
So, it built a transmitter. Of sorts.
What it really did was think furiously about replicating the signal and sending its own. This caused the metallic particles within its body to realign and – in one of those one-in-a-trillion coincidences – created a crude radio transmitter. As improbable as this was, the slime mould then managed to more improbably summon its collected solar energy to produce one short, weak transmission:
“Da-da-da-DAAA.”
Exhausted, it settled down to wait, not knowing if it had been heard, but satisfied in a job well done.
Some 24 hours later, a human scientist conducting radio telescope studies of the Oort cloud from Mars’ moon, Deimos, saw a brief – but clearly aligned – set of data in her readings.
Brimming with excitement, she isolated the section, cleaned it, amplified it, and played it through her console’s speakers.
She recognised it immediately – the first four notes of Beethoven’s Fifth.
In the years that followed, people all over the world argued furiously about the signal’s origins, who had sent it, and whether they should make a Korean reality TV show about it.
Eventually, space agencies collaborated on a mission to locate the source, then promptly sent individual spacecraft, racing to be first.
Three hundred years later, the first missions arrived. They found a single gelatinous green mass sunning itself on a rock.
It felt their presence, lifted a pseudo-limb to taste their vibrations. It quivered with anticipation. Not knowing how to communicate, the astronauts simply stood around it at first, taking selfies.
After some time, the slime mould decided to see if they knew of the Beethoven it had heard so much about.
A simple four-note melody played through the radio headsets in their helmets.
Amazed – but already prepared – one of the astronauts played a reply through his radio. It was the entirety of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.
The slime mould, enraptured, sent scintillating ripples across its surface. The dim light of the distant sun played along its edges, dancing and writhing in time with the music.
The visitors from Earth could feel the joy rebounding through their bodies as the creature sent wave upon wave of emotion in rolling electrical barrages.
When the music finished and the entity slowly stopped pulsating, one unmistakable sound came through their headsets.
Laughter.
Wet, wobbly, joyous laughter.
by submission | Jun 6, 2025 | Story |
Author: Naomi Klouda
Snow fell on Alaska, and we celebrated.
We swirled in a circle, tasting flakes of sky.
“Kelp brew for everyone, even the children!” Jenna Ben shouted.
How we celebrated! Three circles switched hands and partners aboard our oil platform’s broken asphalt.
Sky poured in billowy pieces, turning the tarmac white – the first time in my fifteen-year life. Snow in Alaska!
Jenna Ben’s sad walrus eyes, waist-length hair tied back and hanging in thin strands down her skinny back – she was our leader and my great-grandmother.
“Snow didn’t desert us! We are loved!” she proclaimed. “Each snowflake is stamped by the heavens…”
Frozen air, personified.
“This tells us we can return to land,” Jenna Ben said. “We’ll need the snow, we’ll live among her arms… We’ll watch the glaciers freeze again.”
Did I believe her?
Jenna Ben spoke like she knew.
But it could not freeze like long ago.
“Snow heralds the cold. Welcome it into your hearts!” she coaxed we shivering onlookers. “Embrace with your arms up, palms open!”
I raised my arms. I caught snow in my palms. I drank the kelp brew. I danced into the night as snow piled up. But I did not believe in the power of snow.
*
My people have lived on the abandoned oil rig Thalassic since the year 2103, twenty-two years ago. Ocean stole the land, even certain hills, and gave us abandoned oil platforms, “drilling rigs so plentiful dotting Cook Inlet that people took their pick which one they wanted,” Jenna Ben told us.
We look out on the skyline. We see rigs as far as the eye can see. Some are friendly and some are not. We stay to ourselves.
We partner with Kipnuk, the third platform closest to us. These giant rigs formerly siphoned the earth to suck every oil drop.
In the first years Post Climate, people picked from the plentiful rigs. Jenna Ben tells of a time when people deserted the warming, flooding Alaska in giant ships. Those left behind resorted to whatever craft, short of swimming. One rode to our rig on a floating rooftop: Elias Roof, we called him.
“What did we find on the rigs?” Jenna Ben asked. Couches, pool tables, chairs, beds. Canned goods. Foods, still stacked in freezers if run on solar panels. Heaped computers that could be turned back on.
“Those were the best years of our lives,” Jenna Ben told us at night. “Pick your oil rig! So many to choose from. Almost like the beginnings of Earth, when there were only two humans to be loved by God, Adam and Eve – we had our pick.”
“Thalassic picked us,” she said.
People gasped in fear when they heard the reference “on land.” The older ones cringed when the World Shifted in Flooding was mentioned. They remember the quakes.
“You born after the W.S.F. won’t know this,” Jenna Ben said, her voice lowering, “But in O.L. times we loved the trees, so many kinds of trees it broke your heart – We saw a hummingbird wavering in air in a single spot to eat from one flower. We saw velvet mountains and felt brown soil where rocks crunch as you walk. Oh, the boulders of the earth! People used to put rocks in their pockets. It’s a sin not to love the earth back when it loves you…”
I’d never seen soil you walk on. I knew nothing of hummingbirds.
A smart mouth in the back yelled, “We’ll never see dirt again.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Jenna Ben squinted at the crowd.
I felt ashamed to notice it was cousin Yusiik.
“You’ll see,” Jenna Ben said threateningly.
We needed to at least act like we believed.
*
People went out one day and came back with more stories.
“There’s a strip of land at the foot of where Tuxedni Glacier used to be,” said Tuqen, a middle-aged man. His one blue eye looked back, and his brown one looked forward. “Dwarf plants grow small as mosquitoes, birch trees big as rulers. There’s lichen on rocks where Tuxedni receded. And fireweed, lupin!”
As if saving the best for last, Tequn said, “We must move there.”
I didn’t want to hear.
It’s a rule to Not Be Afraid. Fear causes humans to kill things they might love.
Mother Thalassic was the only home I’d known. I was born on this rig to Sally. I remember her before the Starvation.
We buried Sally beneath the waves.
“From water, humans came, and to water we return,” Jenna Ben rained angry tears as she bid her granddaughter goodbye.
*
One day after the snows, we set off. Fifty of us. Plus, twenty or so from Kipnuk.
The people prepared boats in this way: Inflatable boats from sunken cruise ships, patched with jeans and old silk ties, and heated tar balls.
I scored a double kayak.
We loaded for a tentative journey.
“One must always be ready,” Jenna Ben told us.
We traveled for hours to get to land.
If gold color held wings and flew as grasslands, if velvet purple lupin didn’t ache so … Ah, these sights straight from myth.
We landed.
The land stayed beneath my feet. I felt dizzy. Brown particles of ground-up mountains formed soils.
Stones so plentiful! Soils and dirt, silky silt on fingers.
I saw the tiny birch.
People sobbed as if greeting their friends in the rocks and distant trees.
Soon, everyone tasted rocks. Just as we had tasted snow. Only this time, I suspected the Earth was tasting Me back.
“We’ll stay for a while,” Jenna Ben announced. “To be loved by the earth back is the best of all. Right?” She planted her feet on the ground.
“Put your hands together in the air!” She coaxed. “Clap so the Earth can hear you! Clap loudly and without reservation…”
I felt the earth listening.
I believed, at last. The Earth might love us, too.
by submission | Jun 5, 2025 | Story |
Author: Colin Jeffrey
The newly-created Department of Temporal Dysfunction hummed with bureaucratic indifference as a voice called out across the waiting room: “Number forty-seven!”
“That’s you,” the Seraphim sitting next to Quetzalcoatl said, pointing to his ticket. “You’re forty seven.”
Quetzalcoatl stood up, brushed back his resplendent feathers, and followed the caller through to an interview room.
“So, mister Quetzalcoatl,” she said opening his file. “I am your consultant, Bertha Glump,” she flashed a perfunctory smile at him. “I see that enroute to your prophesied return from the east in the year of the reed, you were knocked out of your timeline. Is that correct?”
“I am Quetzalcoatl, supreme creator, god of wind and rain,” he replied, unable to fathom his situation. “I demand that you allow me to continue on my journey, or I will smite thee.”
“Now, mister Quetzalcoatl,” Glump said, pointing to a sign on the wall. “You must know that we do not tolerate any threats of smiting, sacrifice, devastation, or eternal damnation. Do you understand?”
Quetzalcoatl did not understand.
“You command me, mortal?” He waved his hands in the air, chanted. A thunder cloud appeared over Glump’s head, accompanied by a growing wind. As he directed lightning to strike, Glump pushed a button on the table. Quetzalcoatl’s summoned weather dissipated.
“Mister Quetzalcoatl,” said Glump angrily, as she waved away the remnants of a cloud. “This is unacceptable. This interview is terminated.”
Two guards entered the room, shackled Quetzalcoatl, led him away to a cell.
“Whaddya In for?” a voice in the corner of the cell asked.
Quetzalcoatl detected the presence of another supreme being. “Lost. Tried to smite someone,” he replied.
“Hermes,” said the other. “Delivery issues,” he shook his head. “Long story.”
“When I am released,” fumed Quetzalcoatl, “I will destroy them all.”
Hermes leaned forward. “Yeah, doesn’t work that way,” he grinned. “You see, without the humans, there would be no one to worship us.”
Quetzalcoatl pondered this.
“And I’m sure as Tartarus not going to worship anyone,” said Hermes. Thunder rumbled across the room. “Except you, Dad. Sorry, I mean Zeus, sorry.”
“What would become of us without human worship?” Continued Hermes. “We are, after all, gods only to the mortals. Without them, we are nothing.”
There is truth in his musings, thought Quetzalcoatl.
Several hours passed, the door opened. “Number forty-seven, your review has concluded.”
Back with Glump, her tone apologetic.
“Mister…sorry…Lord Quetzalcoatl, I beg your forgiveness,” She fell to her knees. “We…us…humans need your help.”
“My help?” Quetzalcoatl boomed,”After you… Confined me?”
Glump nodded her head furiously. “Yes, oh Great Quetzalcoatl. We are so very sorry. Really. But since your…accident, the weather has become unstable. Tremendous storms are enveloping the world, gale force winds are literally tearing the earth apart. Our temporal physicists believe your absence has created a significant anomaly, affecting the very elements you command.”
Quetzalcoatl stroked his feathered beard, Hermes words echoing in his mind. “So, you need me because the fragile balance of your world tilts without me.” He said, letting out a laugh. “Very well, mortal. Release me. I shall consider repairing this disruption. But understand this: my temper, like the winds, can turn fierce. Do not disrespect me again.”
Glump bowed deeply, fumbled for a button on her desk. “Guards! Escort his Eminence the Lord Quetzalcoatl back to the time stream. Quickly! And with the utmost respect!”
As Quetzalcoatl swept out of the room, an earth tremor shook the building. Glump shouted into the intercom. “Priority – release all deities immediately and issue all a grovelling apology. Quickly!”
The Department of Temporal Dysfunction was clearly out of its depth.
