by submission | May 23, 2010 | Story
Author : Mark Robinson
“But, how is any of this possible?”
Despite the scene she’s making all I can focus on is the pink tip of the pregnancy test strip – which we stock on aisle five – that she’s waving around in the air; watching the droplets of pink-tinted urine fleck across the counter where I’m standing, completely at a loss as to what I should do.
A steady line of customers, hands still holding onto the item they were looking to buy before the woman burst into the store ranting, peek out from between the shelves I’ve yet to finish stocking.
Any answer I give will be the wrong one; even though the thought occurs to me that we currently have a special on synthetic breast milk.
“How’m I meant to tell my husband? He’s in deep space and won’t be back for another twelve months and what d’you think he’ll say when he lands and sees me holding another one of these?”
I never noticed the woman was holding onto a kid with her urine-free hand.
When she doesn’t get a response, she turns to the counter display of condoms; “And, these things don’t work,” picking up a couple of boxes and slamming them down in front of me on the counter. “I’m gonna sue the pants of your manager when he gets back from lunch.”
So that explains why we’re short on stock and he ducked out early.
A brief silence hits the woman while she looks at the clock above my head.
“Which one did you use?” A small, thin teenager standing behind the woman and her toddler.
The quiet woman looks at the stick in her hand and shoves it in the girls face.
“Yeah,” She nods, “I had a false positive with one of them.”
The woman’s eyebrows hover slightly before narrowing her eyes back at me then dragging her kid around to aisle five.
The teenager looks at me waiting for my thank you; I pick up the boxes of contraception and place them back into their racks. When the counter’s clear, the woman drops three boxed test strips down for me to swipe.
“Tell Joe if they come out positive again, he owes me nine-ninety-five.”
I scan the barcodes and hold out my hand for her payment which she ignores, snatching up the boxes and dragging her kid back out the door.
An elderly woman hobbles up to the counter, close enough to have heard every word of our exchange; “You’d think she’d be more careful in this day and age?” Dropping before me two packs of cancer cream and a USB vibrator. “They should bring back sterilisation,” routing in her purse for her money, “never did me any harm.”
When I look up the headset goes black and I hear my history teacher clear his throat. Back in the classroom, I remove the headset; afraid to look him in the eyes.
“Did you spot the deliberate mistakes?” He asks, greying fussy eyebrows bouncing above his head.
After a moment I think I grasp it, “It would take longer than twelve months to get back to earth from deep space in 2009.”
His mouth opens to comment. I hear a few titters from my classmates. Then I realise what I just said. “The cancer cream?”
Professor Grey smiles; “And?”
All I can do is shrug. Behind me, Stacie raises her hand to answer.
“Stacie?” He says, taking the headset from me.
She smiles at me, “When women used to give birth, it only took nine months to gestate.” She holds her smile in place. “And, the test turns blue when it’s positive, not pink.”
by submission | May 22, 2010 | Story
Author : Daniel Fuhr
Red rocks crumbled under my heavy boots. I looked around the desolate Martian landscape and destruction thereupon. I could taste the acrid smoke around me as I walked through the wreckage of the downed ship, even through the environmental suit and protective gear, something for psychologists to quack at me about.
Carefully I picked through the remains of the transport craft and charred remains of what used to be precious lives. Protocol requires carefully documenting everything and keeping the crash site spotless. I cared about protocol fifteen years ago; today I’m just looking for the goods.
The small group of people stood at the edge of the crater the crash site created. I knew they were watching my every move apprehensively. Dead eyes of a hundred people staring at me from beyond the grave bothered me less than the brigands carefully watching me work.
After minutes of examination, I struck the treasure worth more than gold. I flipped open my netbook and sent a report back to my office “Crash due to natural causes, no further action required”. I would fill in more details at my leisure back at the office.
I pulled the slug from the hole in the hull of the ship and carried it out of the crater. The crash was open to salvage the minute I transmitted my report. I handed the pirates their metal slug as they handed me a small case. I knew they would have the entire craft ravaged for salvageable parts and take the rest for scrap metal. In less than two hours only the crater would remain.
If my report had any mention of foreign sources of a crash, I would look forward to months of investigations, inquiries and paperwork. Carrying the case back to my craft I looked forward to a month of fresh steak and eggs, a treasure worth more than gold.
by submission | May 20, 2010 | Story
Author : Elbie Kruger
I was born on the Calcarus colony settlement, a city floating 50,000 miles from planet Earth with a breathtaking view of the solar system. Having been born in space there were perks, however there were also drawbacks. You became used to cramped spaces and the lack of privacy, having known no other kind of life, but I, unlike many of the colony’s inhabitants, could not get used to people’s desire to someday live on Earth.
I must admit it was a surprise when Calcarus Regional Administration decided I should be one of only five space colonist to qualify for a month long surface trip. I was sanctioned to attend a major medical seminar on behalf of the colony.
As a high ranking Medical Officer on Calcarus I suppose I was a logical choice. The extra credits would lift my medical rank to level 7 and also meant I would qualify for my own room.
On the day of our departure I met my fellow travelers who were all extremely excited to say the least.
They kept on blabbering about how fantastic the trip was going to be. The one girl, I think her name was Menusa, went on and on about seeing real live animals. Personally I have never seen a real live animal and the only animals I have ever seen were from documentaries about Earth. On the colonies animals were strictly forbidden. This was mainly due to the fear of animal diseases, however I can honestly say after her non-stop whining about animals that I would happily die without ever wanting to see one.
We entered the atmosphere on the dark side of the planet, which meant there was not really much to see. At least the entry was quite a rush.
Upon our arrival at the spaceport we were quickly off loaded and huddled straight to our residence via hover tubes.
The rooms did not differ significantly from our rooms on Calcarus, obviously this was excluding the fact that they were about double the size. The bed was so huge that I actually had trouble getting comfortable.
I finally gave up trying to sleep around 5 am and being ever so slightly agitated and more than a little bored I decide to explore my surroundings. At the main entrance hall of our residence there was an exit to the outside gardens. We had no gardens on Calcarus, hydroponic food plantations sure, but the luxury of gardening for fun was never an option. I decided to take a stroll through the gardens, after all I was on Earth might as well enjoy it.
As I walked outside the sun started to rise over the horizon. Hues of red, yellow and purple streamed into the sky, a magnificent symphony of light and color. I had never witnessed something so spectacular or nearly as beautiful. When the sun finally emerged I felt my heart explode with emotion. Tears filled my eyes as the warm rays of the sun enveloped my face.
I don’t know exactly how to describe it, it felt like a complete sensory overload as my mind tried to process the absolute bombardment of beauty.
All around me I could see rolling hillsides covered by the most exotic blue sky. The smell of grass and fresh air filled my nostrils as I took the deepest breath I could. It felt like the first breath of my life.
As my mind regained control of my senses, I came to a complete realization.
I could never go back to the colonies.
by submission | May 19, 2010 | Story
Author : Ellen Couch
“Don’t you love me?” she asked.
“You know I do,” I said quietly, “but you’re not mine, you never really were.”
I could tell she didn’t understand- how could she? As far as she was concerned, we had the perfect life.
Late one night in the physics lab, working on my PhD (what else was there to do?), the idea for the Paradox Isolator had come to me. I knew it would work. Many months later, I tested it.
I was 13 again. I knew everything that 20 years of therapy and personal trainers had taught me. I kept the Paradox Isolator strapped to my wrist, keeping me safely in the same timeline I had come from, as I changed my life.
Then one day, 2 years after our wedding, the isolator did something very odd. Examining it in my shed, I shorted a circuit and saw the timelines I had stolen from. So many others, so much sadness. And I knew what it felt like, all of it, because it was mine. The one who had been fit and strong was fat. The one who had been confident at school was shy and scared. The one who had married Petra had taken sleeping tablets- a whole pack- when the loneliness got too much.
I had it all. Everyone said so. Now I knew why. I had taken it from them.
I thought it mattered when I changed my life- that it would be better if I had it all to do again. And it was. I wouldn’t have wished my old life on anyone, least of all myself. That was why I couldn’t do it to them.
“Petra, it’s been wonderful- you’re the only woman I’ve ever loved. But I can’t go on like this. It’s not fair.” Tears now stinging my eyes, I took out the PI.
“I don’t understand,” I heard her say as I smashed it on the laboratory table, “fair on wh-…”
by submission | May 16, 2010 | Story
Author : Stephen Ira
Owen was standing on the side of a boy’s driveway. They were both smoking long thin joints, which made Owen’s face pink and his eyes telescopic slivers. The other boy, his round face capped by a black beanie, called Owen “precious.” Beyond the driveway, the snowy ground extended blankly for yards.
As Owen smoked, the counting stopped. He couldn’t remember how many steps it had been from the driveway to the snowbank where they stood. He wasn’t really listening to what either one of them said. The round-faced boy kissed him and numbers swelled again, but Owen secured the joint between his fingers, hung on to the round-faced boy.
“Owen,” the boy said. “Owen, precious.” His face was like a moon. And he took Owen’s hand.
Owen said, “I’m graduating soon.” He glanced at his wrist display, where time was marked out in at-a-glance notation that he didn’t have to compute in his brain, compulsively, endlessly. “Going up for the first time. Maybe I’ll bring back a moon rock, sell it and buy us dinner. It’d cover one or two, if we eat cheap. Captain Mann’s cousin showed me some moon rocks. From one of the construction sites. They still got graffiti from the colonial days on them.”
“He used to work there?”
Owen nodded. “Came back down. Said he got kay-” This was funny, so Owen giggled insistently at the snow. “Ka-kay-yak kayak angst. It’s an — a culture bound thing. Yeah, totally.” (Owen wasn’t sure whether he’d ever said “yeah, totally” before.) “It’s this thing. You lose control of where you’re — spatial disorentation and stuff. Indigenous — INuits used to get it in their kayaks. The men, I mean. When they’d go out fi-fi-fishing.” There was something caught in his throat, the air to form a word he needed.
“He say anything about what it was like to be on the moon?” The round-faced boy’s pierced ears stuck out from beneath his hat like flags.
“Yeah. Said it made him all freaked. Looking down at that blue thing that looks — looks like paint some teenager dropped on the floor of an apartment they were painting.” They were painting the apartment for a friend. When Owen closed his eyes, he could see them doing it, one blonde and the other red-headed, climbing up and down walls in faultless scalene triangles, counting every step. “Knowing everything you could ever love was there.”
The counting started again, with such a jolt that Owen said out loud, “Fourteen,” and began to multiply the number by the hour and then by the minute and then by the second, best as he could calculate from his wrist display, and the joint made it impossible not to say it out loud.
“What?” asked the round-faced boy, mystified.
“It’s my age in different ways,” said Owen. “The age I’ll be when I graduate.” Fourteen. “Like Captain Mann’s cousin said, everything you could ever love.” Owen Cadwallader, the easily bored, the numberkeeper, shoved his feet against the snow to mark it.
The round-faced boy put out his boot too, and slowly, in the snow, he wrote out: “Everything that you could ever love is here.” Owen watched him dance out the sentence. He was fat and ungraceful. Owen would have recommended him highly for the Bolshoi ballet.
Inside, the round-faced boy kissed his forehead and stroked his flanks. Blushing red from THC and the redness of mouths, Owen slept in the waterfalls of numbers. With knives they’d shepherded him to graduate to the sky so early. The great trigonometric waterfalls, warm as bathwater for once.
