by Julian Miles | Sep 18, 2023 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The two personages in blue suits look at me like I’m an ornament. One that grandma got from her mama, only kept because of that, and never found a soul who liked it anyway.
Tall blue suit flicks a glance towards skinny blue suit, who’s standing slightly behind and to the left.
“It appears we have an unbeliever, Robert.”
Robert the Skinny nods like he’s received the wisdom of the ages.
“That is unfortunate, Malcolm.”
Malcolm the Tall gives the slightest nod. Acknowledging the act, not in any way a thanks for the agreement. After all, when one is always right, such niceties are irrelevant.
“My humble apologies, personages. I find myself between places of avode.”
Malcolm passes my card to Robert, who slips it into the reader in the top pocket of his suit jacket. Woven in: very discreet. Perceptions, after all, are everything.
Less than a minute passes before they both grunt, almost in unison. Neither are approving in tone.
Malcolm crouches down while Robert takes a step back, flicking his jacket clear of his holsters. Not one, but two. That’s not the customary wear, and what’s in them gleams like metal, not the dull sheen of tasers. Seems I’ll not be getting out of this one easily: I’ve been cornered by Obligators.
Malcolm notes my gaze.
“You are perspicacious, unbeliever. Which surprises me, because your record shows you to be between avodes far too often for one who presents themselves as well as you. Surely one as observant as yourself wouldn’t be so clumsy as to leave gaps in their record? After all, there are many places of registration that fail to keep as lovingly close a watch over their flocks as the Edicts suggest.”
As if I need to sign up to a dodge shop, where – for a monthly fee – my devout labour history could be maintained while I got on with defying the Torble: which is the officially blasphemous but far easier to pronounce nickname for the ‘Sainted Edicts of Labour for the Common Good, Being the Highest Way to Know God, as set down by His Prophets Oliver and Siraj’.
Robert picks up the sermon started by his elder.
“It could lead a pair of righteous personages like ourselves to believe you might have alternative means of support. So, what are you? A dogsbody, a money-changer or a prostitute?”
No mention of mercenary? They don’t have a high opinion of me.
My implanted comm vibrates.
Malcolm perks up. Robert draws a pair of military issue magnums.
“You have an implant? We may have cornered ourselves a dealer, Robert. Truly our avode is blessed this night.”
I smile.
“I presume you’d prefer me not to check or answer that?”
Malcolm raises his eyebrows.
“Both audio and messaging in an implant? Your sinning must be profitable. For shame that dealing in blasphemous wares isn’t considered avode, for all that you’ve clearly worked so assiduously at it.”
Robert grins anticipatorily.
This is about to get a little too real. Time to stop.
“Let me show you my other ID.”
“The unbeliever sees the light.”
Something like that. I raise and clench my fist, pressing down with my little finger. The subdermal tag on the outside of my hand lights up.
They scan it, exchanging looks of disbelief. The confirmation comes back. Robert looks sick.
Malcolm sighs.
“I’d heard Anointed President Gregory the Seventeenth was a reformed unbeliever. Seems the rumour is true.”
I smile.
“It’s not that bad. As far as I’m aware, I’m his only bastard. You have a good eve, Obligators. Ciao.”
by submission | Sep 17, 2023 | Story |
Author: Jackson Lanzer
“Do you ever just want to feel sad?” A young woman said, looking into the eyes of a young man.
“Sometimes it’s all I want to feel,” he responded. “Sometimes sadness is even sweeter than the purest joy.”
The man and woman strolled up to a ticket office. Their faces were illuminated by the glowing words of a marquee: “Cinema Memory.”
“Two tickets, please.”
“Same memory as last week?” The box office attendant asked.
“Yes, sir.”
The attendant handed them their tickets.
“Screen 5. And no need for a brain scan. We’ve got the memory recorded now.”
“Do you do that for all the regulars?” The woman asked.
“Not usually. But you two watch the same memory every week. We figured it’s the least we could do.”
As the man and woman walked through the theater doors, the woman turned her head and gazed into the man’s eyes.
“Are you okay?” She said.
“I’m surviving,” he responded, his eyes bloodshot and tear-stained. “I’ve been counting down the days to feel again.”
“Me too.”
The man and woman opened the door to screen 5. Silver light illuminated the room, and they sat in the back row next to each other. Every other seat was empty.
Their final moment as a couple flickered before their eyes.
“How’d it come to this,” the young woman whispered between bites of popcorn.
“Life, I guess,” the man responded.
She reached for his hand, and they embraced each other while, on the screen, the young man screamed at the young woman.
“Remember Prague?” The woman asked, looking away from the film.
“Of course. I fell for you that day.”
She smiled and squeezed his hand.
On the screen, the woman slammed the front door and marched away from the man’s house.
The film cut to the man standing at the window, watching the woman drive away. “Time in a Bottle” played over the speakers, and tears began streaming down the face of the technicolor man.
“Our favorite song,” she said.
“Our song,” he agreed with a lone tear slipping from his eye. “I usually can’t listen to it. Too many memories.”
“That’s exactly why I listen to it. When it’s playing, I almost feel like I’m getting to be us one more time.”
The man on the screen turned from the window, grabbed a half-empty bottle of wine, and walked out of frame. The screen faded to black, and the credits began to roll.
The man and woman stood from their seats.
“It was nice seeing you.”
“You too.”
“Are we still on for the same time next week?”
“Sounds lovely.”
The man waved at the woman and began walking away. He stopped for a brief moment and looked back.
“I loved you.”
“I loved you too.”
by submission | Sep 16, 2023 | Story |
Author: Eli Hastings
The man turns a circle in the intersection, the four way crimson stop light flashing overhead, so he is encircled in crimson glow now, and now, not. The yellow Walkman gripped like a handgun in his right fist. The headphones nearly the age of the Walkman and the cassette clipped into it. When he was young, and lived with his rich mother and pacifist stepfather in a leafy neighborhood, there was a wolf-dog. The naturopath couple that owned the dog were proud of it—3/4ths wolf, ¼ Husky, 130 pounds of which at least 30 was matted once-white fur. That dog upon a warm day would take to the manhole cover in the intersection. Lay across it dead center of four streets that were getting busier the more people flooded into the neighborhood. But 12 cars a day or 120 that dog didn’t move for a horn’s idiocy, much less the shriek of a yuppy commuter. Threatening tire squelches caused him to look up, and give a side eye to the receding coups of the era—Subaru XLTs, Miatas. The boy loved that dog. He never got near him, never met his eyes, just scooted along to the bus stop and back again, admiring the wolf, eyes peeled for the popular predators of his block.
The artist is Soundgarden, the album is Louder Than Ever, the song is “Hands All Over.” Once he listened to it religiously, such as the day that the boy got head-locked on his way home from the bus by Travis Scalley. It wasn’t the first time, just the first time on this block. The hard drums tried to help the boy wrench free, but Travis had grappling with smaller beings down cold. When the boy found himself facing the cerulean blue of the sky and blackness closing down his vision, Soundgarden split by one ear phone’s slippage, he quit protesting. Spine against humid, May-damp grasses, he just stared up at Travis, hoping to scare the fucker away with the nihilistic apathy in his glare. But Travis’s sneer filled the sky of the boy’s world like a sickle moon, nothing else to look at but that blade. And then suddenly the cloud-cut cerulean again, Travis backstepping up the block. The boy rolled his head the other direction and the wolf had stood up, taken one step—most of its torso still covering the manhole. One quiver of its wet snout and it circled the manhole and laid its burden down again upon the steel, huffed.
The man stands now on a manhole cover in the center of the intersection, Soundgarden has plowed into “Gun,” and the light rain has made the steel beneath his sneakers as slick as oil. He wouldn’t have believed it, but headlights seem to approach from all four directions at an even speed and even distances. He knows this because he spins on his slick soles. Eight headlights pin him into blindness and the silly bitchery of horn bleat. He sticks the banana yellow 80s Walkman into his belt. He brings his hands up like claws. He pulls his lips back from his teeth and spins, waiting to understand in which direction he must move.
by submission | Sep 15, 2023 | Story |
Author: Ann Tandy
Good morning, and welcome! You may be feeling a little disoriented: this is the natural result (and, indeed, intent!) of the stimulating effects of the musk exuded by the Great Beast. Your appendages may feel a bit stiff, but they will grow strong and agile once more, never fear!
You may be confused (and perhaps alarmed) by some crunching noises around you. There is no need for concern and, in fact, great cause for celebration! The fact that you are awake and hearing crunching noises, rather than experiencing the crunching, means that you are one of the fortunate Chosen Few set aside by the Great Beast for later glories. Congratulations!
Please use this time to take stock of any changes you notice in your exterior form: extra/fewer limbs, nodes, fur patches, sensory organs, teeth, claws, openings, etc. Please note all changes on the form provided in this packet; a little effort on your part now will make your processing more efficient, and will have the added benefit of distracting you from the crunching and (no doubt by now) screaming.
Soon the Great Beast will have satiated its centuries-long-denied appetites on your less-worthy compatriots and retreated to its lair, at which point it will be safe to come collect you. We are excited to have you join our team, and look forward to working with you!
by submission | Sep 14, 2023 | Story |
Author: Mina
– Oi! Shortarse! Cap’n says we got company in just under two standard hours. You gotta put that fucking pest in the cage.
Cyn sighed and put down his welding pen that he used for small repairs. He patted the feline lying in orange and purple glory the usual four foot away from him. Although he knew Jax heard him just fine without speaking out loud he scratched behind the blue tufted ears and crooned:
– Sorry mate, you gotta go in the cubbyhole. I’ll leave the cage unlocked. I’ll come and get you when the rozzer’s been n’ gone.
Jax made its displeasure felt, but also its acquiescence, in Cyn’s mind. Although it looked more like an Earth cat than anything else, it was a rare species native to the outermost world of the Cassandra nebula. Jax sprang up onto Cyn’s shoulders almost making him overbalance.
– Hey, watch it mate! I almost face planted the floor and it ain’t none too clean.
Jax snicker-purred in his mind and Cyn set off muttering about how some critters were lucky to have no bollocks already or they might be in danger of losing them.
The shielded cubbyhole for illegal contraband was Cyn’s pride and joy. It measured twenty by twenty foot but was literally invisible to all of the rozzer’s sensors, which measured the full size of the hold even though part of it simply wasn’t visible when the dampening field was on. Cyn had designed it five years earlier but was still the worst paid crew member of the twenty on board the trading ship. The cubbyhole was half empty as Jax would fetch a king’s ransom on the black market of Lupus Prime.
The feline sprang down and curled up in the wire cage. Cyn had laid down a thick blanket on the floor and he left Cyn with its favourite biscuit snacks and water. Cyn switched on the dampening field and stomped off to the next repair job. A genius at ship engineering despite little formal training, he was a simple man at heart. He had developed an unshakable fondness for Jax who returned his loyalty with a fierce possessiveness. Together, the loneliness eased and Cyn found Jax’s presence in his mind comforting. He was aware that Jax was a manipulative little sod, having wangled staying out of its cage and near Cyn for the most part, but he didn’t mind. Jax looked out for him and the other wankers on board had stopped the bullying in the face of Jax’s lightning speed and four-inch retractable claws.
Beginning its grooming routine, Jax settled down to wait out the inspection for illegal freight. The rozzers wouldn’t find anything and it felt pride in its human’s skill. Jax’s species bonded for life and, with no others of its kind to meld its mind with, Jax had adopted the ugly but curiously gentle little man. It hadn’t taken much to persuade the downtrodden Cyn to plan an escape route for them. At the refuelling stop on New Mars, they would be sneaking off on the ship’s escape shuttle craft. Cyn had spent every spare moment upgrading its systems under the guise of maintenance, and he had installed the dampening field on it so that no sensors would pick up the shuttle leaving or follow its flight path. As a final “up yours!”, Cyn would damage the dampening field in the cubbyhole, knowing that the crew would not be able to repair it without him.
Jax felt a fleeting sense of guilt for having applied its influence to the human. But it would take care of him. With a smidgin of business sense, Cyn could sell his dampening field to contraband ships across the galaxy. They would be able to buy a one-man razor ship and Jax wanted to show Cyn the wonders of the universe. Jax’s tribe would not understand its affection for a human but space was vast and it was unlikely to cross any of their disapproving minds.
Yes, it thought with a rumbling pur in Cyn’s mind, this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. In the distance, it felt Cyn smile.
by submission | Sep 13, 2023 | Story |
Author: Alzo David-West
There’s a giant beetle who lives in my apartment compound.
He does pull-ups on the taller of two high bars, in the patch by the motorcycle shelter, and chin-ups and hanging Vs and other exercises I don’t know the names of. When he’s done, he rotates the joints of his six legs and stretches his forelegs. Then, he breathes deeply for a while, and he puts his hard shiny shell against one of the poles of the high bar, standing straight for five minutes. He’s there every fourth day at around the same time in the late afternoon.
Yesterday, I saw him carrying a little beetle. He had gone somewhere down the hill and returned with a heavy backpack and a heavy trolley bag. He put his young on the rubber matting under the second shorter high bar. The little beetle was sleeping.
He sat cross-legged, observing army ants darting out of the surrounding leaves of grass. He grabbed one ant in his claws, studied it, and removed its head. The body shook, and the antennae stopped moving. He put the separated parts on the matting, and he caught another ant and another and another. He may have caught six or seven ants.
Staring over the fragments, he made a scraping sound, softly buzzing to his tired nursling.
He got up and did his exercise routine. And when he was finished, he awoke the little beetle, put the backpack on his shell, held the young one’s claw, and pulled the trolley bag, and they left. The army ants lay on the matting, silent, and I wondered why the giant beetle who lives in my apartment compound decided to analyze ants that day.
