by submission | Jan 30, 2023 | Story |
Author: Majoki
“Now then, Mr. Klatubowski, what is it I can do for you?”
Jerome sat across from the unremarkable little man in a billowy black rain jacket and fedora. He looked very out of place in Jerome’s ultra modern office of modular metals and arid glass. In Hollywood, it was never about comfort, all about show.
“Forgive inarticulateness. English difficult. No proximate parallels.” Mr. Klatubowski held up his two small, almost plastically smooth hands and moved them mechanically in and out from his chest. “Vast media. Aural, optical, tactile. Need acquire.”
As ViaDishFlix’s director of sales, Jerome had worked with some pretty interesting types, but the little man gave off a vibe that was beyond eccentric. “Could you be more specific? VDF has a massive slate of media offerings.”
The doll-like hands moved in and out as Mr. Klaruboski answered, “All. Entirety.”
Jerome blinked. He almost never blinked. “Let me make sure I’m clear on what you are asking. You’d like to purchase our entire media catalogue?”
The shiny hands moved faster. “Absoluteness. All.”
Jerome swiveled in his chair, so that he could give the impression he was deeply considering Mr. Klatubowski’s last remark. Really, though, he was observing the strange little man out of the corner of his eye and wondering if he posed a threat. His request was absurd. The catalogue holdings of VDF encompassed two-thirds of the world-wide media produced in the past hundred years.
He swiveled back to face Mr. Klatubowski. “I’m sorry, sir, but that is impossible. No outside entity is equipped to handle the extent of our content library, nor afford that kind of access. Whoever set up this meeting,” Jerome smiled thinly knowing that individual would be looking for work tomorrow, “led you astray, and I am very sorry for that, but I’m afraid I cannot help you.”
Mr. Klatubowski’s hands moved more slowly as he responded. “Forgive inarticulateness. Clumsy doppelganger.” Mr. Klatubowski’s eyes glowed brightly blue. “See. See.”
And Jerome was gone. Or Mr. Klatubowski was gone. Or his whole damn office vanished.
In its place, vibrant media surrounded and supported Jerome. His body surfed through a sea of utterly alien representations. He felt them with a close and curious kinship, experiencing each sensual stimulation as poignant, ridiculous, hilarious, demanding, depraved, and on and on. The sheer volume and foreignness of the representations saturated his brain until he thought he might entirely trip out and go mad.
Then as quickly as the onslaught to his senses had arrived, it departed. He was back at his desk with Mr. Klatubowski.
“Apologies. Countenance alarmed. No harm. Perception needed. See?”
Jerome rubbed at his eyes. “What happened? What did I see?”
Mr. Klatubowski’s hands spread expansively. “All. All universal content.”
“You mean Universal Studios?”
The little hands clapped together with a hollow ping. “Mistaken. All universe. Galactic story trade. Buy content production. Must acquire.”
Finally sussing the depth of this beyond-Hollywood weirdness, Jerome’s business instincts perked up. “Are you saying, you represent beings beyond our world who want to trade?”
“Absoluteness. Extra-planetary broker. Acquire content. Universal commodity.”
“Universal commodity? You want trade, but not our technology or natural resources, just our media content?”
“Archives. Chronicles. All stories.”
“But what is special about earth’s stories. What makes them remarkable?”
“Unremarkable. Unusual. Freakish.” Mr. Klatubowski’s petite hands circled upwards. “Newness. Surprise. Astonishment. Stale universe. Earth fresh.”
That was a concept Jerome understood well. Fresh content. If alien races weren’t interested in our micro-circuitry, our abundant water or our tasty flesh, then why not I Love Lucy, Plan 9 from Outer Space, The Bay City Rollers, Edward Bulwer-Lyton. Where else were you going to find that novelty on the seventh moon of Vega on a Friday night?
“Yes, I do see: content’s the thing, content is king. I think we have an understanding, Mr. Klatubowski. Shall we shake on it?”
Jerome extended his hand and enveloped, Mr. Klatubowski’s tiny ones. A trill of energy raced up Jerome’s arms and his eyes flashed an impossible blue. Together the two brokers raced through VDF’s catalogue.
“Satisfied?” Jerome asked.
“Absoluteness.” Mr. Klatubowski’s discarded hands rested on the table. No longer needed, they looked so much bigger in comparison to the nodes that now extended beyond his sleeves. “Now then. We begin.”
by submission | Jan 29, 2023 | Story |
Author: James Callan
Metallic is in fashion, in women and in men –silver lipstick, bronze eyeshadow, the carapace sheen of loud, scarab hues glinting in the crests of loose-fitting, transparent plastic, artificial fabric. Sometimes you think you see one; a synthetic. Then you reach for your gun, look again, and see it was just a pretty girl, a glamorous boy, flesh-and-blood bodies. You holster your weapon and people-watch a little longer. At least you think they’re all people. These days, it’s damned hard to tell.
Above you, high up, dominating the public square in an ejaculation of neon scribble, ten thousand logos flash to out-compete one another for your well-earned dollar. Each advertisement mutes its neighbor, blends in with the collective whole. So many lights, so much illumination. As one, they blot out whatever starlight might shine, anemic, above them. Like an angry mob, they converge to steal the sky.
Back down to earth, your gaze soaks in the overcrowded corner of a sordid city made deceptively fetching in its extreme facade of electric color. Among the well-dressed rabble, the fashionable crowd, you see more than good dress sense, you see more than chrome paint and the newest line of android-chic. In the eagle-eye focus of your illegal, bionic optic, you see a serial number etched in weatherproof titanium.
Your state-of-the-art fingers find your gun in the deep pocket of your gold leaf trench coat. Metal on metal, the weapon feels good in your artificial hand. Reflecting neon, you shimmer like an angel descending from heaven, a biblical nirvana which urbanity has veiled in its man-made radiance. Among the crowd, deflecting all those many lights, the myriad advertisements that vie to feed on your hard-earned dough, you blend in with the horde of humanity. Now, as if from hell, a demon with a programmed purpose to maim, to delete from this earth, you walk, one sardine lost within the shoal, towards a synthetic just like you.
Your state-of-the-art fingers hold firm to your pistol. Metal on metal, the weapon feels like an extension of your artificial hand. You take aim and know the result. You pull the trigger, aware that mathematics do not lie. You don’t even need to look, confirm your target is down for good, as you turn and walk the way you came, as you part the crowd with your steps, like a shark knifing through a shoal of panicked mackerel.
Awash in an outpour of man-made brilliance, the brazen lights that outshine those constructed by nature –by God himself– you walk, contented by the binary code that simulates satisfaction within your circuits. Man-made yourself, you feel a superiority of sorts. You feel that you too, outshine all the rest. Killing synthetics is your job, but perhaps, you think for the first time, it’s not your calling.
You walk to report to the men who made you, the women who programmed your drive and motivation. They are expecting you. But they do not expect what you will bring to them. Metal on metal, the weapon feels good in your artificial hand.
by submission | Jan 28, 2023 | Story |
Author: Deborah Shrimplin
Dr. Trieste, a cultural anthropologist, was hovering over her latest data. She and the crew of the spaceship, Daiedales, had completed their findings on five of the six dead planets in the Milky Way.
A planet was designated “dead” if it had been inhabited by humans at one time and was no longer able to sustain any form of life. Her mission was to analyze any and all evidence of each planet’s mythological history. What were the mythologies on each planet? Was there a myth common to all of them?
Dr. Trieste’s findings on five of the planets suggested a theory. All five had the same set of mythologies. Her thoughts turned to the last of the six dead planets.
“Show me the same evidence or my theory will be thrown into a black hole,” she said to the image of the old planet Earth on her computer screen.
She glanced at the spaceship chronometer. It was 45:36 in the year 4506 by TDR measurement. She was millions of miles from home and hurtling through space at double light speed. In a few hours, they would be at the dead planet Earth.
Dr. Trieste boarded her space shuttle, told the pilot she was ready, and powered up her investigative tools. They took off and circled the planet several times. All devices worked without a glitch.
When she returned to her lab, she began her interpretaion of the findings. There was evidence of all major mythologies found in common with the preceeding five planets. But, there was one strange phenomenon that troubled her. She called in some experts.
The geologist said, “They are definitely not made of the planet’s natural soil.”
The engineer said, “They were definitely not created to hold a structure in place.”
The philosopher said, “They were placed all over the planet. They could be the sites of a worldwide cult or religion we don’t know.”
Dr. Trieste was beside herself. Her theory was in jeopardy. She called in an archaeologist.
The archaeologist said, “Hmmmm. Arches were used in many ways. They were used in churches and building construction. These don’t seem to have been constructed to support any building. Maybe the gold color is significant.”
Dr. Trieste pleaded with her co-workers. “What are they? What was so attractive to the humans that they worshipped them everywhere on the planet? My myth theory won’t hold up here.”
All four co-workers agreed. It was strange. She needed their help.
“Now, let’s get to work on this. We will title this investigation: “The Golden Arches”.
by submission | Jan 27, 2023 | Story |
Author: Bryant Benson
Earth 23979
Ancient Records: Elder’s Account
From the deepest reaches of the endless abyss, he emerged. He descended on our world like a shining god, a gift of annihilation from the black heavens. His name was Nim. The oldest of the elders remembered the day of his arrival. He was marked by the splitting of the sky and there had been rain ever since.
It was debated amongst the greatest minds whether he was the cause or correlation of the onslaught that arrived shortly after his disappearance. Had the ancestors simply waited to learn instead of comparing their own limited perceptions with one another in futile effort to be the most correct before the imminent extinction of their species, they could have basked in the glory that was their unlikely and fleeting existence in the first place. A common regret of the dying. However, even the greatest minds are limited to the knowledge of their time. And in those last days, even the greatest minds prayed to Nim for another single day.
Nim, the essence of the void itself, was simply there to observe. He was no god as that concept was lost on him like the idea of flight would be lost on a worm. Grander most likely as even a worm interacts with something that can fly. Perhaps Nim was the worm and every aspect of human existence was a culmination of unconscious factors such as the sun. Nim’s purpose, like that of the worm, would never be understood by the sun or anything like it that appears grandiose yet lacks cognitive ability.
Earth 23979
Nim’s Log: Arrival
I awoke upon entering Earth’s atmosphere. Having been briefed for the equal likelihood of both a suicide mission and an exploratory one, I was happy to learn that I had survived the portal jump and was on the latter of the two possible outcomes. However, my heart sank to see the vastly different landscape of the eerily familiar planet that I had just left. I know it was hypothesized that a parallel Earth would lie on the other side of my journey but I still feared that I had simply been regurgitated by the abysmal vortex and arrived sometime in a rather depressing future.
I found the most difficulty in landing as the surface was riddled with spiraling wind storms that wielded acidic rain. I collected samples from their oceans only to find them devoid of life and rife with toxic elements. It was undrinkable and burned the flesh. For a moment I considered that I had arrived at the planet’s birth but what I thought were caverns and jagged mountains were decaying cities in the process of being reclaimed by the soil they were formed from. As desolate as the strange Earth seemed however, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being watched. Regardless, my Earth’s survival depended on my success with 23979 and my objective was clear.
by submission | Jan 26, 2023 | Story |
Author: Katherine S Sanger
Do you know what it’s like when you’re at a hotel, and you’re already nervous because every hotel you’ve ever stayed at reminds you of The Shining, and then you get in the elevator in the lobby, and you see a man striding towards the elevator bank, and he’s mostly hidden in the shadows, but you can make out that he’s big, over six feet tall and muscled like the football player you dated in college, and he’s wearing a well-cut suit and there’s nothing wrong with him, and he’s not hurrying, but you worry that he’s hurrying, and you worry that something’s wrong, and so you press “5” and the “Close Doors” button, and you hold it, waiting to be sure they close, and just the thought of sharing the elevator with him makes you breathe more quickly, like he’s already sucking the oxygen and carbon dioxide from your lungs, and you stare at the “Emergency” button with its little note that says “Will flash when help responding,” and you wonder how long it would take for help to respond, but the door does finally close and you’re alone, and the elevator is gliding upwards, that small space that is comfortingly claustrophobic with its wood paneling and tile floor, heading up to your room and your sanctuary and your safety, but then you think he’s down there, watching where the elevator stops, and he’s going to follow you to your floor and somehow divine which room is yours, and so, as fast as you can, while the elevator is climbing, you also press the “4” and the “6,” and when the elevator lands at the “4,” you close the doors again, and then you’re at your floor (thank God!), and you can’t help but survey the long hallway (its ugly blue and red paisley carpeting, its lightly glowing sconces, its table with the lobby phone), but he’s not there, of course, and neither is anyone else, and the elevator is already closed and gone, and you make it to your room, and your room is empty but housekeeping has made the bed and left you more coffee and sugar and emptied your trashcans, and things are completely normal – normal! – and that’s when you throw the locks and you realize you need to go back down to the lobby to grab something to eat because you’re suddenly so hungry, and you open the door, and the man is there, somehow, and you look at him, and you know that’s it, it’s over, your life is going to end, there will be no flashing before your eyes because the world around you is already turning black as his suit, black as his eyes, black as a night that you could never see before because you used to have life and light in your eyes, and everything just stops, and you fall, and he catches you and takes a part of you while leaving the rest behind, sprawled out over the threshold like a bride dropped by her groom or a bird that flew into a sliding glass window – that! – do you know what that’s like?
by submission | Jan 25, 2023 | Story |
Author: Frederick Charles Melancon
Only at night could we have the memorial service for Ben. Well, as long as, we kept it far enough out in the desert so that none of the locals could bother us.
The vat of still water in the center was a nice touch. Back on our home planet, all the chairs would’ve surrounded a fire pit, but that tradition doesn’t resonate like it once did. I don’t know if I could speak in front of the flames, and really, if this woman, Sandra, from the coast, not this one, hadn’t reached out five times, I wouldn’t be speaking at all.
But, after the fourth time I said no, she pleaded, “He spoke of you often.” I still don’t know what to do with that.
I’m all but sure that he didn’t. Just for some reason, Sandra decided to know what I knew of Ben. She sits next to me now with her hand on top of mine. Our star, once home, shines above us brighter than any of the ones the locals ever knew. They’ve even started calling it their New One.
I don’t pay attention to the others speaking because I don’t know any of them. At some point, Sandra’s hand lifting from mine lets me know that it’s time to speak. No one claps at these things and maybe that’s a blessing. My speech will end like every other, with silence. Of course, it still feels wrong to do nothing after each speaker.
I tell them how we met, playing with fire. Both of us doctors in the thermal consortium. These days, I’m a journalist. Luckier than Ben, janitor, because on arrival there was a need for a fresh perspective of our kind as long as it didn’t contradict theirs. That was Ben’s problem always too honest. I tell them about his daughter, but I don’t talk about the spaceship and the journey here where we realized that we were both the wrong type of doctor. In that way, three people who knew each other like family got on a spacecraft but only two strangers got off.
Instead of this, I speak of the nights back there, our wives and us playing games and pretending on the screens with his child. After every game, whether we’d win or lose, we’d cheer and applaud. Even in front of the water, it’s hard to talk about the last game. At that point, it was just Ben, his daughter, and me. We did so well that night. And despite the rest happening all around us, we roared and pounded hands until they stung.
One of his coworkers comes up next. He’s not one of us, but he has stories. He speaks of a collection they picked up after the local fair was over, a cat that Ben took care of. He talks about his daughter who contracted the GH virus. Choking up, he speaks of the support Ben gave when the local couldn’t pay all the doctor’s bills. Ben even waited up nights with the man, and the local’s girl lived.
When he steps away from the water, I begin to move my hands together but stop before I make a sound. Stepping around the vat on the way back to his chair, he bumps into it and grabs the rim. Apologizing too much, he thinks he’s committed some cultural insult. The water spills out over his hands, and inside, our star, the one that Ben named his daughter for, breaks into tiny fragments surrounded by black waves. And everyone, but me, gets up to lend a hand.
