by submission | Aug 16, 2024 | Story |
Author: Tobias Hope Young
There are moments when the sand looks sturdy. When it isn’t rising and falling, when it’s just completely motionless. It’s in those moments that you might think it’s solid but don’t be fooled. That sand may look firm but if you step on it you will sink like a stone until you’ve reached the core of this planet.
God help you if you try to land a starship on it. I tried a long long time ago. Way way before you were born, son.
Starship is a powerful vehicle but it sinks like everything else. All that sand gets into the engine, it risks sealing you inside that airtight cockpit. The only smart move is to abandon ship and leave your old life and everything you ever knew behind.
Dangerous place this planet, but there are still people living here somehow. People who know not to walk the desert but to sail it.
There are only two types of people here; dead people and sailors, so I decided to become a sailor.
I teamed up with a crazy woman, crazy enough to take me on as an apprentice, crazy enough to go searching for downed starships in uncharted territories, and crazy enough to marry me when I asked.
She taught me everything I know about sailing, the same way she taught you but I didn’t learn what it meant to be a sailor until… well until moments like this.
You see it over there, that cloud on the horizon? It’s called a sandstorm. It’s coming for us and there’s nothing we can do to stop it.
But it’s moments like this that teach us what it means to be a sand sailor. Being a sailor isn’t about scavenging or even about sailing. Being a sailor is about being small. It’s about being the smallest thing there is, being at the mercy of the wind and the weather, and making peace with it.
This is going to be your story, the type of story you can tell your own kids one day because if you get through it you won’t be a kid anymore. You’ll be like me and your mother. You’ll be a sand sailor.
So stay alert. Stay strong. Stay aboard. And whatever you do don’t tell your mother I called her crazy. It’s dangerous enough out here as it is.
by submission | Aug 15, 2024 | Story |
Author: Nick Jessee
The TV is blaring, but I don’t have the energy to turn down the volume. All around, I can tell others are in the same predicament: their TVs blast and rumble muffled shouts, explosions, and laughs through thin apartment walls.
My stomach grumbles. Leather creaks as I shift my sore cheeks on the couch. Last I ate was yesterday, ramen for lunch. I didn’t realize just how long it’d been.
CoBrain chimes in like a peppy morning bird—I can’t remember last I heard a bird, actually—, presenting nearby grocery stores in my mind. It’s amazing that CoBrain not only can work my side hustles, but it can place orders and answer my inquiries. Though what hustles it does, I don’t know. I just know the fine print in the Agreement states, “Agreement is here upon accepted that CoBrain(R) will decide on the work performed, operating within ethical and legal boundaries.” It takes a cut of profits earned, but at least I don’t have to get up and do anything.
An order for a fifteen pack of ramen, a carton of eggs, and some soda is placed unconsciously. CoBrain went ahead and ordered it from a nearby store. I’m shown what’s left in my bank account. The image surfaces like a vivid daydream, the number going back up as CoBrain continues to still earn me money. My head buzzes pleasantly, like inhaling deep breathes of oxygen. CoBrain pumps some extra feel-good chemicals for every purchase/subscription made. And for every ad my brain receives.
A knock on the door, a rustle of bags. Some people won’t or can’t opt to have CoBrain implanted, so we still have those that continue to work. If we didn’t, well…I’d starve, probably. I push myself off the couch and shamble to the door, encumbered by a feeling of burnout. It comes with CoBrain though, just a side effect. It’s careful in how much dopamine and serotonin it measures out, though sometimes it leaves you a little dry. Can’t overdo it.
I open the door to find my neighbor kicking aside littered aluminum cans as he’s scooping up my grocery bag with a grunt. His beard is overgrown, hair long and thick with greasiness.
“Hey,” I wave and lean my shoulder against the doorway. It’s an effort to be standing, as if a wet comforter weighs me down. “That’s mine.” I point to my bag he’s holding.
“Oh,” he looks around, appearing awkward, as if expecting a way out or someone else to interject. The fluorescent hall lights incessantly hum, contouring his sunken eyes and glistens a sheen of oil on his forehead. He starts to turn around, then freezes, eyes and mouth open. Must be an ad coming in. He’s known to indulge in vast libraries of adult streams, and his CoBrain knows to keep on subscribing to all kinds of it. Is that how I look every time I get an ad?
I tug the bag off of his fingers like you would a coat off a rack. He didn’t flinch, nor did his eyes look at me, but rather through me. He smiles absently. I head inside and set the bag on the grimy kitchen counter.
Oh wait, another ad coming in. I forget the groceries. A nice warmth creeps through me, a smile forming as I soak in another ad for yet another streaming service.
CoBrain’s already on it. Thanks, CoBrain, for subscribing.
by submission | Aug 14, 2024 | Story |
Author: Ethan J. Hatchett
“We need to talk.” Katie’s words were firm, but her bright blue eyes betrayed her.
“Not this time.” Michael leaned in to kiss Katie.
“Michael, stop. It’s…” He couldn’t wait for her to finish. He pressed the button and vanished back to his own time.
The present was a mess. Michael was back to himself: middle-aged, balding, and fat. He flipped through his notebook. It was a jumble of scribbles that told the same story.
It was the story of August 6th, 2010. Michael was sixteen. That warm summer evening, Katie dumped him. The details were forever burned into his memory. There was a clear sky, it was 75 degrees, with a slight breeze from the east. It all took place fifteen minutes before sunset. They sat together on a swing in the local park. She was on the left, and he was on the right.
Michael tried to move on, but Katie lingered in his mind, preventing him from growing close to anyone. This wedge grew until he was completely alone. With his machine, he could go anywhere or any era that suited him, but his travels only led him back to August 6th, 2010.
The machine hummed. This pile of metal and wires was all he had left. It was his life’s work, and it was all for Katie. Michael’s thumb hit the button, and with a flash…
He was a skinny teenager again. His eyes locked on Katie. Freckles dotted her cheeks beneath her eyes. Her brown hair was up in a ponytail with loose strands framing her face. “We need to talk,” she said.
“Don’t do this, please!” Michael grabbed her hand. “I love you, I need you!” Katie pulled away, her nose wrinkled. “Please! I’m nothing without you. Life doesn’t make sense.”
“I’m sorry, Michael, but it’s over.”
“Why? We have just begun!”
“Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
“We can make this work!”
“Michael, this will never work.”
In the present, her words still rang in his ears. Michael’s tears smudged the ink in his notebook. The first time he traveled back, he tried to seduce her with clever tricks, but failed. Then he tried yelling. Now, he found himself repeating the same pathetic pleas he had made as a teenager. As he flipped through his notebook, the weight of his wasted life hit him hard. He was older, but he never changed.
The setting sun highlighted the shape of Katie’s face. Her brows, nose, and mouth were in perfect harmony. Her skin seemed to glow in the sunlight. The two teenagers held hands. Michael’s heart pounded in his ears. Katie moved to speak, but he interrupted her. “I know. It’s over. But could we stay and watch the sun set one last time?” Katie nodded. She rested her head on his shoulder. He savored this moment. As long as the sun stayed over the horizon, she was his. Soon, the park would turn dusky blue and she would be gone. His thumb hovered over the button, but he couldn’t bring himself to press it.
by submission | Aug 13, 2024 | Story |
Author: Majoki
The children played in mud while parents worried. The rains had not stopped. They had never lasted this long in spring, never been this heavy.
Twice they had moved their families farther from the river, but the entire valley was in danger due to landslides. Staying and moving were perilous.
Yet the flowers bloomed, recklessly. Color all about: lemony and golden, cream and sugar, tangerine and peach, ruby and coral, azure and aqua. Still, the children played in mud while parents worried.
Thousands of miles away an older man smoked a cigarette on a cobblestone terrace overlooking what was once glacier. From the hillside, he stooped and picked a buttercup, the petals wide and delicate. A marvel.
He was joined by three other older men from the conference.
“It’s going to happen,” they told the man with the cigarette.
“Of course,” he replied, “but not in our day.”
They all smiled, and, dropping the buttercup, he offered them cigarettes. Together, their smoke wafted over the wildflowers of the once glacier.
The two great sins, so the Sherpas say, are to pick wildflowers and threaten children.
After the rains stopped, the relentless summer sapped all vigor, all marvel, leaving countless dead and dying strewn across the valley, where they would slowly diminish, as they always have, into the over promised earth.
by Julian Miles | Aug 12, 2024 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The door opens slowly. Lawgiver James comes in, helmet in hand. He’s got a look on his face that tells Maddy everything she doesn’t want to know.
“They found him, didn’t they?”
James nods.
“He’s dead, isn’t he?”
Deputy Evans nods as he follows James in.
“Yes, ma’am.”
She looks at them.
“There’s something else, isn’t there?”
James steps forward to put a battered datapad on the counter. She recognises the tattered charm hanging from it: she and Tanya spent a summer afternoon making it, three years gone.
James points to it.
“He left you a message. Report that accompanied this said someone listened to it, as it could have contained evidence.”
“You listen too?”
Evans shakes his head and points to James.
“He wouldn’t let me.”
She nods her thanks to James. He points to the datapad.
“That’s yours. Sorry we couldn’t return more. We’ll leave you, now. Our condolences for your loss.”
The two Lawgivers don their helmets and take their leave. James pauses to turn the sign on the door to ‘Closed’ before exiting.
Maddy looks at the datapad, then at the clock. Surely there’s enough time before Tanya comes in from school. She needs to listen first, to see if they can listen to it together, or whether it’s something for Tanya to hear eventually. She reaches out and taps the screen. It lights up with a single icon –
‘For Maddy’.
Taking a deep breath, she taps it. Brion’s voice is clear, like he’s standing there. ‘He sounds tired’ is her last cohesive thought for a while.
“Hi there, Derry girl. Sorry for this, but I had to give you something. You never kept anything from me. By now, you’ve guessed I had secrets. All I can do is ask you to forgive me, one day. I trust you to tell Tanya what she needs to know.
“Before we met, I was what you joked about that first time. You the poor girl who found her home among the stars, a long way from North Eire. What a contrast: me a street kid who only made it off Portena by being willing to do what others wouldn’t. You said I looked like some interstellar assassin off some cheap AV show, then laughed when I blushed. I should have done what half of me wanted to do right then: run. Instead I went with the other half: I stayed.
“Yes, there was someone on Chanton I was sent to kill. No, I didn’t. Once I met you, it all changed. But running a store was hard. I’d gotten used to living high. The change brought my childhood back. I admit, I got tired of it; nearly gave up several times. Then we had Tanya. We went from having nothing much to having one thing that mattered above all… But it was still difficult, and even more tiring. Every day I watched hard choices grind you down. Even when things picked up, your expression played on my mind. Every little frustration got magnified. I couldn’t see we were actually happy. I was headed for ruining everything through worrying over nothing.”
He sniffs.
“Then I recognised a pair of ex-colleagues at the spaceport. Might as well have been a sign. The tiredness lifted. I took the next ship out.”
He clears his throat.
“You don’t need to know anything of who I was before we met. That was a different person. All you need to know is I love you both more than life itself. Kiss Tanya for me. I’m sorry, Maddy. Goodbye.”
by submission | Aug 11, 2024 | Story |
Author: Don Nigroni
A scholar I know read this Latin passage in an ancient manuscript containing a complex formula for presumably transforming lead into gold. Yet the formula looked peculiar and unlikely to accomplish its goal. I once worked in a research lab studying the neurochemistry of crime before taking my current position.
After I promised to keep the formula a secret, he gave it to me, in translated English. I then performed the various steps to see what would happen.
Alchemists never provided specific details on their procedures so failures by others could always be dismissed. But when I mixed the chemicals in the proscribed amounts and order for the specified times at the required temperatures, I finally realized what I was doing. This wasn’t literally about turning lead into gold but about transforming base people into upstanding individuals.
If enormous quantities were dumped into rivers, it could eventually transform humanity, not only for the current generation that partook of it but also for later ones in the womb. It had irreversible neurological properties. How they ever stumbled onto this, I’ll probably never know but I will devote the rest of my life to trying to figure that out.
Nonetheless, as a prison warden, I sprinkled a tiny amount into a hardened criminal’s morning meal. Didn’t matter which one, all of them in the line were evil devils, some of them obviously pretending to have reformed. But this fellow instantly tuned into a really nice fellow.
I pushed for him to be paroled and after two years, based on his behavior and my recommendation, he was released. O yeah, the very day the drug was administered, he sought an interview with the FBI. Two days later he spilled the beans on his cartel. And the day after his release from prison he was shot in the head.
