by submission | May 17, 2022 | Story |
Author: Chana Kohl
With my blade’s edge poised and a steady hand, I watched a decade of locs fall into the sink. A military uniform, once diligently maintained, hung lifeless in a closet. A soft tunic slid across my clean-shaven head, worn over jute trousers, and cinched, not by a tactical belt, but with a long, violet sash of Tasserian worm silk.
Afterward I gazed at my reflection in the rain-slickened window, searching for someone I recognized.
After war ripped the planet to shreds, citizens on both sides scrambled for haven. From my duplex balcony, squinting past the murky hills outside the Capital, I saw lights from the orbital tower pierce the night sky.
I hoped to escape this ravaged rock altogether.
A few kilometers past Capital walls, piles of vehicles smoldered. A last line of resistance, the fortress of charred metal and burning rubber seemed a fitting symbol for the Cause, a movement my father, a staunch Capital loyalist, vehemently believed in.
Until he was executed by the Roenthosi.
My mother was Roenthosi. When the Capital tried to execute global dominance, her people fought them like Shihavian devils, eventually winning control of the planet’s major roads and ports, including the launch ring. Cut from vital resources, the Capital folded.
Then it crumbled.
The only thing that stood between me and freedom’s promise on a new world was to pass the crucible that was once my homeland—while avoiding any connection with the Capital.
I packed a modest bag, my maternal family’s documents and, under the cover of night, I snuck past city walls. I never looked back.
On the maglev outside Pirclav, I sat across from an elderly Roenthosi woman and a small boy— I forced myself not to stare— how much she reminded me of my grandmother! Despite any actions I took performing my duty to the Capital, however distasteful… it was understandably, I would argue, in the name of survival. I never once believed the Roenthosi were my enemy.
Some of my happiest memories from childhood, like bittersweet wine, were bottled and corked in Roenthos.
I asked the woman, in my mother tongue, if I could give the boy some fruit and a chocolate. She smiled and he ate gratefully.
When the shuttle reached the orbital tower, a patrolman checked my documentation. The lines of his face flattened, then tightened as he pulled me aside.
“Your chip confirms your birthplace as ‘Rantos’, yet you were educated in the Capital, Mr… Ryogi?” He scrutinized my features as if to ascertain my ancestry.
“My mother’s family is from Roenthos,” I said, clearly correcting his, most likely, deliberate mispronunciation. “My father… was a diplomat.”
“Of course,” he didn’t sound convinced. “You’re alone?”
I ignored the cold heat prickling my face and neck and instinct grabbed hold, “See, over there?” I pointed to the elderly woman and child at the elevator gate. I mustered every artifice I could construct, every convincing demeanor, “That’s my aunt and nephew.” Then I casually smiled and waved across the hub.
They waved and smiled back.
“OK, then,” his smile, wry and cold, “If it’s as you say, what’s the safest road from Roenthos?”
Of course, I didn’t know there were no roads from Roenthos. At least not anymore. The only way in or out of the fragmented city was through the old sewer tunnels. But all I could think of were the picnics spent in my youth with my grandmother, and the memory of a forever winding road that skirted the edge of a serene sea.
It’s what I think of now, as I await my execution.
by Julian Miles | May 16, 2022 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Read for me the writing on the wall.”
We bow our heads and recite the words writ high above, engraved deep into unyielding stone. We have no need to see them, having recited the Second Law every morning and evening since the first day we could talk.
Of the First Law, they say it’s only told by the Hand of One to those who die faithful before they ascend. I never understood that. We’re told this world is everything: the one, all, and only. How can the dead go anywhere else?
“There is nothing new under the Hand.”
No punctuation up there. Guess putting a full stop on the end was considered inefficient.
‘Inefficient’. The dirtiest of condemnations, and so versatile: you can apply it to anything you don’t like. Even to typing approved words in unapproved ways. Everything that comes from human imagination is also considered inefficient.
I tried to argue that without imagination, the concepts we built our survival upon would not exist. They told me I was correct. In the times before the Hand of One, imagination was necessary for the visionaries of humanity to shepherd the unenlightened masses to the ‘ubiquity of utility’. Now we’ve arrived, we don’t need it anymore.
We toil to produce the shapes that disappear into the maws of the supply lines, or to unload the cubes of material we dismantle to reassemble into the shapes we push into the maws. Every day. From clock on to clock off.
What we do makes no sense. Who makes the Nutrigel we eat, the paste we dilute to make Drinkup? I’ve asked. They sent me to ‘contemplate my inefficiencies’ while cleaning out the waste trenches.
I should be upset, but I found caches down there. Cubby holes cut into the filthy walls, down where the Fingers won’t inspect. They’re filled with colourful, useless things. I like the little flowers on hollow stalks that spin in the breeze. I don’t know what they’re made of, but they still haven’t withered. Lots of people like them too. The Fingers don’t. We learned to keep them out of sight. I also found a block of coloured squares. If you twist it, you can get each side to be the same colour! I spent lots of clocked off working that out.
Then I found it. The box with the thing full of new words. I read it: learned about ‘book’ and ‘page’ and ‘plural’. Plus what was in the bottom of the box. How to use that, too. Learned about other things. I don’t understand them all, yet. I haven’t got all the ideas worked out. But I did work out the thing it suggested I do before I go.
The book told me where to find the other thing I needed. Last night, I put them both on and did it.
I stand in the left-hand maw and look up at my first visionary work: adding words to a Law.
There is nothing new under the Hand
and that is the problem.
There is more to this world. Look for it.
Get out from under the Hand!
Slinging the cutter across my back, I make sure the gravbelt is turned off, then walk into the maw. The book says this one leads to somewhere called ‘outside’.
I’m a long way away when I hear a lot of shouting from behind. Sounds like I started something. I hope I did.
Grinning into the darkness, I try out some new words as I jog towards a better day.
“Stop me if you can, Hand of One. I’m innovating.”
by submission | May 15, 2022 | Story |
Author: David Henson
I motion toward the two interns. “You can all come in now.” Unpronounceable frowns at me. “I mean, both of you,” I say. The three enter my office.
The two students leave after I give them their assignments. “You need to be more careful,” Unpronounceable says.
“They just think I’m an absent-minded professor. They’ve no idea you’re shadowing me. For all I know, other Triplorians are studying them, too.” I search Unpronounceable’s face for a clue as to whether I’m right, but he learned well from observing one of my poker nights.
Unpronounceable appears as a human to me, but no one else can see him. At first, I thought I was losing my mind. So did everyone I told about him. The more he reveals about what he’s doing on earth, and the more I try to warn people, the crazier they think I am. You’d think someone else who’s being shadowed would come forward and support me.
“I’d like to go to a laundromat this evening,” Unpronounceable says.
“What on earth for … pardon the pun.” I chuckle.
“I want to go to the laundromat because it’s part of the human experience. I don’t want to stick out like a dirty shirt the first time on my own. Pardon the pun.” He chuckles.
“You could ask someone there for help. It’s a good way to meet people.”
Unpronounceable strides to the bookcase in my office and pulls out a volume by Ray Bradbury. “I read this last night while you were sleeping, which, I must say, is a waste of time I’m not looking forward to. This fellow was prescient.” He slides the book back. “I’ll let you in on a secret,” he says. “There are only two of us here. My wife and I.”
Unpronounceable already had explained that he’d learned much about human behavior from remote research and, when he finished studying me first hand, he’d take on a human identity. “Given your mission,” I say, “I assumed there were countless other Triplorians here. There’s just two of you?” I raise my eyebrows and turn my palms upward.
“Two per world is all we can spare. We have billions of planets to populate after all. And we’re a patient people. My wife and I will have a large family, fertile and virile. Our DNA, as you call it, is quite dominant so after many generations, when I’m long dead and buried, everyone on earth will be predominantly Triplorian. Understand?” He raises his eyebrows and turns his palms upward.
“You’re being optimistic. I’m afraid we might destroy the place first.” I squeeze my lips together and shake my head.
“Our simulations suggest you folks will turn things around. This could be a lovely place one day. Eventually, with our help, Triploearth can be a paradise.” He squeezes his lips together and shakes his head.
“Uh … That’s for something bad, not … oh, never mind.”
One morning I wake up, and Unpronounceable is gone. Has he moved on to the next phase of his mission? Have new simulations caused it to be abandoned? Or was it all my imagination?
A couple months later, I’m about to place an order in my favorite cafe when the fellow beside me asks for two peppermint chocolate mochas. He gives his name — Adam — and says “My wife and I love these.” Then he squeezes his lips together and shakes his head.
Adam? That inappropriate gesture? Could it be? I watch as he turns toward a table behind us. “Betty, honey,” he says “I forgot my wallet. Can you come pay?”
by submission | May 14, 2022 | Story |
Author: Alfred C. Airone
I awoke in completely unfamiliar surroundings, not remembering having gone to sleep.
There was someone else in the bed with me. I turned and saw her: cropped copper-red hair, perfect face, lips slightly parted, still asleep. I recognized her immediately: Rho Rondella, the fictional owner and captain of the equally fictional interstellar spacecraft Furious.
It worked, I thought, and into my silent jubilation there came a sound: the noise of all the scornful criticisms of my theories crashing to the floor like broken glassware. I had traveled to the future – a future that I had made real. A future that had previously existed only in a science-fiction novel I had read and re-read many times. A future I had created by hard science and uncertain devices coupled with ten thousand acts of choosing. A future plucked from among the Hydra-headed Potential, the not yet real.
I let her sleep. We were obviously already well acquainted.
by submission | May 13, 2022 | Story |
Author: Ruby Zehnder
“We can’t afford a flex pet,” she replied sharply.
Ben said nothing. He knew she was right, but it didn’t matter. This wasn’t about money.
“I’d love for Addie to have an emotional support pet, but–” she stopped speaking and wept. Ben took his young wife in his arms and comforted her. When she finished crying, she gave in. He was right. This wasn’t about money. This was about their dying child.
Ben retrieved the crate from his car and set the box on the floor. He carried Addie into the room and laid her next to it. She curled up in a fetal position, oblivious to the box.
The flex pet made a scratching noise.
“Look, Addie,” Ben gently coaxed. She slowly opened her eyes, and they gleamed with happiness at the sight of her father. Ben opened the box. A clump of fur rolled across the floor and snuggled up to Addie.
The child smiled. She clutched a handful of its soft pink fur, sucked her thumb, and fell asleep.
***
The flex pet chattered as it skimmed across the water’s surface on its tail. Then, it dived underwater and re-emerged, spouting water like a whale. The girls howled with delight when it got them wet.
Their mother sat silently, watching the two.
“Okay, girls, it’s bedtime–,” she announced firmly.
“No, mommy. We want to play,” the two begged.
Their pet fish came to the water’s surface. It blinked its big blue eyes, protected by goggles that looked like magnifying glasses.
“C’mon, girls. Bath time is over,” their mother insisted.
The girls hugged each other, refusing to leave their fun.
Then the fish let out a big fart that bubbled to the water’s surface.
“Eeeew,” the girls complained as they jumped out of the tub into their mother’s towel.
***
Addie threw the flex pet at her father and hit him squarely. She shrieked with delight when he fell over. The flex pet had transformed itself into a stuffed blue elephant, which Addie could swing by its trunk like a club. When he didn’t move, Addie approached him carefully to see if he was hurt. Immediately, he grabbed her and growled loudly while tickling her.
Her older sister joined in the fun and jumped on her dad. Addie’s mother watched the trio quietly, wondering how they could be having fun. Addie was dying. She was only three years old and —
***
“Happy Birthday to you–” the group sang out of tune. There were four candles on the cake, and the sickly child just recovering from another chemo treatment looked on listlessly.
Addie stroked the bright yellow fur of her flex pet’s head. Its’ tail swished back and forth, keeping time to the music like a metronome.
Addie named her flex pet, Snowdrop. She hoped that she would flex into Snowdrop one day because flex pets could change their form and never get sick.
***
Addie’s mother sat quietly in the dark, unable to process the death of her child. Snowdrop settled on her lap and began purring.
“Addie was taken unfairly,” she complained while stroking the cat’s head.
“Jennifer, Addie may be gone, but we will never forget her,” the pet replied and continued its soothing purring.
Jennifer was shocked when Snowdrop spoke. She had always assumed that Snowdrop was designed to provide emotional support for Addie. It had never occurred to her until that moment– that Snowdrop was her flex pet too.
by submission | May 12, 2022 | Story |
Author: Majoki
The last repairman sat in his cramped booth at the nano-mall. He hadn’t had a customer in months. Around him shoppers scurried with their latest purchases micro-manufactured in neighboring stores. The last repairman looked at his hands which should’ve been rougher and dirtier. He shook his head to clear his mind which should’ve been much more focused and engaged. He was here to help and no one needed him.
To pass the time he juggled a few too-shiny tools. Then he noticed a pair of eyes fixed upon his and he dropped the tools in clackering surprise. Rising just above the level of his low countertop was a hungry look, a young face intent upon his own.
“Hullo,” said the last repairman.
“Watcha doing?” asked a child with eager green eyes.
“Passing time,” he answered.
“What for?”
“Until I’m needed.”
“When’ll that be?”
The last repairman shrugged at the child. “Can’t say. I think this world’s too broke to know it needs fixing.”
The child with green eyes nodded. Then nodded again. “You can help me.”
“That so,” the repairman leaned forward. His brow crinkled like a warm blanket.
The child nodded again. “I’d like to fix things.”
“What kind of things?”
“Everything.”
“Everything?” The last repairman whistled and almost smiled. “That’s a tall order. Specially in this world. There’s so many things we’ve left undone. Such a backlog. We don’t fix our old problems; we just create newer and newer ones.”
He looked over the child to the teaming mass of shoppers, store bags full, dreams vacant. “I’m the last of my kind, I think. Probably no help to your generation.”
The child followed the repairman’s gaze. “You can help. That’s easy to see.”
“How you figure?”
“You’ve got the tool.”
The repairman glanced around his little shop. “The tool? Well, I got these here tools. What are you wanting to fix?”
“Everything.”
“Okay. But where do you want to start?”
The child raised finely formed hands to his eager green eyes and with a swift ratcheting motion unscrewed them and set them on the countertop. “I’d like to see with more empathy.”
The last repairman on earth stared into the eager green glow of the precision-crafted orbs at his fingertips. Worlds of possibility. He smiled, then gritted his teeth and rubbed his hands. He finally had work to do.
“We’ll have this done in a jiffy,” he softly told the waiting child as he reached far back into his mind for the Tool.
