by submission | Jan 15, 2022 | Story |
Author: Rachel Handley
“Ok, now, before you see it, just-”
“Just what, Terry?”
“Just stay calm, be calm I mean.”
Terry opened the door and pointed at a pink creature on the lamppost.
“There’s nothing there, where is it?”
“Look up” Terry said, jabbing his finger in the exact same direction as if that was helpful.
Adam moved closer to Terry’s arm, “I see it. You absolute bell end, how did it even escape?”
“Well, the specimen seemed inert, so I just popped to the kitchen for a coffee”
“For a coffee.” Adam was expressionless.
“For a coffee. And before I knew it the bloody thing was crawling up a lamppost.”
“Well. What did you get me here for? Just capture it!”
“That might be a bit tricky” said Terry
“Why?”
“Because, well, um, it’s eaten already.”
“You let it eat. You let it eat?”
“I didn’t let it do a fucking thing, it scampered past me like a shitty little rat ok?”
“OK.”
“So, it’s eaten a few lampposts already.”
Adam looked at the specimen. Its pink gelatinous body, now bloated and round, was starting to curl around the lamppost and nibble the top of it.
“We are fucked” said Terry
“No” said Adam “You’re fucked, I’m off for a pint”
“It’ll eat your pint!”
Adam walked off; the single finger raised on his hand signalled his goodbye.
by submission | Jan 14, 2022 | Story |
Author: Jolie Lindholm
Broque’s earthly ensemble fit like a glove, so comfortable, in fact, that he decided to leave it on for the entirety of our rendezvous. I followed suit. Feeling green and anticipating my first report, I’d already begun peeling at the pale flesh covering my left index finger. I hoped he didn’t notice.
My eyes settled on cheaply painted black bedposts as he spoke, chosen in lieu of real wood.
“Aza? Are you listening?” Broque said.
The aroma of a potted palm tree crept like a vine from behind him. “Yes — yes, I heard you,” I said. “Have you brought it?”
He slid an oversized, tanned appendage into the pocket of his loose powder blue slacks. His greased bangs sprang forward as he leaned in – his right arm outstretched.
There it was. A tiny, unassuming vial that glowed violet from within its glass. It was the Extinction as it became known to us.
Its chill shocked me. I secured it under the elastic of my platinum bouffant wig. I sipped Scotch Whiskey and winced, glad it affected me the same as it would the natives, dulling the blow of what came next.
“You’re on your own now,” Broque said. “I’ve been ordered home. You’re to do this singularly.” The aluminum chair frame bent and creaked under his weight.
“You what?” I said. “This was to be a dual mission. I was promised a partner to help see it through.” The bottom of my khaki bell-bottom caught on the leg of the patio table for a moment.
He squirmed and loosened the galaxy-patterned fat noose around his neck. The white blazer he chose may as well have read “Dr. Broque”, but his bedside manner was terrible. “This wasn’t my choice, but you’ve been prepared for this.”
“I simply refuse to do this alone,” I said.
“Mrs. Beauregard will be the wick,” he said. “Her next office joe will come with a dash of death. Let her gabbing start the spread.”
The scratchy, pink and pottery bedspread was strangely inviting.
“You left for a moment,” he said, tapping his fingers rapidly on the tabletop. “Do you think you can handle this?”
“I—this wasn’t part of the program,” I said. I could feel the words exiting slower than intended. The second glass made things easier to swallow, but I didn’t like my options.
“It’ll have to do. Guard ‘The Extinction’ with your life,” he said. “You have just one chance to lay waste. Think of our kind and what we can build here. Shirley is the perfect host.”
Broque stood abruptly to leave, and I joined him, but my beverage caused the watercolor clouds to shift. He caught my arm as I felt something slippery hit my cheek. We watched in slow motion and gasped in unison as it crashed against the concrete, spilling my one shot at this.
My aqua, saucer-shaped eyes met his, void as night, as I uttered my favorite human expletive, “fuck!”
The sun instantly went out. An alarm blared. My skipping heart was dunked in bile.
“Aza, next time make sure the elastic is tight enough to hold,” Xam said, reduced to a brassy voice in my earpiece. “We may need a smaller wig for that tiny head of yours. Solid, Broque, but more confidence for the next one. There won’t be second chances for the real thing.”
I tore the skin from my natural form and yanked the itchy locks, tossing them aside. I downed the rest of the foreign amber liquid, stars circling, hoping it would help me dream. Tomorrow’s dry run would have to be just that.
by submission | Jan 13, 2022 | Story |
Author: Brooks C. Mendell
Every few days, I tote a pail of apple cores, carrot peels and coffee grinds to the steaming compost bin at the far end of our grassless backyard. The chore takes twelve minutes roundtrip.
“That’s a minor inconvenience in the name of sustainability,” I said, delegating this task to my son. “And it will count towards your allowance.”
“Deal,” said Daniel, staring out the window at the darkening sky.
Minutes later, four inches of rain muddied our yard. To save Daniel from wading to the bin, Mom tossed the rotten cabbage from our fridge into the bushes alongside the garage.
I heard her talking to Daniel in the kitchen. “Your Dad isn’t going to like this,” she said. “If he sees it.”
The aliens living in the back of the fridge didn’t like it either. Ever since we picked up the compost bin at a yard sale, we halved the veggies lost to neglect by cycling out old produce. This kept the fridge from smelling like a rent-by-the-week kitchenette. It also cut the food supply to the Meagerbytes thriving in the shadows.
“Eh, Mischa, the mother took your favorites.”
“Aye, Moska, perhaps it’s time we move to the suburbs.”
“Yes.” Pause. “How do we get there?”
“The boy will take us.”
#
“Look, I don’t pay your allowance so Mom can throw old greens in the yard. Will you please put these in with everything else and haul it to the compost bin like we agreed?”
“Sure thing, Dad,” said Daniel, looking down into the pail. He winked at Mischa and Moska before dropping the rotten cabbage between them and carrying out the moveable feast.
by submission | Jan 12, 2022 | Story |
Author: Mark Renney
Dean was amazed that he had managed to hold off for so long. He had decided to languish with the minority, but not because he was in any way pious or had some overly zealous agenda. Dean was a user, had been for all of his adult life, for as long – no actually, it was for longer, than he could recollect.
He remembered the illegal and addictive substances and had been a part of that world. It was a hard place and survival was a constant struggle. It was a shady and murky world and Dean did not want to go back.
For him the transition, like of most of his generation, was effortless and there had been no withdrawal. At first he had to buy the State sponsored substances but once he was working and earning enough they became part of the package and substances were simply something to which he was entitled. That gut-wrenching pain, the all consuming need, quickly became a part of his past and Dean was thankful and appreciative.
But the Grade was different and although not sponsored by the State it was not illegal. Almost everyone was using it and it was accepted. There was no stigma attached to it and no risks involved. It was just adding another pill to the State sponsored cocktail.
Perhaps Dean had held off for so long because to begin buying again felt to him like a step back toward the dark world from which he had managed to escape.
Dean was in the Works canteen, his colleague sitting directly opposite stretched out his hand and nestled in the centre of his palm were two pills.
‘Go on,’ his friend urged, ‘take one, what have you got to lose?’
Dean reached out and snatched one of the pills almost without thinking. He knew of course that it was the Grade. There wasn’t anything else it could be, that a friend could hold out in his hand and proffer.
‘Go on,’ his friend repeated. ‘Try it, you won’t regret it.’ Dean popped the pill into his mouth and swallowed.
But he did regret it, instantly. And throughout the day he became increasingly more anxious about how the Grade would affect him, what would he feel? Would it be something new? Different? Or would it be something old that he had forgotten?
Dean thought about the life he had managed to carve out for himself. The tiniest of slices in the largest of pies and for so long he had felt safe and secure. And then the Grade began to take effect and it did feel like something new and he felt different and he began to forget.
by Hari Navarro | Jan 11, 2022 | Story |
Author: Hari Navarro
I’d ask you to look at me, but I know now that you can not.
Will not.
How I too shielded my eyes from you.
King.
No, Devil — wrought within the arching serpents of molten plasma that leap and dive upon your very own crackling sphere of fire in the vast far flung out there nothing.
How special I thought you were.
How special you thought you were.
You’re gone but still your solar dynasty and its ancient moribund echo mists over the hurt that you layered upon my mortal ray-licked flesh.
But know this —
The flames eat and scratch at you far more than they ever did me. I hear your snigger, but it is true.
Listen, just listen.
I did love you so.
Can you see me?
Can you see through the broken veil of my hymen submission into the atrium of my likewise ruined core?
You came down. Stepped off of the stars and your feet gently swelled as they tasted of our earth.
You found me and you played me. You touched me and your fingertips drew back as if you would break me.
I thought that was affection but it was fear — fear of damaging a favoured chattel.
I had never known what it was that I wanted.
I had never thought of myself as weak. You gave me that.
You gave me all of that nothing that.
But now you have gone and my mind swirls around the cartographers lines and it inches up any and all of the mountains that lay ahead.
You gave me something. Or, I took it at least… I do not fucking know.
I am not afraid.
I can traverse any height as I know all peaks eventually fall and bend down unto the sea.
Right?
I sense you now only in the glare of the midday heat. But like the flower of the sun you shy away as I try to speak.
To reason.
To something.
As you spread and glint upon the sea I look at the cursive waves and their foam tongues at the holes in my body. I so wish I was fresh as flowers given upon death — before they fade to pulp.
I did not ask for this.
This alien thing you gave. This thing that befriended me.
Coddled me.
Raped me.
You came into my bed. Like an uninvited God into a married woman’s womb and you took that which was never once offered.
I tried to resist.
I did.
I hit you with fists bound and laced with glass and your laughter it shattered in my head.
I’ve wished for this time. This time when you have left this place and I only sometimes hear whispers of the things that you did.
And, so I chew on the gristle of your residual fear. I tell myself you are only now in my head and I think I am right.
I have you caged and I am the owner of the key.
Am I stronger than you?
Will you ever even remember me? Will you remember the oh so trivial mistake you made?
You are a King, beneath a crown spiked in the most fathomless blades of energy and I am but a girl alone on a gently turning wheel — talk to me.
You are blind.
You cannot see what you have done. Your violations are but a creaking joint in your neck.
I feel you are a Viking craft set adrift — full of smouldering mythology but slave only to the push and pull of the tides.
Answerable to nothing. No one.
I have not a single further ounce of love for you. The fact that I ever did leaves tar on my lips.
I wish I was like you and could flare through clouds but all I see is ever-freezing waterfalls.
I feel you still as you rope my legs and pull me off of the road. The road that leads to the beach with the bridge and the dunes with the bones and the bunker.
I am not stronger than you. I am not.
But I am better.
by Julian Miles | Jan 10, 2022 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“We’re leaving Earth.”
I smile at the pale pink amoeboid that’s maintaining a human shape out of respect, and wearing clothes out of courtesy.
“Why are you doing that, Dorn?”
“The Council of Futures has decided we should seek a new species to mentor.”
“Not some of the pre-sentients here?”
“The Council of Futures has also decided we should absent ourselves from this planet.”
“Why is that?”
“When we first came to these lands, we were drawn by the optimism of those upon this world. So many dreams of hope and justice. A global will to do better than before.”
“What changed?”
“Nothing.”
I put my coffee down and regard Dorn where I consider ‘his’ eyes to be.
“You’re going to have to explain a little more, my friend.”
“After we made contact, we agreed with various ruling factions that our presence would remain anonymous. Our true purpose was never disclosed. We presented ourselves as refugees, and traded technology for a place to stay. Once that was secured, we started the real mission. For all our care, some – like you – became aware of our abilities.”
They’re dream technicians: working to change societies for the better. I’d thought myself unique in knowing that.
“I’m guessing some who found out did something unwelcome?”
“More unexpected than unwelcome. So much so, we have spent decades trying to understand and adjust. Yesterday, the Council of Futures admitted defeat.”
“What was it?”
“Soon after our abilities became known, three males from differing ruling factions approached us secretly. All three had the same idea: they agreed that societies such as yours, with the power to destroy or otherwise ruin themselves, needed help to make it past primitive urges. Each of them suggested that if we adjusted the dreams of the populace to match their particular beliefs, we would achieve our goal, because their way was the best way for everybody.”
That I can almost see: fervent men in expensive suits trying to harness an unchallengeable advantage.
“What did you do?”
“We asked for time to consider, then set our finest Dreamweavers to refining the dreams of those three men, so they would come to understand the underlying tyranny of their chosen ways.”
“How did that turn out?”
“Each faction then sent a female. She broached the same topic, but with more fervour. One of them clearly did so out of an underlying fear. The other two were as committed as their male counterparts.”
“So you modified their dreams too?”
“And those of their acquaintances. We worked our way through entire political groups.”
“To no effect?”
“To limited effect. However, what we noticed more was the clear division between what a person believed, and what they did to further their position within the group they clove to. A few changed allegiance, but not one tried to change the groups. Self-interest increasingly overrode all considerations of justice, mercy, compassion or responsibility. No matter how often we tried, the lust for power and advantage, coupled with an abject fear of the unknown, represented mainly by change, and often portrayed as some sort of evil alternative, prevented any real progress.”
I smile.
“I believe we term it ‘better the devil you know’.”
Dorn approximates a nod.
“That is the term we consider to be a distillation of the traumatic bonds that enslave you in so many ways.”
“What now, my friend?”
“We will leave you to those ‘devils’. We cannot help if you will not help yourselves.”
I nod.
“A bitter truth. Farewell.”
Clothes fall to the floor as my alien friend fades from view.
