by submission | Jun 21, 2025 | Story |
Author: Claire Robertson
Those four great comets pull white scars through the sky. Fans of fire expand over our heads, and you still can’t bear to look at me despite how I ask you to. I want the last thing I see to be something familiar.
The half-eaten chocolate cake between us will have to be enough.
I had thought these last dozen minutes would be drawn out in silence, to make them last, until you speak.
“So what comes next?”
I can’t answer you. I still crave the quiet, but you’ve already broken that… this. I can’t fix it. Still, I tried.
by submission | Jun 20, 2025 | Story |
Author: David C. Nutt
Gramps started slipping after his 105th birthday. Nothing dramatic, just forgetting a story or two, repeating a conversation from the hour before, stuff like that.
Our family and about 40 others went to the surgical center for the informational briefings about a revolutionary AI “personality bridge” implant. There was a slick corporate infomercial and then a panel discussion of local residents who had the implant. The questions came fast and furious and the panel discussion was impressive. Corny jokes, funny stories, and touching testimonials. The entire family left the presentation reassured that this was the best way to go.
All except me.
Despite my siblings and parents’ eagerness to get the process started, I wasn’t sold. I didn’t figure out what was bothering me until we were on the way home. Gramps was re-telling the story he told a few hours ago, the one where as a kid he tried to feed the mushrooms he picked off his pizza to his dog Moxie.
And then it hit me. The panel. Same rhythms of speech, slightly different cadence. Same metaphors dumped into different stories. Same facial expressions, very similar laughs. Men the slapped the table, the women did golf claps.
My family did not want to believe me. He had the surgery.
The next day he was up and about. He talked with me and it was just like the old days. Once and while I’d see him twitch and then he’d tell a story or a fable, which was weird because he never told fables before. I was just about to let this all slide, thinking maybe I was just being paranoid. Until my walk home from work. I cut through the park. I saw a little boy about four years old on his grandmothers lap. It was adorable, then chilling. She told him the exact same fable as gramps told me the day before right down to the pacing and pauses for breaths. The kid babbled some non-sequitur as four year olds will do. His grandma winced and said “Sonny, now you’re just being silly.”
Later that evening I told the family what I saw. My brother turned to gramps and said “Purple octopus snap cracker lemonade?”
He responded with “Sonny, now you’re just being silly.”
Last week out of the blue gramps said he wanted to go do Tai Chi in the park. When we got there, a group of seniors with headphones on was already into their forms. The assistant instructor handed gramps a set of headphones and me a brochure. The Tai Chi class? Sponsored by the implant company. When I looked up, gramps was “parting the wild horse’s mane” as if he’d been doing so his whole life.
When we got home gramps was more like his old self again…no fables, no new catch phrases and the stories were his alone.
I used to think gramps might be in there somewhere but for the most part it’s just the AI making him generate content, filling in the blanks. As long as he gets his “upgrade” during Tai Chi, he’s seems just like the gramps I’ve always known.
But lately I’ve realized deep in my heart I know gramps is truly gone. Everything he was is formatted and the algorithms just get better at being a reasonable facsimile of him. I sit with him outside on nice days. We drink sweet tea or cocoa depending on the weather. Last week out of the blue I asked him point blank: “Hey gramps, you in there?” His reply?
“Lights on, nobody home.”
by submission | Jun 19, 2025 | Story |
Author: Angela Hawn
“Ready to sing for your supper?” The head honcho in the antique army helmet flashes a toothy smile at our little group before acknowledging the wider audience. Applause ensues.
“Of course”, I say, channeling my storytelling grandmother whose entertaining melodrama once served multiple purposes: convincing me to sleep, to eat my vegetables, as a distraction from the sorry universe around us falling to pieces.
Helmet Head looks slightly rabid, a guy spoiling for a fight, clearly interested in wringing out the maximum without yielding much in return, someone who might view the spilling of blood not his own as fun.
“I understand you’re from the BH.77 system.”
Helmet’s eyes light up. I’ve hit the sweet spot. He’s perhaps a traveler himself, though likely a reluctant one. BH.77 has been at war for years; most residents with means fled long ago, leaving only the less fortunate to suffer yet another tyrant foolishly installed as leader.
“You’ve been?” He purrs.
“Just the Lypides sector, by moon 11.” Confidence in information secured via Helmet-hating spies blooms. I’m sure I’ve just described his old neighborhood.
Eyes widening with shock and pleasure, the sociopathic sheen dims a little. Is Helmet simply some ordinary Joe gone round the bend, courtesy of years spent in a war zone? Or perhaps even sociopaths need to hear of hearth and home occasionally.
“In fact, I’ve got a message from a Merdecia,” I continue, gently dropping the name of Helmet’s supposed soul mate into the mix, steadfastly ignoring the second lieutenant’s pet rat, scampering in stage left, up Helmet’s pant leg, straight onto his jacket lapel. Incredible how twinned microchips inserted in both the master’s and rat’s brains make these tricks routine. I have personally witnessed this rat steer a ship right through a meteor field, though I assume, of course, that the lieutenant was doing the bulk of the critical thinking.
Gripping Helmet’s collar daintily within tiny paws, the rat proceeds to nibble at the cord around his neck. So gentle, barely a tickle, safely hidden from the crowd. The goal: Helmet’s all-access keycard. My sole job: distraction, a task seized with a passion my story-telling grandmother would applaud.
“Merdecia sends her love, and naturally… her regrets.”
Helmet’s narrow, wolfish face above the rat’s urgent efforts pales. I smile sympathetically, rubbing my empty belly before glancing sorrowfully downwards.
“But I’m feeling faint with hunger, friend, could we not eat while I tell you more?”
One of the crew members collapses, swooning dramatically as per the previously discussed choreography, clutching my sleeve as he plummets. The woman on the other side catches him and throws him over her shoulder in an old-fashioned fireman’s carry, sprinting for the door behind us. This one needs a bed more than a dinner table, she shouts to the gaping crowd, and they can only nod and smile, paralyzed by the sight of their leader nonplussed.
With the prize gripped tightly between strong little jaws, the rat has already danced ahead. We need only surge through the dining hall entrance backward en masse, like the singular pod we’ve become, while Helmet remains lost, transfixed by memories of his beloved Merdecia.
The solitary cyborg among us, an obliging chap, will sacrifice an arm to jam the doors, knowing an engineer onboard will make him another from scrap collected along the way. As one who talks with his hands when he’s got both, he might one day wave them about as we relish in this new narrative, or even retrieve our latest storied escape to save us all again, should we encounter another entertainment-seeking Helmet Head, somewhere down the road.
by submission | Jun 18, 2025 | Story |
Author: Sasha Kasper
As the blaring siren assaults my eardrums, it becomes increasingly harder to deny my rapid descent. I float directionless through the cockpit. Up, down, left, right, have lost all meaning. The notion of gravity seems to me a cruel joke, of which the punchline will be my demise.
The tempered glass of the porthole window separates me from certain death by either asphyxiation or incineration. It also allows me to see the beautiful picture I am painting in the sky with my last moments.
Streaks of scarlet lick the side of the ship, fluttering like ribbons as I fall further into the atmosphere. The hull bends and breaks at odd angles, creating a cutting-edge abstract sculpture. The ephemeral beauty is tantalizing, yet does nothing to stop my transition from the inky blackness of space towards unforgiving terra firma.
When I was a boy, I dreamed of becoming an astronaut. My father constructed a rocket of cardboard boxes and sheet metal in the backyard, and every day held a new planet to discover. Nestled under the comforting shade of our weeping willow tree, I could go to Mars, Venus or Jupiter, and still be back in time for dinner.
In my teenage years we packed up and moved to a more urban environment. Our house was sold to an expanding corporation and we took the profits without looking back. The fates of my rocket and willow tree are unclear, but a grainy recollection of the solace they provided me is permanently fixed in my mind.
The siren suddenly ceases as the power finally gives out. I don’t know which was worse, the urgency of the alert or the deadly silence it’s been replaced by. At least with a siren one feels spurred into action, that there must be something that can be done to prevent disaster. Silence is far less forgiving. All that is left to do is accept fate, or reject it right to the explosive end. I choose to enjoy the ride rather than fight it. It’s a beautiful way down to the planet I love.
Birds flutter and entwine as they hop from branch to branch on a warm summer day. Fountains spray their refreshing mist, filling a basin for children to race their balsam sailboats in. Elderly couples recline with visors, basking in the sunlight and savoring their last stage of life. I intend to do just the same.
If any of them chance to look to the stars, they’ll see me writing my final poem across the heavens.
Myself, I’ve grown tired of the stars. I look down, through the porthole, to the luscious planet coming up to embrace me in her arms. I see a bed of wheatgrass flowing wistfully in a vibrant field, inviting me to take my final slumber among its proud stalks.
The fire begins to breach the hull. I feel myself fading, the smoke mounting to my head. Just before I lose consciousness I could swear that I spy scrap metal glinting from a clearing in the field. My eyelids droop woozily, and in my last moment of clarity I see the weeping willow tree majestically swaying, using its tendrils to guard the little tin rocketeer throughout his adventures through the cosmos.
by submission | Jun 17, 2025 | Story |
Author: Majoki
You’re in your pod and Qwee hides your stylus as a joke. You smack Qwee because there is no other response. Qwee loves it and moves on to hide another podmate’s stylus while you flag the incident with the podmaster. Just another day in the pod.
While swooshing home in the late diurnal warmth, Calpra convinces you to take a detour to the muffitti that’s just opened and you enjoy a very chill taeypop. So sweet, so lovely. You and Calpra sit under the towering susumos, their fragrance so tantalizing you want to climb one and take a bite. You tell Calpra that and you zozz together so hard that half your taeypop falls on the ground and a baby kekaltok darts out from the ori and tries to scoop it up with six wobbly limbs.
You and Calpra zozz harder and you want this time to never end. But the redness is deepening and you have podwork to complete. You nuzzle a goodbye to Calpra and swoosh home.
At mealtime, you want to tell your tssiss about your day, but their talk is all about the Yyesghi. You are tired of all their hushed and serious and anxious talk about the Yyesghi. You think Qwee is more troublesome than the Yyesghi will ever be to you, so you go off to finish your podwork.
Much later, as you are just entering fugue, your tssiss check on you. They haven’t checked on you in a long time. You think it is strange, yet endearing.
Deep in fugue, you experience secondsight. It is unsettling. Qwee is smoldering. Calpra is screaming. Your tssiss are fleeing from an inferno raging in the susumos. It is mayhem. Until you realize, it is the Yyesghi. They are burning everything with their flashers.
Kekaltoks flushed from the ori are being flattened by the invading Yyesghi, though a baby kelkatok just like the one that grabbed your fallen taeypop is not crushed. A Ysesghi picks up the trembling kelkatok and seems to offer it to you. This frightens you more than anything. Still, you take the little creature.
The Yyesghi soldier looks to you and then the kekaltok. You know what the Yesghi wants you to do. You know what is coming. Secondsight is not the future, it is not written. But this is. You clutch the kekaltok harder and harder and harder until the grim understanding of what war expects of you.
Secondsight leaves you. There is a terrible stillness. The moment before this day begins and peace ends.
by Julian Miles | Jun 16, 2025 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The fizzing sound stops as the skies turn from vibrant blue to dull purple. A golden sun sinks from view on the horizon.
“The sunset always takes my breath away.”
To be correct, the lack of heat excitation causes the Moatalbana moss to stop emitting oxygen. But the play on words is amusing.
Hanna punches my shoulder, then hands me a breather.
“Good joke. Made me smile.”
“Thanks.”
I pull the straps into place and take that first wonderful hit of full-oxy air. Every night it’s the same. Says a lot about the excitement levels of my days, but I’m here to observe, not become a viral sensation.
Settling next to me, Hanna points to the thin yellow line that’s appeared along the horizon line with the departure of the sun.
“Okay, describe that to me.”
I think I have the words.
“Algae growing on mats of floating seaweed. It fluoresces briefly with the departure of the sun. There’s a study underway to find if it emits or attracts anything.”
We never found that out, either.
“How’s the study going?”
I glance sideways and grin.
“Not thrilling.”
She chuckles briefly, then sighs.
“Story of this planet.”
Ontabalmy is a tired world. A few million years older than Earth, it used to host an advanced technological culture, thousands of years ago. They even looked like humans: news that stunned everyone across human-inhabited space. Which isn’t a big area, to be fair. Three planets, four if Ontabalmy is approved for colonisation.
“It’s a truth. This place is peaceful and benign.”
“Apart from humans being unable to breath after dark?”
“Largely benign, then. Certainly better than Mars. Better sunsets, too.”
She twists to look at me in surprise.
“How do you know that?.”
I smile. I don’t, but –
“An interstellar being of mystery, me.”
I see the edges of teeth in the wide grin behind her faceplate. Her eyes flash with amusement.
“You’re too charming to be real. Explorers are independent types. Rough and ready. Direct and devoid of whimsy.”
“There’s nothing that indicates we can’t also be well mannered.”
There’s a pause. Her expression turns thoughtful.
“True, but being convivial could encourage proximity. We’re still unclear on deeper social mores and mating behaviours.”
I rest a hand on her shoulder.
“That’s our mistake. They’re not all well-balanced, socially adept gregarians. Most of them are anxious, awkward, and stressed. They’re all making it up as they go along, trying to compensate for lives lived in virtual isolation due to their society’s dependence on digital interaction. If we become smooth-talking, socially competent caricatures, we’ll stand out more, not less. Clumsy and unsure, hesitant and slow to trust. That’s the way we need to be.”
She leans in until her mask rests against mine.
“You mean we’re alright as we are?”
I’d nod, but that would break the moment.
“We are. We’re humans, now.”
She sighs.
“Not the last of the Ontabalmins.”
I pause, then laugh softly.
“There’s your proof. You said ‘Ontabalmins’, not ‘Corodatillu’.”
She leans back.
“Is this really it? After four thousand years, we’re awake?”
“Briefly. It’s not like we can do anything except live a while, give a little, then die out. The chamber survival rate was worse than predicted.”
Hanna takes my hand.
“Two out of twenty thousand pairs? I’d say that’s a catastrophe that claimed its creators, not ‘worse than predicted’.” She stops, then smiles. “But… A second life where we know each other from the beginning. I’ll take it, no matter how short.”
I place my other hand over hers.
“Let’s live. Anything else is a bonus.”
