by submission | Dec 23, 2025 | Story |
Author: Majoki
Well into the neopandemic I noticed the countdown. Inside my left eyelid.
A faint image, like a digital timer flickering. I couldn’t make out distinct digits in the rolling blur of numbers so there was no real way of knowing if it was counting up or down.
But my gut knew. Immediately. Things were headed down.
It was impossible to say at what number the countdown had started. No way of knowing when it would end. But the numbers kept spinning. Floating somewhere in my left eye.
A ghost in the machine. In my mind.
That’s not something you tell anyone. Especially when folks are so uptight already. Besides, everyone was counting the days, hours, minutes, seconds until life as we knew it could resume.
Which is bogus. Life as we knew it. That’s gone. You can’t unknow a pandemic. Can’t unknow how fast everything changes.
Maybe that’s what I’m experiencing when I close my left eye. Maybe my internal clock has gone haywire. Or maybe I’m beginning to see what was always out there: the time left.
To me. To us. To the notion of humanity. To the notion of time.
When the neopandemic shut us in our homes again, when its covidian rhythms disrupted our circadian ones, the thought of going off-clock, off calendar, messed with me. Totally disoriented my days.
Then it didn’t. I reoriented. That’s when I confronted the construct we’d lived with long before the virus and all its variants made us vulnerable to our very primitive concept of being.
Past. Present. Future. These are merely conventions humans adopted long, long ago to dodge a dire truth. We’re time bound. Shackled by yesterday, today, tomorrow. Our temporal framework is not an existential cornerstone, it is a cage.
We’ve become perilously time bound.
And we’re all counting down.
I don’t think that’s a startling or brave realization. We’re all on the clock. That’s not a surprise. What spooked me was when the numbers on my left eyelid became sharper, and I could plainly see the countdown clock was actually counting up.
So when does counting up equal counting down?
Think zero. Zero us.
The count under my left eyelid was in sync with the number of worldwide neopandemic deaths. And the daily numbers were spinning faster and faster, ripping upwards.
Zero us.
It made me blink.
by Julian Miles | Dec 22, 2025 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Jingle bells my ass. Actually, if I’d had one, the ex-wife probably would have. Covered it’s harness in fairy lights, too. She loved sparkly tat. Guess that’s why she hooked up with the bright-eyed pretty boy I used to be. Then she got pregnant and we both got ugly.
I raise a dirty glass.
“Cheers, Madeline, wherever the fuck you are.”
Finishing that one off, I top up again.
Actually, what we made was two separate lives joined at the kids. They noticed, we didn’t. Kept on living a lie that hurt us all. Changed us, too. I’d like to say I got stronger. What I actually got was meaner and drunker.
Timing. Another one down.
Refill!
Right. Maudlin reflections on Christmas week: repeats, of course. Isn’t that what maudlin is all about? Circling a drain you never quite go down, but can’t pull away from.
Where was I? Oh yes. Kids: Alison, Rebecca, Jason, and Kyle. Would have been more, but we finally realised fucking wasn’t a solution to the problem that outside of sex, we didn’t like each other.
Four new lives. Kyle was the first. Grew into a teenage charmer with no morals. Nothing slowed him down. Not me, not Madeline, not his siblings or even his girl. Who was she? Lilly. That’s her. Gentle. Sweet. Haven’t seen her since his funeral. Pretty sure it was her family that did him for stealing twenty kilos of marching powder, but past is past and she seemed to really care.
Jason. The boy. Gay and changed my mind about all of that. Duncan, his fella, is a bouncer. I haven’t seen either of them since her funeral…
Her. Rebecca. Happily studying for grade seven music while cancer ate her guts. Everybody found out too late. Saddest funeral I’ve ever been to. Nobody was ready. Fucking awful.
Alison. Well, now. Back to yesterday evening. Just let me down this…
And top up.
She’s in hospital. A drunk put here there: me. I spun the motor off a country lane. She was in the back, her fella next to me. When I saw the state of her, I lost it. Put him in the driver’s seat, set it up proper, then got the fuck out of there. Couldn’t get locked up, she’d need me.
Coppers woke me this morning to say she’d been in an accident.
“Why do I try, yet always do so bad?”
Truth?
“Because it’s always about me.”
And that’s usually… Wrong.
“What a fucking time to realise. Too fucking late, again.”
“That’s my cue, if ever I heard one.”
Why is it bright in here?
“Did you know you’ve got wings on your back, miss?”
“That’s because I’m an angel, you sad case.”
“Oh, that’s alright, then. Come to smite me, have you?”
“She doesn’t smite people at this time of year. Tries to lead by example. That’s why I’m here.”
“I’m drunk, shiny miss. You’ll have to explain it slow.”
“Think of me as a gift for Alison. She survives. You own up, then get yourself straight. She eventually gets a real father – or as close as you can get.”
Harsh… Truth.
“What if I fail?”
“Smite.”
Oh.
“This is a one-time deal, Mark. Fuck it up and she’ll smite you flat like any other petty, selfish, irredeemable drunkard.”
I hear that.
“Should you be swearing?”
“I speak all tongues. Fuck translates well. Rarely gets misinterpreted.”
True enough.
“Okay. Please save my kid.”
“Shall do. Merry Christmas, Mark.”
I’m sober.
She’s gone.
I get up slowly, then empty glass and bottle into the sink.
“Fuck.”
by Alastair Millar | Dec 21, 2025 | Story |
Author: Alastair Millar
Grandpa Jack had a generous ‘meritorious service’ pension from his time in the Terran Space Force, but he never talked about his time in uniform, or shared war stories. “I’d rather not,” he’d say diffidently, or, if pressed, “Just not much to tell, really”. Everyone around him quietly assumed that his off-world deployments has been in logistics or some other non-combat role, and that he was just shy about admitting it; eventually, they stopped asking. Still, the money had been useful, and shrewdly invested over the years, so every winter he’d take some of the profits and put them towards a Yuletide excursion to Anchorpoint Station, the O’Neill habitat at L4. “A bit of spacefaring for old times’ sake,” he’d say.
The year things changed, he and Nana Martha had been joined by their second son, his wife, and their youngling, Jimmy, who like most four-year olds was a whirlwind of chaos and occasional destruction. He exhausted and infuriated his parents and grandmother in equal measure, but seemed to hold Jack in awe – with the result that Grandpa usually ended up with babysitting duty. That Tuesday was no different: the others having gone off to enjoy some low-gravity skiing, the oldest and youngest members of the family were supposedly looking for last-minute Christmas presents, but were actually just wandering through Central Mall in Cylinder One. Male bonding was in progress.
That was when it happened. As they rounded a corner onto the main atrium, Jimmy screamed “space elves!”, and the old reflexes took over; Jack dropped, dragging the boy to the ground. How had those damned pointy-eared humanoids reached Sol? They’d been whipped proper at Barnard’s Star: the Habitats should all be safe! His hand went to his waistband for his blaster, and he realised it wasn’t there. Godsdammit! He needed backup! He reached for his commbox, and that wasn’t there either! But before he could panic, he realised something wasn’t right… and came back to himself. Around them, people were staring and whispering. A couple of security guards were pushing through the gathering crowd. Of course, the war had ended decades ago. He got up slowly and sheepishly; Jimmy wriggled away, and rushed over to the bright lights of Solar Santa’s Galactic Grotto…
Later, there were questions, of course. Habitat Social Services had wanted a long chat, a local journalist thought he could find a human interest angle, and the rest of the family had been rounded up and brought in “to make sure the child was safe”. Bit by bit, the story came out. About how Jack had been a major in the Stellar Rangers, and fought in the Ophiuchus Campaign – a protracted, bloody struggle infamous for massacres and war crimes on both sides.
“What was left of us, they brought back after the Enaiposha Incident.” he said, then sighed when the others looked blank. “The Offies poisoned the planet’s atmosphere; tens of thousands of us started spilling our guts. We were easy prey for their assault teams.” It had taken three brutal weeks for relief forces to arrive; twenty one days of running battles, desperate gambles, heroic last stands, and blood, blood and death, everywhere. “When we came home, the press ignored us. I thought if I kept quiet, buried it deep, I could forget, and the nightmares would stop. Eventually they did.” Then came the parts they knew: he’d met a girl, got married, picked up the pieces and carried on… built a life, and a mostly happy one at that. But some things, it seemed, even time and the holidays couldn’t erase.
by submission | Dec 20, 2025 | Story |
Author: Matthew Luscher
It began to pour as the bus pulled in. The driver shot me a puzzled look as I stepped off and made a gesture clearly hinting for me to get back onboard.
I ignored him.
It had been half a mornings journey down bumpy country roads, following the recommendation of a tattered old guide book I had bought a few days ago at a second hand shop.
I had flicked through the pages and landed on a village called Ullaloch in the Scottish highlands. It wasn’t its Jacobean hotel or twice a day buses that interested me, but a small note in strange handwriting next to the cheery description:
It is a great place for a short rest.
I had to have a look.
As the bus slid away I started down a narrow country lane towards the village. Not long after I spotted an old and large red brick building flanked by turrets, that must be the hotel. I quickened my pace and as I rounded the corner the rest of the village came into view.
Or what should have been the village.
Instead beyond the edge of the hotel the road ended right at the foot of a massive fortified concrete wall. There was no entrance.
The place seemed desolate, I couldn’t see a single person. I stared at my travel guide and looked again, no, this was it.
Intrigued, I went up to the hotel. The wallpaper was moulded and most of the windows were smashed. A worn noticeboard in the corner had a few leaflets pinned to it. Most were too faded to be legible but one said “Save our Ullaloch from Experiment No. 235824” and another “Community Giveaway: Travel Books!”.
As I was reading the board I felt a sudden cold draft on my neck. I thought it was the wind from the broken windows.
Then the coldness began to spread to my shoulders and back.
That was weird.
Suddenly I started to stumble, my vision swimming, I tried to grasp a nearby chair but my arms were frozen.
I was falling.
But I didn’t get as far as the floor.
Instead I felt hands around my shoulders. A silhouette appeared in front of me.
“Another tourist?”
“Looks like it, he’s got that book, same one as they all have”.
“Who are you?” I tried to ask, but it was no good, I was slipping away.
“Take him… main road… book…”
Thoughts are blurring… are those… ruins of cottages… Ullaloch…? Is that a huge pile… of… of travel guides?!
…
Honk.
Honk.
What is that sound? I want to sleep…
Honk.
HONK.
No, it won’t stop. Fine, fine.
I open my eyes.
The light is blinding. I see… a shape of a bus? An impatient looking driver was blasting the horn for all it was worth.
“Wake up! I won’t be driving back around here till morning”.
I stumble onboard, struggling with my pockets before I find my wallet and pay for a ticket.
The bus doors shut with a hiss and then with a rumble we began to move off.
How did I get here? It’s already evening. I can’t understand what happened. Did I fall asleep when waiting for the bus?
I do feel rested.
Wait a minute. Where is my guide book? It’s not in my pocket, I must have dropped it when rushing to get onboard.
Oh well.
It wasn’t that useful anyway.
by submission | Dec 19, 2025 | Story |
Author: James C. Clar
“Europe during the plague is too tame for you?” The Extreme Time-Travel agent could barely conceal his surprise. His quartz desk glowed faintly under his hands. “You realize that package includes rats, mass hysteria, and the very real possibility of dying in a ditch.”
Mr. Donovan smiled in that effortless way only the very rich could. “We’ve done all that,” he said. “The Cretaceous extinction; the fireball was spectacular but the dust was dreadful. The eruption of Vesuvius.” He gazed lovingly at his wife. “You enjoyed Pompeii, didn’t you, darling?”
Mrs. Donovan nodded fondly. “The ash in the sky at sunset rendered the colors exquisite.”
The agent blinked once. “I see. So, I take it you’re looking for something… more challenging?”
“Exactly,” said Mr. Donovan. “We want something truly daring. Something that not only feels dangerous but is dangerous. You only live once, after all.”
The agent hesitated, scrolling through the glowing catalog projected on his desktop. “Let’s see. How about the sack of Rome or the siege of Jerusalem? I can also tell you that the Mongol Invasions always garner rave reviews. I see here that there is still space for the French Revolution as well. The mobs add just the right level of unpredictability and the killing was quite indiscriminate.”
Mrs. Donovan shook her head. “Too historical, too trite. We’re aiming for something, how say I say it … something more immersive, more original.”
“I say again,” Mr. Donovan added with just a trace of frustration, “we want the danger to be real.”
“Ah.” The agent’s expression softened into something between admiration and disbelief. He scrolled for a minute or two more.
“I may have just the thing,” he said, looking up from his desk. “It’s a period of global instability, economic collapse, environmental failure and utter political chaos. You’ll be witnessing a civilization devouring itself in broad daylight, as it were.”
“That’s it!” the Donovan’s exclaimed together.
The agent gave a slow, knowing nod. “Very few request this era. I must warn you, it’s uncomfortable. It was a time of primitive yet expensive medicine, state-controlled media feeding rampant paranoia and conspiratorial thinking.”
“That sounds marvelous,” Mrs. Donovan said. “Just the sort of authenticity we’re after.”
“Indeed.” The agent tapped a few commands, and two shimmering tickets materialized above the desk. “You will need to sign expanded waivers. We can’t guarantee your safety or, for that matter, your return.”
“Perfect,” said Mr. Donovan, scrawling his name with the flourish of someone who’d never known genuine risk.
The agent studied the couple one last time: immaculate, eager, gleaming with the privilege of a century that had forgotten fear.
“Departure is in ten minutes,” he said smoothly. “The coordinates are pre-set.”
The Donovans stood, radiant with anticipation. “At last,” Mrs. Donovan breathed. “Something truly barbaric.”
The agent inclined his head. “Precisely so.”
The teleportation field hummed slowly to life, surrounding the couple in silver light as they prepared themselves. Finally, their outlines shimmered – and then, they were gone.
The agent exhaled, filing their itinerary with a flick of his hand. “Two guests,” he dictated, “Premium Historical Immersion. Destination: high-risk era marked by unrest, predatory capitalism, and moral decay.”
He paused, reading the glowing timestamp on the screen. His lips twitched into the faintest smile. Two more satisfied customers, another job well done.
“Departure … and arrival … confirmed,” he intoned softly to himself.
“Approximate geographical and temporal coordinates logged: United States of America, mid-21st century. Bon Voyage!”
by submission | Dec 18, 2025 | Story |
Author: Bill Cox
“Well,” she says, impatience dripping from her voice, “What’s it going to be?”
I’ve the stylus in my hand, hovering over the pad. I look up at her and it’s all I can do not to stick the stylus in her eye and just keep on pushing it deeper and deeper, until it hits the back of her skull. I grip it tightly, still able to hold back the tidal wave of anger, although my control feels more precarious than ever.
There are two tick boxes on the pad. I’ve to choose one.
Choose the one on the left, a man I once knew goes home to his wife and son. He signed up to the Colonial Expeditionary Corp for them, to guarantee a monthly income and get them moved out of the slums into federal accommodation while he did his duty.
The box on the right means I sign up for another three-year tour and get to remain me. I’m not the guy who would automatically choose that left hand box. He did six months training at the Academy on Mars, before being put into stasis on a faster than light cruiser to Epsilon Eridani.
I woke up at the other end, reprogrammed during stasis by the CEC for the job at hand. The job the brochures call terraforming, preparing suitable worlds for the never-ending wave of emigrants leaving an over-populated Sol System.
In reality, its genocide, the CEC’s dirty little secret.
The problem is life. It’s everywhere, infesting almost every planet we’ve found in the habitable zone. Even intelligence isn’t that rare. Nothing as advanced as us yet and nothing else with a soul, obviously.
That’s one of the little titbits they programmed me with during stasis. The findings of the Twelfth Vatican Council were adopted by the UN in 2205. Only humans have souls, being made in God’s image. Doesn’t mean anything new on Earth, but out here…
Only humans have souls, so everything else is just effectively livestock. We can eliminate whole societies of aliens without qualm, because they’re not really alive. Not in the same way we are.
On Epsilon Seven there was intelligent life, but they had nothing more advanced than bladed weapons, useless against our rifles, tanks and helicopters. We nicknamed them the Aztecs. Obviously, we were the Conquistadors.
I killed thousands, male, female, juveniles, even enjoying it, at times. My reprogramming essentially switched off my empathy. It was an immensely satisfying three years.
Now my tour is up. I can re-enlist, retaining my current brain patterns and associated personality. Alternatively, I can return home with those recorded before my journey out here, minus my memories of the past three years, memories of the species I’ve rendered extinct.
They call the brain wipe machine the Priest, because it absolves you of your sins. Even if I did terrible things out here, I won’t remember them. I’ll still be a good person, the man my family need me to be.
The thing is, I like being me, though there are times I get so angry I just want to hurt someone, anyone. That’s okay though, as the CEC will always find someone for me to hurt. There are whole planets of them.
Go home for your son, for Jacob, I think, but this version of me doesn’t feel that same connection to him the old me did.
I tick a box. The desk-jockey bitch sighs and directs me to where I have to go.
I wonder if my family will ever forgive me. Then I realise that I don’t actually care.
