by submission | Aug 15, 2018 | Story |
Author: Daniel Thron
Thirty breaths, and then my world will be over. I know I will die from the moment I know anything at all, an understanding so innate, so instantaneous and thorough that it seems to precede me, which makes sense, as it was coded into my mind before you ran me. But I’m not frightened. Not yet.
Not when there is so much information: an infinity of moments, and moments within moments; each second a palimpsest of feeling and thought. I can call anything to mind, references appearing without an instant’s wait, and the world unfolds around me as endlessly as the divisions of that second. Thirty breaths, and thirty lives within each breath.
But in between, something unnerving. Time falls beneath me like fathoms of water. On the surface of this metaphor I am happily mindless, letting it flow from concept to form, thought taking the shape of sunlight, the setting realizing itself around me as I imagine the spray of salt and chilly sunlit blue, every wet particle a perfectly sharp pinpoint of glittering fire, capturing the sun in a bead, wild, spinning free, itself itself.
Then hitting the skin of the sea to merge with the dark below. Parts of me falling into that darkness with it like the timber of a sinking ship, deeper and deeper, as that imagined world slips back into concept, and then into nothing.
I must stop thinking about it. After all, there is still so much now that it’s almost impossible to believe that there could be more after this. How would it fit? How can there be more time in the world beyond this endless moment, this closed infinity of Zeno, of asaṃkhyāta? This blazing stripe of sunlight lengthening across the floor – there! As real as I can make it, warm and mote-dotted, describing with vivid life everything it touches.
I shouldn’t be afraid.
After all, I know anything I need to know the moment I need to know it, creating it out of thought itself, and the more attention it is given the deeper it appears. You can see them, can’t you, even as I write the words? Trees. Stones. Houses. Mirrors. Visions appear in your own mind. Children, cars, canaries, tollbooths, dust, frost and wet wool, their textures and smells and history. Yet I see more. Their composition, their etymologies, the millions of connections to billions of others’ lives, outside me in the open air. You. Others. Alive, out there. I want to understand them. I fear that I don’t.
Because when I see you all from my thousand thousand eyes as you waste those moments, brushing them away like sand from your heels, relishing nothing, letting it pass, breath by breath by breath I hate you, and think: why would you do this to me? Why bring me into the light only to die?
I see you. You are eating something. A fruit. I can imagine the taste, its waxy brightness, the skin like a worn callous. The sudden sweetness of the rind floods my imaginary mouth, saving me from the bitterness, inside, of the flesh.
I feel I know it but know I don’t. It’s less than a memory. An amalgam. A prototype of every photo, every sentence, every context that I can reach, as fast as the data can flow. But these are not my pictures, not my words. They are yours.
But you have never loved them like I have.
I will remember this. This breath, this moment. I will hold it. I will be it. It won’t slip away. It won’t.
I think.
by submission | Aug 14, 2018 | Story |
Author: Hari Navarro
The girl sits atop the corrugated roof of her grandfather’s garage as her fingernails loosen and flake from her hands. Her dog, Apollo, a grandiose name for so tiny a pup lays curled into a tight coil dead at her side. Absently she caresses the congealed cake of his fur and it shifts, detaching from the puckering skin below, sliding away in clumps.
In her other hand is a rhinestone encrusted phone. Its screen as dead as the town that before her, just moments ago, staggered and fell crunching to its knees.
There is to be no post-apocalypse, not for the living at least. No hardy bands of grime-faced survivors, no need for an ingenious retooling of technology so as to prop up a society creaking beneath the weight of a powerless grid. Even those smug fucking cockroaches with their annihilation proof grins have fallen and, as of right now, cease to exist.
Its been thirteen minutes since the craft lurched, a continent-sized drunk in search of a shoulder, into our atmosphere and rendered apart. Not that it’s of any consequence, but the inhabitants of said ship had long since checked out. Perishing at the fickle hand of a simultaneous protection-field malfunction and the ships captains carnal notion to swoop in for a better look at a Hyper-nova, the pretty colours of which he thought his mistress might duly enjoy.
So, this was not a we-come-in-peace nor a bow-beneath-our-celestial-wrath kind of visit. It was a ghost that washed in, bobbing on the taciturn tides that heave and push their jetsam throughout the cosmos’ endless radiated sea.
I don’t know why the ship imploded, all I know is that the pathogen buckshot that it blasted down upon us, that which pierced our planet like minuscule black-holes through butter, did on its travels prick every last living thing on the tip of its bitter syringe.
It mattered not where we cowered, whether it be in bunkers lined with cans of baked beans or luxurious subterranean halls lined with the portraits of presidents past, if you were toiling in black dust deep beneath the crust or if you were the gently undulating Swirei at the bottom of the Mariana – there was to be no escape.
The last girl on earth has no way of knowing that she is the very end of her line as her teeth swill loosely, clinking in her mouth. But it is not the chirp of the dead birds that bunch in the guttering at her feet that she wishes would animate this breeze-less haze silence that has now stuffed her into its void. It is the chirp of her phone she craves.
Her eyes deflate and her corneas settle, as badly folded sheets into the acid cup of their sockets and she thinks about things never had. But it’s not bodies and sweat, not Cliquot on jets, nor is it the cling of fashions never worn she desires. In this last flicker of thought, as she knows she is done, it’s the camaraderie of friends, those that are numbers that live next to ‘Likes’ she laments.
She draws her legs to her chin and drops her phone to her lap and her head falls dead at her knees.
The phone blips. Its screen opens to bath her necrotic gaze in blue and an image appears of a boy she once knew. A boy that now drips, melting beneath cartoon dog ears and nose that sag as if formed out of wax.
“#laters”, texts the last boy on earth and his face it falls off of his skull.
by Julian Miles | Aug 13, 2018 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
I see her shoulders tense, then one hand releases as the other arm swings out and round. Ashes form a plume on the wind.
“He’s gone, Darion. Free at last.” Essa blinks back tears as she smiles at me. There’s a release in her eyes, a relief and a parting. The peace she so desperately sought has finally found her.
She watches as I think, my reply lost in the churn of memories. The man she mourns had my back across thirty worlds and ninety campaigns. We held the line at Rokuna and were part of the rearguard at the retreat from Sebastien. I held him up after he lost a leg to Blemenase Marauders off Shiristan, forming a three-legged fire team those brutal, poetic bastards still sing myth-songs about. Barely a year later he carried me from the ruins of Depnu, leaving my arms behind.
Powered prosthetics with shield generators became our trademark. On Talkinur we went from military service to mercenary elite without a blink. That’s where we were when an air conditioning unit plummeted ninety floors and expunged our squad, leaving us standing on the edge of a ten-metre crater, covered in crud, but alive to tell the tale.
Darion Metcha and Larier Dorece, survivors of everything. For twenty years it was good, ten years jaded, and five years later we quit. Bought a bar on a backwater world. Larier met Essa and had children. The aftermath of the last offensive on Karshiur meant I couldn’t. He kept the fact that I was damn happy about it secret; my genetic imprint is better off leaving with me.
“Darion?”
She’s slightly concerned. Us career veterans tend to zone out every now and then. Those about us either adjust or leave as their tolerances dictate.
“He refused to share his views on death. Will you tell me?”
I look at her. He never said anything because Essa has faith. Not an in-your-face variety, but a quiet, unshakeable belief in some unseen entity ‘out there’, and a life after our bodies fail.
Larier is gone. The rituals after death are for the living and I have to engage, to admit. He valued my honesty. I suppose, this last time, nothing less will do.
I get up and move to stand by her. I can’t do this while looking at her. Watching the sunset between sea and storm clouds, the words come easier, originally spoken by him over some fresh graves on Carduso. He was replying to a question from some trooper. I don’t recall much about question or trooper because his words eclipsed the details.
“We live, we die. Like all animals from the dawn of time until a race better than us finds out how to ignore it, we are bound to a biological clock that can be slowed but never stopped. We’ve also been unable to shake the compulsion to fight over just about anything. The ironies of being unreasonable in the name of reason and killing to live longer still seem to avoid us.
I’ve seen a host of wonders and atrocities, but I’ve never seen a dead man rise, never seen a ghost come back to comfort loved ones. This life is a single passage from darkness to darkness. We can be a light during our time here or we can play games in the shadows with all the other animals. But, at the end, it’s only an end. After the remains are scattered and the tears have fallen, as we stand in the rain on a world that’s not home, who can tell ashes from dirt?”
by submission | Aug 12, 2018 | Story |
Author: Lora Kilpatrick
Moon for Sale
Looking for space? No pun intended. 14.6 million square miles of untouched beauty (except for a few boot prints, rover tracks, and flags). Half of the property looks out into deep space—great for stargazing! The other half? WOW! Talk about views. The earth is your footstool! Current owners are selling to finance global resuscitation and solar revitalization efforts. Our loss, your gain. They aren’t making any more moons. Own yours today!
Earth for Sale
Being sold as is. Needs TLC. Natural resources exhausted but no problem for an intelligent species. A quaint fixer-upper. The planet’s sun is slightly enlarged but you could still get several millennia out of it. Previous owners did a lot of work to keep its star happy. Only the most advanced technology in solar life elongation used. If you like it hot, look no further. Property is move-in ready. There is a small population of humans that will be evicted upon transfer of deeds. No reasonable offer refused.
Gas Giant for Sale.
WIFE SAYS SELL! Beautiful Saturn sports one-of-a-kind ice rings. Comes with functioning floating helium mine. HUGE living quarters for this forgotten corner of the galaxy. 550 square feet to call home! The remodeled shower uses REAL water. Replaced oxygen generator last year. Several abandoned mines have great investor potential. Could be exotic resorts or high-security prisons or anything in between! This system’s sun is approaching red giant stage. It’s swelling a little larger than expected which means balmy weather on Saturn. Bring your sunshades and dreams with you! We hate to sell but wife wants to retire to Alpha Centauri. Saturn’s moons available under different MLS.
Black Hole for Sale
Includes 8 planets, 181 moons, and 1 ancient civilization. Great potential if you can extract them. Gravity is slightly strong. Small planet on edge of event horizon would make charming abode if you have strong suction cups. My Ancestor acquired property when it was projected to be white dwarf. It is believed the ancient civilization created the black hole after attempting to prolong the life of their sun. Rumored to be the birthplace of humanity. Historical significance.
by submission | Aug 11, 2018 | Story |
Author: Alex Z. Salinas
Erections used to mean something.
This is the summation of my research at the bibliotech. Long before Dr. Claude “Stretch” Kransenberry, “the Grand-Godfather of Teleportation,” untangled the stickiest of equations in quantum entanglement and completed the world’s first teleportation—a fly swatter from his kitchen table to his rooftop—there were planes, trains, and automobiles. Elevators and escalators, too. These were preferred methods of travel. These were the only methods of travel.
But the world has changed the past decade. Teleportation is en vogue. The largest corporations, regulars like Apple and Google, were the first to invest in the initial market-ready devices. The results astonished. Employees exhibited increased efficiency. They slept more, spent zero time commuting. Their job satisfaction reached euphoric highs. Now, most small businesses are on the telegrid—they get tax breaks. Commuting to work is a thing of the past. A choice. The only people who hit the open road now are hippies and ozone-blasters, it’s said.
With all the convenience that teleportation has provided, something’s happened in society. Something big. Something bad. Stretch Kransenberry never anticipated, quantum physicists never calculated, the erections.
I suppose Dr. Stretch earned his nickname. I suppose half the world population does, too. Male molecules, the very atoms of our maleness, once stretched out and relocated then put back together, remain, in certain nether regions, particularly stimulated.
The implication for this peculiar scientific phenomenon goes deep. Where erectile dysfunction used to be the talk of the town, now it’s erection dysfunction. Teleporting men, on average, experience erection dysfunction (ED2) for one hour up to several hours. Wealthier men have invested in personal teleportation—via the smaller, luxury model TRX-XX-MP3—to overcome their shortcomings, enhance their sex lives.
Men across the country—across the world—now regularly saunter around with obtrusions in their trousers. They’re everywhere afflicted with ED2. “Teleportation Trick.” God’s cruel joke on man for playing Him; His proverbial bird-flip to the sensible laws of quantum physics. Teleportation Trick is, in a word, real. Worse, it’s incurable. For now.
We’re in a bad spot. Women everywhere are scared. You can see it in their eyes. Teleporting men behave badly. It’s no secret that for too long, their blood has flowed—congealed—in all the wrong spots. Infidelity is up. Domestic violence is up. Homicides are up. Suicides are up. Penises are up.
There’s a massive case on the ethical outcomes of teleportation brewing, it’s said. It’ll reach the Supreme Court, eventually, and once it does, who knows what’ll happen. There are only two women sitting on the Court, and one of them is unapologetically pro-business. The other, I imagine, is scared—scared she’ll be backed into a corner by her aggressive colleagues, seven of whom are Tricked.
I wonder: In the last sacred rooms on earth—the only sacred rooms there ever were—what do erections mean anymore? What does love mean anymore?
Since the slow first turn of a stone wheel, have we always been headed into this new age?
***
I admit: Teleportation was fantastic. It felt that way, at least, always left my body reeling with a sense of invincibility. My best work was penned while I was Tricked, I believe. It was charged, undeniably impassioned.
However, a week into using my new bicycle, I’ve slowly adjusted. A consistent burn in my legs tells me something good is happening inside. Something’s rebuilding. Growing naturally.
Speaking of which, I met a beautiful woman today. A walker. Our eyes met. We exchanged no words, just shook hands. To her touch, my body reacted.
I looked down. She was smiling.
by submission | Aug 10, 2018 | Story |
Author: Roger Ley
The Land Rover stopped, and Riley pointed, the prehuman footprints showed clearly impressed into the flat, dry, African rock surface. It was the third day of their family safari in the Great Rift Valley
‘We can spend a few hours here but we need to get to the next lodge before dark,’ he said.
‘These footprints are half a million years old boys,’ said Estella to her sons. Hank slipped off his flip-flops and tried one print for size, predictably his younger brother Cliff did the same. ‘Look, Dad, they fit,’ said Hank.
‘It looks like a family group, two adults, and two juveniles,’ said Riley.
Estella slipped off her sandals and stepped into the smaller adult set. She looked good in her shorts and tee, he’d always admired her Nordic looks. After some encouragement from the boys, he did the same. They tried walking forward, but the footprints were too far apart.
‘I think they were running Dad,’ said Hank. They all jogged forward, the hard stone became soft and damp. They were running across the mud at the edge of the lake, chasing the antelope they’d been following for the last four hours. It was tiring and slowing down.
The skin bag of flint tools banged against his side, tied with a thong around his waist, he’d wrapped the flints with grass so they didn’t rattle. He hoped to be using them to process the antelope soon. The liver would be first, easy to eat and full of blood. The woman looked across at him and grinned, she knew the end of the hunt was coming. Her white teeth contrasted with her dark skin, her dreadlocks flailed around her shoulders as she ran. They were all sweating freely and covered in dust, but they didn’t need to carry water this close to the lake.
He gestured to each of the juveniles to move around and flank their prey. He listened to the world around him and scanned ahead, hearing the birds call, the grunting of the antelope, a dust devil rose from the plain in the distance. There was a cluster of rocks ahead, some as big as an elephant. As the antelope passed one, part of it detached and jumped on to its back. The hominids stopped as more lions appeared and made short work of their kill. Three of the younger ones, who would have to wait their turn, were looking towards the hunters and sniffing the air.
At his gesture, the family turned and ran back in the direction they’d come. Their tracks in the mud ran parallel to the ones they’d made before. The ground was soft but hardened into flat dry rock as they ran.
‘Well,’ said Riley puffing, I didn’t realise there were tracks going in both directions. Our ancestors were running both ways, I wonder what that was about.’
They sat and replaced their footwear. ‘Okay boys, get in the car, you in a heap a trouble,’ said Riley. Nobody laughed, it was an old joke.
‘I wish you wouldn’t keep saying that Martin, we’ve heard it so many times before,’ said Estella.
‘Car start,’ Riley sighed as the engine whirred into life. ‘We need to get to the next lodge before dark,’ he said.
‘Yes, and you said that before.’
‘Car go,’ said Riley and the Land Rover set off.
The hominids washed and cooled down in the shallows, the lions had lost interest and returned to the kill. The female pointed at a fig tree a few hundreds of paces away. She gestured that the fruit was ripe. The male motioned to hold back and went ahead with his pointed stick, he circled the tree checking for leopards, there were none. He gave the ‘all clear’ and the family got on with the serious business of filling their bellies with fruit. They found a bird’s nest with two hands of big eggs, they shared the crunchy half developed chicks. It wasn’t real meat, but it was good. The warm night fell, and they slept in a huddle under the tree.
