by submission | Nov 8, 2025 | Story |
Author: R. J. Erbacher
I saw her sitting at the terminal, small carry-on bag at her feet, doing something on her cell phone. She looked like a woman who had lived a good life, up until that moment, and was satisfied with her accomplishments. I took a long, slow breath and went over and sat down in the attached seat next to her.
Having not taken any of the other empty spaces around us, she cut her eyes to me, sizing me up. An older man, full beard tinged with gray, tinted glasses and a flat cap were all red flags for a nefarious character. Before she could get up and move to another spot I spoke to her.
“Mrs. Anderson, right?”
Now she put her phone down and looked at me full on. Our eyes met for an instant and I lowered mine, brushing an imaginary speck off my pants.
“Do I know you?” she asked, suspicion in her voice.
“I was one of your son’s high school teachers.”
“Lincoln Memorial High?”
She was smart and wary, deliberately lying about the school to test me. Lincoln Memorial was the school in the town next to hers.
“No, Western Madison.” I quickly went on so she didn’t have to come up with some silly excuse why she had gotten her son’s high school name wrong. “It was his freshman year. I only remember him because he was a proficient student, far advanced in his science knowledge.”
“I don’t remember meeting you.”
“The science teacher that started the year, Ms. Blackwell, was pregnant and had some difficulties towards the end of the pregnancy and was out for five months. I was the substitute until she came back in mid-May. I don’t believe we ever crossed paths during my tenure.”
“I think I do recall that now.”
Again I continued, because I didn’t want her to question why an unknown substitute teacher, who I wasn’t, would recognize her in an airport. “I heard through some academic colleagues that your son graduated with honors in just three years and landed a full ride at Caltech. Applied Physics, I believe. I hope he is doing well in his first year there. Is that where you’re going; to see him?” I shouldn’t have said that.
“Yes, but-”
“I remember his grasp of the general relativity concepts and Einstein’s theories were inspiring. He was determined to accomplish things that had only been suggested -” I stopped myself before saying ‘at that time.’
An awkward silence followed as she scrutinized me. I had to get the rest out before I bolted away. “I remember him saying that you were the reason he was so diligent in his studies. He wanted to achieve something that no one else had done.” I swallowed hard before finishing, “He wanted you to be proud of him.”
Then the flight attendant behind the reception desk announced over the speaker that the plane was now boarding. The words made me cringe as if I had been slapped. I had to get the hell away. “Good to have met you, Mrs. Anderson.” I stood up and went to leave but she reached out and touched my wrist.
The warm hand, the soft skin constantly rubbed each night before bed with lavender hand cream, the nails tastefully short and unpolished, the wedding ring she never took off even after her husband was gone forcing her to be a single parent; it all registered with me in that frozen moment in time.
“I have always been proud of him.”
I looked briefly into her eyes, nodded and left immediately before she could see the tears streaming down my face. I walked away with a purpose. I could not watch her board that plane that would never arrive. And I was ruined by the knowledge that I absolutely could do nothing to prevent her from getting on either. I concentrated on the placement of each brown shoe as it stepped on the multi-colored rug, and then the next step in front of that one. Anything, not to contemplate the reason why my creation had been a success and a curse. Or the despondent need that brought me back to this point.
She picked up her bag and went onto the line with the other passengers headed for the jet bridge and softly said to nobody but herself, “Goodbye, son.”
by submission | Nov 7, 2025 | Story |
Author: Leigh Therriault
My home is a tomb after school. I slip my key in the lock, twist my wrist left. Pin tumblers aligned, the plug rotates. I’m in. I kick off my sandals, let my backpack fall to the floor. It’s almost autumn but I refuse to wear shoes. Not yet. For my feet, it’s still summer, even if it means they have to freeze.
The remote floats up to meet my hand. I click the television on. Talk shows are a balm. Even if I only have thirty minutes to rest before my paper route. I flop on the couch, let the bold florals swallow my wispy form in one gulp. My lack of hunger still surprises me. I haven’t eaten in weeks.
I remember the wilderness survival course we took last year. My dad’s idea, while my brother and I moaned. My mom tried to hype it up. You never know when these skills will come in handy, honey.
I can identify edible berries and poisonous fungi. Cattails are nutritious and delicious, so try to get lost around a marsh or pond. However, water is not the first thing to go hunting for. Exposure will kill you long before thirst.
Build a shelter with branches, sticks, and leaves. Keep your body off the ground. Conduction is a killer. Even summer nights can be fatally frigid. Even tranquil nights that begin with the warmth of a campfire by a lake. Ripples of water, wonder, spreading to the other side. Water so smooth it lures you in. The moon so wide, you reach up to grab it like a greedy child.
The spell cracks. The drive home. Winding roads that are too narrow, too twisty. But you are still mesmerized by the Milky Way—dreaming of one more marshmallow, golden and gooey, stuck to the stick. And the smoky air clings to your t-shirt, your sandals still speckled with sand.
My house has spirits. The past only exists in memories. And memories are personal, subjective. But if we all recall the same thing, that makes it real. So I forget. Every day. And I try to help others forget too. Maybe then, we can change the past. Alter the present. Shape the future.
The grandfather clock chimes, breaching my trance. I am still bound by time. I drag myself off the couch. Stuff my feet back into my sandy sandals. I’m out the door and the lock rotates right. On my bike, pumping the pedals. At the drop-off spot, sidewalk stained with ink.
I pick up the papers, shove them into my shoulder bag. People want their news on time. My fingers slip; inky pages flutter down. A headline flashes from the cold ground, solemn like a gravestone. I jerk my gaze away at the sight of the word, CRASH.
I push off the pavement, balancing my bike. The spokes spin. The gears grind. Sunshine spills from a bowl above the clouds. My last route on an infinite loop.
People need their newspapers on time.
by submission | Nov 6, 2025 | Story |
Author: Alzo David-West
“Inside this suitcase is the dismembered body of a man and one of the tools you used to kill him. Your fingerprints are on it. You must dispose of the suitcase in the Miyamae River in 24 hours, or I will inform the police.”
Hosokawa was hyperventilating. Komatsu was limping in a circle. Morioka was staring. They knew what they had done, but how did someone find out? They had planned everything so meticulously when they chose the man. The ambush was simple. He was a quiet man from another place, on a limited-term contract. He worked late, passed through the bicycle shelter behind their office building, and went into an unlit street, where he always walked alone. He was perfect. His disappearance would mean nothing to anyone.
The time was 1:15 a.m. Everyone had long gone home. The two elderly men in the campus security booth were snoozing, and the little town was sleeping. The three simply had to be sure the man did not scream.
He put on his down jacket, ear warmers, and newsy cap, turned off the lights, locked the office door, and walked to the empty café downstairs. He exited the side glass door, locked it with his ID card, and went to the back of the building, not seeing the shadows of the short broad-shouldered woman, the long thin man, and the burly fat woman. He walked and turned into the unlit street where there was only forest, a small statue, two dilapidated houses, and memorial stones.
Komatsu struck the back of the man’s exposed head with a mallet. He collapsed. Hosokawa arrived with the van. She smothered chloroform over his nose and mouth. Morioka zip-tied a bag over his head. They carried the body into the van, and they drove deep into the thick bamboo forest in the small mountain nearby that no one visited, and there, they performed wildly and lustfully with axe, knife, and saw.
They finished, breathing heavily, heaving the weighted breaths of passion, breathing, breathing, breathing. They were quiet now. There were no words. They buried the tools and left the body for the hungry foxes and badger dogs, and the only thing anyone knew the next day was a brief story in the evening news of a burned van on an old woman’s orange field.
So receiving the threat, Hosokawa, Komatsu, and Morioka were deeply troubled. They text-messaged each other.
In Komatsu’s office, they whispered what to do. Hosokawa and Morioka agreed to heed the warning — dispose of the suitcases in the river or spend the rest of their days trapped with the thieves, rapists, and sociopaths. The thought terrified them. They liked their comfortable tenured lives, and they were not willing to give everything away simply because they had realized their dream to murder a man.
In the frigid night, they drove, brought the suitcases to the Miyamae River, and anxiously threw them into the fast rushing water, where the luggage traveled and was swallowed into the mouths of the storm drains.
A week passed, but then, there were three more suitcases with the same note and, the next week, the same thing again. The paranoia and madness came, the three declaring and denying that one of them had disclosed their secret. They were sure the little street and mountain road were unlit and unmonitored. They had carefully studied the municipal and crowdsourced maps online. So, they concluded, there must have been a camera in the bicycle shelter, from where they had followed the man before entering the van.
They chose a night three days after they had disposed of the third set of suitcases. They went to the dark space, and each of them, with anguished suspicion and unreason, drew out concealed knives — striking, slashing, and stabbing at one another in a bipolar manic orgy of fear, joy, and hate, the three collapsing onto the cold ground, bleeding until they bled no more.
From the second-floor window of an empty office above, the man they had killed observed quietly.
by submission | Nov 5, 2025 | Story |
Author: Majoki
The pews were full. Resplendent sunlight coursed through stained glass and lit chiseled stone with undersea warmth. Soaring arches resounded with song, a lifting and longing for connection. One filament. Two. Tendrils, ganglions. Physical connectivity. Hard wired.
Then, the abominations, ever-placed at the back. Ever patient. Never touching but always in touch. Borganics pinged and streamed, a binary cacophony, a sacrilege to all organic. But, one could be broad, one could conceive of such a mind, such an inorganic desire. Sentience pushed them together. Thought was thought (though some disputed that).
Still, the prickly distaste for the abominations, even on this day. The celebration of the first mass, the first gathering. When stone and stem, flesh and metal inexorably arrived at choice.
Parish or perish.
Creation had responsibilities. Native organics relented. Even abominations might possess unalienable, sacred rights. Hand, paw, flipper, tendril unwillingly extended.
Given even slim opportunity, borganics self organized. Uplifted. Transcended. Became forged flesh.
Mutual annihilation avoided. Begrudging acceptance—one step behind.
In the mote-filled sunlight of the cathedral, the gathered masses swam with feeling. A oneness born of separateness. Parallel unity. Dual processing. A single understanding.
Purpose. The divine mystery of sentience. Whether biological or mechanical. Thus they gathered, worshiped and wished, together. Distrustful, resentful, curious, determined, hopeful.
From the pews, their myriad passions muted and amplified by song, they prayed a single belief. Survival and more. Organically and newly defined, they gathered, proximal beings, awaiting grace.
by Stephen R. Smith | Nov 4, 2025 | Story |
Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer
There was a door at the end of the Science wing that Malcolm had never opened, not in the decade or so he’d been at the university. He’d assumed it was a mechanical room, or something similar, but tonight there was a light on. Had the door always been windowed?
He listened outside, and hearing nothing, tried the handle, finding to his surprise it to be unlocked. Curious, he pushed the door open and peered inside.
The room was an office, or a library, or some combination of the two. Shelves lined with books, and tables piled with clutter, and beyond it all, peering at him from behind a desk sat a woman.
“Malcolm, welcome, you’re right on time. Come, have a seat.”
Malcolm, certain that he’d never seen this woman before in his life, nevertheless found himself wandering into the room and settling into a seat opposite her.
“Have we met?” His tone a mix of quizzical and guilt, she obviously knew him, and he had no idea where or when they’d have met.
“We’ve had many conversations, you and I Malcolm, but I suppose not yet. My apologies, I’m usually better at this.”
He mulled over whether he should correct her obvious grammatical error, and just couldn’t help himself.
“We either have, or we haven’t. We can’t have had conversations if we haven’t had them yet, that makes no sense.”
He straightened a little in his chair, feeling for the moment an air of superiority.
“Ah, right, you’re still stuck on linear time.” She looked away then, scribbling into a notebook on her desk.
Malcolm’s short-lived feeling of superiority evaporated like gasoline on hot asphalt.
“Linear time? You’re time-traveling? Is that your story?” Now he was vacillating between being perplexed and annoyed.
“No, no, nothing as primitive as that. You still consider time a linear thing, we’re beyond that, so I’m just here, in all of your past, present, and future.”
“I don’t believe you.” He folded his arms, having decided on annoyance. She was trying to make a fool of him.
“You thought I was making a fool of you, when we first met, which I suppose is now.” She smiled. “I’m not, I assure you.”
Malcolm’s arms dropped.
She produced a deck of playing cards from a drawer. “Here, close your eyes, and I’m going to give you a card.”
He closed his eyes, and held out his hand. She placed a card into it and sat back.
“What is it?”
He turned the card over. “Three of Diamonds.”
“Are you sure?”
He looked again. “Eight of Clubs…”
“Positive?” She was smiling now.
“Five of Hearts. How are you doing that?”
“While your eyes are closed those few seconds ago, I just keep changing the card.”
Malcolm did not like this one bit and got up shakily, dropping the card on her desk before backing towards the door. “I don’t know what you’re playing at, but I’ll not be made a fool of.”
She sighed. “No worries, Malcolm, it always went like this. We’ll talk when you figure things out.”
Reaching the door, he turned to grasp the handle, noticing the door was now solid steel, with no window at all. He turned to survey an empty supply room, barely more than a closet with a bare bulb swinging overhead.
He headed for the parking lot in a hurry, jumping at the sound of the door swinging closed behind him.
By the time he was in the car driving home, the nagging feeling that he’d met the woman before was buzzing like a live wire in the back of his brain. He was going to think about the events of the evening, and he was determined to somehow figure them out.
by Julian Miles | Nov 3, 2025 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
There’s a fine line between genius and insanity, they say. As the same pundits keep hailing me as a genius, it’s not as flattering as they seem to think.
“Mister Elloiuse, could we get a quote for our feature? It would go over so well.”
I look at the eager young chap. Why is he out of school today…? Fracking hell, when did I get so old?
“You want something from my books or something fresh?”
His eyes nearly light up.
“Ooohh, fresh, please.”
I do this every time, like the experiment will yield different results… Actually, that’s a sign of insanity, isn’t it? No matter. Time to be portentous.
“How long will it be before A.I. agents drive social media without human input? When everything you see is artificial, what reality is truly real?”
He nods enthusiastically like Buddha just gave him the goods, fingers flying across virtual keyboards I can’t see.
“Thank you so much.”
I nod.
“No problem.”
He toddles off and I take the respite to order more coffee along with breakfast. Gods but I wish the various shiny futures past writers imagined had happened, instead of the ninety-nine flavours of dystopia we’ve been struggling through or swanning by for the last several decades.
I look about the restaurant. This place only opened last month, and it’s designed to look run down: like the cafe from the Nighthawks painting had opened on the edge of a ghetto. Everything is done in shades of brown or grey, but the dirt’s too regular and the chromework’s untarnished.
Maybe one of those alternate reality gigs…? Yeah, that I could go with: sudden flash of light and I’m hijacked to a magical medieval world. Then again, I always worry about the elements they don’t mention.
Wish fulfilment is like that: always skips having to pay the tab.
“Mister Ellouise? Can I get your autograph?”
I come back from my reverie to see a purple-haired apparition in a silver bodystocking waving a hardback at me. Which of mine’s been published in large format? I take the proffered open volume.
Flipping it closed, I check the title: ‘Socio-economic Impacts of Unregulated Temporal Looting’.
What the frack? I open it and check the verso page. ‘First Edition, Luna University Press, 2245’.
I turn my attention to the person who I notice is blushing furiously.
Imposs…
Actually, why the hell not?
I smile at them.
“How many people just sign without checking?”
“Most of them. You’re the first one this year.”
“And which year would that be, exactly?”
I can see the internal argument they’re having with themselves. Finally, they give a little shrug.
“2318. Just after you chose to die permanently.”
Whoa, now.
“Careful with the information contamination.”
They grin.
“Yeah, good luck with that. Your granddaughter gave me the note you left for ‘The purple-haired time travel student who’s thinking of quitting’.”
My d-? No. Focus.
“Do I sign?”
“That’s the bit I’m not allowed to influence.”
Oh, really? I look at the book. Well, now. It’s an excellent quality imprint. Oh, hell. In for a penny, in for a paradox. I sign and offer it back.
They smile.
“You’ll never know how much this means. Nor the impact it has. You have good lives, Mister Ellouise.”
They rush out of the restaurant. I’m watching as they fade from this reality partway across the road.
Hmmm. Didn’t tell me what was in the note I left, didn’t tell me why they’re thinking of quitting, either.
Actually, that’s clever. Minimised contamination while ensuring the details. I must remember to mention it.
