by Roi R. Czechvala | Mar 8, 2011 | Story
Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Staff Writer
“Hell? Hell is what you carry in your heart. All your regrets. Things you should have done but didn’t. Things you did but shouldn’t have. That’s Hell. You carry Hell with you.” Without another word he stood and walked out beyond the reach of the light from the small campfire. The report from his pistol as he blew his brains out sounded faintly hollow in the crisp desert air. The four remaining men continued to stare into the dying flames.
“Seen it before, Mars’ll do that to ya.” Tom Marten was an old trail hand and a third generation Martian.
“Why’d he do it?” Henry Curry briefly turned his eyes in the direction of the departed man, but just as quickly turned away. He was young, just eight years Mars Standard.
“It’s the planet. She knows we’re strangers. She doesn’t want us here. A man stays out here too long he hears things. She talks to ya. Get‘s under your skin like.”
“Who talks to ya, Mr. Marten,” Henry asked as a cold shiver thrilled his body.
“Mars,” he said, “she knows we’re here. She doesn’t like it.”
“You’re full of shit,” remarked Bill Fryer, getting to his feet and dusting himself off. “I’m going to bed.” He crawled into his single sleep bubble.
“Think I’ll turn in too. Don’t scare the boy too much now, Tom. This is his first drive. Can’t have him shittin’ himself at every shadow. G‘night.”
“Night,” they replied in unison.
“What were they like Mr. Marten?”
“Who?”
“The Martians… the real ones I mean… no offence.”
“None taken, son. Well, they were tall. Taller than us. Very slim. Bird bones. The lower gravity you know. They built the crystal…”
“No, what were they like? I mean really like?”
“Nobody really knows. They were gone thousands of years before we got here. They were ancient before man walked on two legs. They don’t want us here, I can tell you that much.”
“How do you know?”
“They talk to me. Their ghosts anyway. I hear them all around me.”
Henry shivered again. The cold night air of the desert he rationalized to himself. He looked to the sky. The stars barely twinkled in air still too thin for much refraction despite nearly a century of terraforming. Phobos was a disk smaller than Earth’s moon. Tiny Deimos was barely distinguishable from the surrounding star field. It was an indescribably beautiful starry night.
Something brought Henry’s attention back to the moment. Glancing across the fire, he thought for the briefest moment that the pupils of Tom Marten’s eyes had gone from round to vertical slits. For a fleeting instant it looked as if his face had become elongated and his skin had taken on an ashen pallor.
He shook his head and blinked several times to clear his mind. When he looked again, kindly old Tom Marten was staring back at him. He removed his revolver from his holster, checked the loads, spun the cylinder and replaced it. Nearby, a horse, grown from tissue brought from Earth, whinnied nervously.
“Think I’ll go for a walk.”
“Good idea. You do that.”
Henry walked into the darkness. In the thin air, the blast from his weapon failed to echo off the nearby cliff face.
Tom Marten smiled. A smile that failed to reach his oddly slitted eyes.
by submission | Mar 7, 2011 | Story
Author : Andrew DiMatteo
“Hey there Col! I haven’t seen you in a while. How have you been?”
“Honestly? Things have been pretty crazy.”
“Come to think about it, I seem to remember Bill saying something happened between you and Deb… is everything ok?”
“Not really man. Deb and I split up.”
“Jesus Col, I’m truly sorry – I had no idea. What about your kids?”
“She got the whole enchilada Ed. Full custody.”
“That’s terrible. Is there anything I can do to help? I have a cousin who’s a counselor, maybe he can offer some advice…”
“Naw, it’s cool. This new thing I’m doing is really helping.”
“What is it? Therapy or something?”
“You could say that… Ed, you ever hear of the ‘many worlds’ theory?”
“Sorry, but I can’t say that I have.”
“No worries man, few have. Basically, some scientists came up with this theory that says every single thing that possibly could happen, has happened, and all the outcomes exist in, like, parallel universes.”
“I don’t really see how that’s a thing you can do per se.”
“I know, I know, gimme a chance to explain. It all started when I saw this ad online. This guy claimed that he could teach you to ‘jump’ your consciousness into your selves that exist in these parallel universes; that you could come back with all these totally awesome skills and knowledge that your other, better selves had acquired in those other worlds. Now I know what you’re gonna say: Waste of money. A scam. Something for new age wackos. But see, I was pretty rock bottom at this point. I figured any world had to be better than this one, and maybe I could find one where I got the kids, so I shelled out fifty bucks and bought the DVDs.”
“And?”
“And it worked.”
“What?”
“Yeah, it totally worked. The real kick in pants was that as it turns out, this is the best universe there is for me. I don’t know how many I tried, but it was pretty bad. There was one where Deb ran away with some multimillionaire to Guatemala. Then there was a whole slew where I got hit by a car on the way to the custody hearing and ended up paralyzed from the neck down. I never got the kids.”
“Now you have me really worried. No more joking around, Col. Let me get you some help. Let me call my cousin.”
“No way, don’t you see? I’m fine! I know this is the best I can do. Whenever I get sad I just pop over into another universe and see how bad it could be – at least here I’ve got visitation rights and…”
“And?”
…
“Col?”
…
“Col, are you OK? Snap out of it!”
“Did… did I just say I’ve got visitation rights?”
“Yes but… Jesus you scared me there! I was sure you had a stroke!”
“No man, I’m fine. Great even! But listen Ed, I gotta jet. Gonna go see the kids.”
“OK, but are you sure you’re alright? At least let me give you a ride.”
“No thanks! Been a while since I walked.”
by submission | Mar 6, 2011 | Story
Author : Damien Krsteski
The receptionist was tapping her pudgy fingers impatiently on the desk. Leaning on one hand, her pale face hid momentarily behind an inflating chewing gum bubble until a loud pop revealed a familiar expression of utter boredom and listlessness. She adjusted her cap and smacked her gum. Opposite her was the startled, cutely timid Jane Yules, dressed incongruously in a long, beige overcoat.
“For 49.99, you get our most popular zap, the ‘Passion Xtreme’,” said the receptionist in a thick, urban accent. “The ultrasound bursts stimulate your, erm, pleasure centers, and you get to feel like a pig for a short while. Meaning you get to have a forty minute orgasm,” she added hastily upon seeing Jane’s bewildered look.
“I, erm, don’t think that’s for me, thanks,” Jane pushed her glasses up her nose. “Do you happen to have something,” she rummaged her thoughts a bit, then shrugged and added, “different?”
The receptionist gave her a long, puzzled look, spat out the gum, and disappeared behind her desk. Jane could hear the noise of someone ploughing through old junk. Seconds later, she emerged with a mischievous smile on her face and a card in her hand. “This different enough for you, sis?” she asked, holding out the card.
“Ego Loss,” it read.
Jane shrugged, and before she knew it, she was being escorted by the oddball receptionist to the Sensorium booths. Hands strapped to the sides, the receptionist girl gave her a mock salute, pointed the ultrasound blasters at her skull, then said, “See you in a sec.”
At the beginning, there was nothing. Then, she felt a peculiar sensation. Her arms and legs stretched out to twice their length. Her whole body was like a hammock, and she swung it sideways, giggling, for it tickled her belly. On the second swing, she swelled up, and was the size of a hot-air balloon. Her bloated body kept on blowing, inflating. She couldn’t see herself, for she had no senses, but she was able to sense her color. With every breath, she doubled in size, and kept doubling, until she was the size of the cosmos.
“What now?” she felt herself asking, and burst into a million fragments of fluorescent magenta. Once again, there was nothing. And, once again, she felt a peculiar sensation. Out of her very body, endlessly fragmented and scattered, seeds began to grow, in all shapes and sizes. Spiral structures emerged, and swirled around each other, forging an infinite number of constructions. Life appeared. Small, and compact at first, then growing ever more complex and intricate, reaching at long last the pivotal event where it evolved intelligence.
Everything was of the same fluorescent color.
Jane Yules was trembling, her eyes glistening with tears.
“I was God,” she managed to whisper.
The girl undid the straps and helped her get up. “Yeah, sure you were,” she snapped, then stuffed another pink piece of gum in her mouth, “That’ll be 29.49, sis.”
by submission | Mar 5, 2011 | Story
Author : Brian Varcas
There was no doubt about it. That was definitely Hendrix!
Brad had every recording the legendary guitarist had ever made, including every bootleg live performance. He could easily tell the difference between the real thing and the myriad of guitarists who tried to play like Hendrix, and this was the real deal. The only trouble was Brad had never heard this song before! Oh yes, and the small matter that the sound appeared to emanate from the vicinity of the Procyon double star system, around 11.402 light years away!
Brad had been volunteering at the SETI Institute for 3 ½ years, laboriously scanning radio frequencies for any signals that might indicate intelligence. Anything with a discernable pattern. He’d found absolutely nothing, until now!
Brad wanted to try to clean up the signal but he’d lost it. He set the computerised frequency scanner to review its history and, after a couple of minutes he got the signal back but the music had changed. Now the liquid lightening of Jimi’s Fender Stratocaster was gone. Instead, he was listening to a singer he instantly recognised, and this time he knew the song!
“My God, it’s Jim Morrison!” Brad announced to himself. He turned up the volume to listen to a fantastic reworking of the Doors classic, “Riders on the Storm”.
When the song had finished the signal was still being received but there was nothing that Brad could understand. Again, he fiddled with the computer programme to try to improve the sound quality but it was just white noise as far as he could tell.
Then the music started again. Brad couldn’t believe his ears! It was John Lennon singing “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”, but more trippy and psychedelic than the Sgt. Pepper version. Brad was completely blown away.
And so it went on for the next 20 minutes. Brad heard Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, Nick Drake and Jeff Buckley all performing either new songs or new versions of classics. Between each song was the dissonant white noise.
“Wow! All these great rock stars who had died too young still rocking away somewhere out in space.”
Brad could think only that he’d somehow tuned into Rock ‘n’ Roll Heaven! The next song confirmed that view…”Well since my baby left me…I’ve found a new place to dwell…It’s down at the end of Lonely Street…Heartbreak Hotel” It was Elvis himself, no mistake!
The song finished and the White noise started up again. As an experiment, Brad launched the new language decoding software he was testing and, following the instructions, played all the white noise sections which had been recorded. The software analysed the sound and, after a few minutes began to put together some suggested translations based upon repeated sound patterns. None of them made any sense at all and Brad was about to close the programme but stopped when he began reading the final suggestion.
“I don’t believe it!” He said out loud. “If this is Galactic Intelligence and Culture they can keep it!” He printed out the final suggestion and closed the programme. He transferred the music he’d recorded to his iPod and then deleted the original recordings.
As he left the Institute for the final time he shook his head in disbelief as he read the print out:
“Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen. Well, you’ve heard all the contestants from Earth now it’s up to you to decide who will be back next week for the next round of “The Galaxy’s Got Talent!”
by submission | Mar 4, 2011 | Story
Author : James Rhodes
“Do you know why you keep making the same mistakes over and over?” Susan asked.
Daniel shrugged, he didn’t really care.
“It’s because you’re forgetful.”
“OK.”
“Well, what are you going to do about it?”
Daniel didn’t really feel like talking, least of all talking about his shortcomings. He realised that if he didn’t talk she would carry on and on until he broke down… Best to get it out of the way.
“I’m only forgetful about things I don’t care about.”
“Like me?”
“No, not you, the things you care about: bills, cleaning, the future… That sort of thing, I can’t focus on it.”
Susan’s lips were visibly smacking.
“Well, don’t you want this to work?”
“It doesn’t work, I die on my own. You get married next year, two weeks from now we get engaged because I start lying to placate you. After that we are happy until I forget all about you for some reason.”
Susan was used to Daniel’s nonsense, she sighed.
“You know, sometimes I wonder how you even hold down a job.”
“No you don’t, you know everything about my job.”
There was an accusative tone to Daniel’s voice that Susan didn’t quite understand.
“Well go on, tell me about it.” Daniel was shouting.
“What do you want me to say?” She asked.
“Just tell me why I love you so much when I don’t meet you until two weeks ago?”
Susan struggled to give him an answer but Daniel couldn’t hear it, his mind was somewhere else.
by submission | Mar 3, 2011 | Story
Author : Jason Frank
“Would you drop it already?” not really a question, not the way he said it. “They are not alive. A little self repair, a little self preservation, and occasional self replacement do not make things alive. They make them some damn good products that cost plenty of damn good money, that’s all.”
She didn’t say anything. He had more to say, she knew that but she wasn’t going to encourage him. Of course, sometimes he got on a roll and could keep going without anything from her.
“They don’t have the spark of life. They don’t seek out things, they don’t build things. They don’t have dreams. They don’t have self direction. Whatever the program they have says, they do. We can do whatever we want, that’s why we’re alive and they’re not. Are you getting any of this?”
“So,” she began with that most versatile and complicated of beginnings, “when was the last time you sought something out, built something, or told me about a dream you had? Are you a damn good product, too?”
“I can’t even talk to you. I’m going out. I’m going to the bar,” a familiar phrase he punctuated, as usual, with the slamming of the door.
Walking up to the car, his eyes caught on the traces of the dent he’d picked up in a parking lot the week before. It had mostly healed. Three good kicks took care of that, put the dent back the way it was.
He backed out of the driveway fast, barely looking. What was worse, a bunch of uppity products trying to make him look bad or being married to a half wit who thought she was friends with said products? Thank god her deathly cat and dog allergies had spared him from a home overrun by furry quadrupeds. They should have had kids. Sure, it would have been a huge pain, but at least his wife’s maternal drives wouldn’t have her talking to the damn furniture.
Turning the corner and starting down the hill, the inevitability of his situation was on his mind. He had to drink; there was no getting through to that woman. Wednesday (was it Wednesday?) he was out getting a beer in the garage and there she was with two ottomans and an end table having a tribal council with the car. What could a man do in that situation? He broke out of his thoughts when he realized that he was going a little fast.
He went light on the brakes but nothing happened. The sense of being out of control was novel enough to his sober brain to create a little shock. Still, the sober brain had a number of tricks up its sleeve, such as shifting into neutral, etc. Nothing worked. He couldn’t even open the door to jump out of what was an increasingly speeding death trap. He began screaming just as the car stereo cranked itself up so loud he couldn’t hear himself. That song? He hated that song. She loved it.
“If he was wearing his seatbelt… it wasn’t that bad of a wreck… I’m sorry” the officer was telling her while she stood there in her pink and frayed bath robe, crying into a handful of Kleenex like it was Oscar season. “The car… it’s not badly damaged.”
“Don’t… I don’t want to junk the car. He loved that car. I want to bring it home and let it recover,” she said through the thick tears and aforementioned Kleenex.
“That’s probably a good idea,” the officer said.
