The Shallow
Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer There is life out there in the radium sea. A solitary orb of blue and green. A place where oceans are poisoned and bombs they are cast and beauty is carved out of words. So alien, so different. Though so much is the same and children…
read moreHonour the Bride
Author: Jae Miles, Staff Writer “If any can show just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together, let them now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold their peace.” The traditional silence falls. Then a grating voice sounds in everyone’s minds. “I speak for…
read moreFourteen Hundred Grams
Author: John McLaughlin “Christ, this place is a dump.” Paul Braun glanced around the offices of Organic Transport, Columbus branch. Dust-streaked fliers pepper the walls: Fifty-Thousand Credit Reward for Water Smugglers… “Food Rioters To Be Shot On Sight,” says UN…
read moreDate Night
Author: Mark Joseph Kevlock The metaphysical archive didn’t have as many visitors as it used to. Satch understood that. Still, he treated each one with all the kindness he could muster. The past was important to keep alive. Round about six-thirty on Saturday night, a…
read moreArt Medium
Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer Rebecca stood in the middle of her little gallery and surveyed her work. She’d hoped her recent direction was going to be different, maybe spark some kind of reaction from this sleepy little town, but the series hadn’t gotten anything…
read morePeople of the Morse
Author: David Henson I regain consciousness in a small hut made from sweet-smelling grass and blue sticks. A male garbed in the same type of grass stands over me. When he notices my eyes are open, he looks away and begins clicking and whistling. I ask about my…
read moreParaffin
Author: Ian Hill Affin slipped and slid over the lumpy white slopes. Her hair hung clotted with curdy chunks, and irritating crescents of tallow lingered under her fingernails; most of her skin was hidden under smeared wax; her clothes were heavy with clinging runoff….
read morePlenty
Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer The old Queen sits on the eve of her twentieth birthday and speaks to her yellow-eyed daughter and their legs they drip from the edge of the huge deck where once aircraft lurched and fell up and into a sky of the deepest…
read moreOn the Way Home
Author: Jae Miles, Staff Writer The cube of recycled plastic is labelled ‘Egg Mayonnaise’ and filled with a yellow paste. I don’t know what ‘Mayonnaise’ is, but egg’s one of the healthy stuffs listed on the Daily Reader’s ‘Top 20 Stuffs to Eat’. Always liked the…
read moreA Little Revolution
Author: Ken Carlson “It’s not that complicated,” said Captain Briggs, “my ship has been called to an outpost that we should reach in two hours’ time.” “Sounds simple enough,” replied his wife, Anita, beautiful in the simple, yet elegant way most people are not. Seated…
read moreDivine Mass
Author: Ian Hill Marble mulch crunched underfoot as the priest struggled to remain upright. There was such a weight on his shoulders, on his head, on his heart. The velvet folds of his robe pressed painfully into his body like cutting belts, and the brass icons that…
read moreHappy Birthday Girl
Author: Elle B Sullivan “Morning” “Goodmorning to you too,” I say smiling and turning around to push my back against your chest as you wrap your arms around me. “How did you sleep?” “I think well – all things considering.” “Hmmm,” you grumble, nuzzling your lips into…
read moreThe Graviton Saints
Author: Matthew Lee Chinese-occupied Philippines, 2034. The palette in Xinghua’s hand was a burst of pumpkin, butterscotch, and persimmon. The colours crept up her arm to her slim elbow. A group of four left the cathedral. With practiced technique, she scraped four…
read moreToy Soldiers
Author: Jae Miles, Staff Writer The wind up here is gentle, bringing the smell of summer fields from the uplands. Below my bloodied feet the valley stretches from side to side as far as I can see, so wide I can only just make out the verdant walls that line the far…
read moreSuckle
Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer The twins lay entwined, shuddering beneath the sodden pail that unfurled from the peak of the seventh hill that ghosted at their back. Babes, innocent as a mothers whisper, cast into the mighty rivers silted shoulder by the paranoid…
read moreNo Place Like Home
Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer Bennett stood out on the sweeping plateau of rock a mile above the ocean and watched as the planet’s orange sun dipped below the horizon. Beneath him, miles upon miles of tunnels and caverns carved out of the living rock by a hive of…
read moreCasting Seeds in the Nick of Time
Author: Richard M. O’Donnell, Sr. At near light speed, the starship Genesis sailed into the wormhole. Two-point-five nanoseconds later, the ship neared a rip in the wormhole, a rip that had allowed the earthlings to glimpse the multiverse on the other side. Genesis,…
read moreMess Hall
Author: Josie Gowler I slam on the retro brakes and skim past the first skyscraper, getting thrown forward and to the left in my harness as I dive within metres of the glassy face. The ship jolts into the gap between the first skyscraper and the jagged remains of the…
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