The Very Long Ladder

Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer She loves him and he loves her. But here on the stagnant, barely lapping, crust edge of the great acid sea, love is something suppressed. A meaningless and functionless thing to be stuffed away as far as possible from the hearts that ache ...

Mary Had a Little Plan

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer It really wasn’t clever. Every time that she went out, they followed her together. On Tuesday morn when she went out, she carried a huge white bag. Not unusual when going to shop, but laden enough to sag. She sallied boldly round the ...

The Remarkable Donut

Author: Robb White The black hole first appeared in Aaron Jesperson’s upstairs room Thursday night and seemed nothing more than a fuzzy donut, a “wobbly thing,” according to Emma, when she went in to look for him. She found him in the kitchen swearing and holding his hand ...

Rare Satisfaction on a Discount Airline

Author: Keith Downey Crammed as he was into the middle seat of Row F between two gargantuan human specimens, Zim wasn’t sure that he could even reach the tesseract in his pocket, let alone activate it. Excess tissue, barely contained by overworked athletic pants, reached ...

Precious Things

Author: Irene Montaner She wandered along time caring for the dead. No galaxy was too big, no planet too insignificant. Everything that had ever lived within the boundaries of her universe was worth of her attention, regardless of whether it had existed for eons or ...

Eye of the Beholder

Author: J. David Thayer I lay in my hospital bed with both arms crushed and my face and eyes cut to pieces. A loose timber from a logger swatted my Jeep into a drainage ditch. The accident should have killed me, but I survived. Didn’t feel like it. Well-meaning people, when ...

Travels with Stacy

Author: R. J. Erbacher Another excursion. Another plane flight. Another jungle. He called Stacy his heedless girlfriend because she didn’t care what anybody thought. Probably not even him. She didn’t want vacations like your average girlfriend. Never a weekend in the ...

White Star

Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer She slides the ornately embossed door aside and enters the first-class stall. It’s empty but for a man, he barely stirs as he reads aloud from a menu. “Calvados Glazed Roast Duck with Apple Sauce.” “William.” “Miss White.” The ...

One Minute

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer The pavement shimmers gently in the afternoon heat. The baristas have been reduced to serving nothing but iced coffee. “944,013.” Alec looks up to see someone with a vaguely familiar face take the seat opposite, then a waft of cigarette ...

Bungi

Author: David Henson I loved the house next door. She was a bungalow. I’m a brick ranch. I fell in love with her after becoming sentient though I don’t remember exactly when that was. Achieving self-awareness isn’t like flipping a switch. It’s more like gradually turning ...

Tick Off

Author: DJ Lunan I know these are my earthquakes. My greed, guilt, and responsibility. Fair dues. But I am not learning a lesson. Earth is being terminated. With each tremor, our house groans like a war-weary galleon. Imperceptibly minute specks of rubble, wood dust, and ...

In Fire He Shall Rise

Author: Amanda Hard Scarlet and orange leaves, chips of autumnal tree paint, fell on dry grass as the phoenix in my bird bath lifted his tired eyes. “Damned,” he squawked, before flashing bright white, a blur of sparks and feathers of gray ash that floated to the ground ...

Dreams

Author: Mishal Imaan Syed I woke to a ceiling gilded with stars. “She’s awake,” someone murmured. I rubbed the dreams from my eyes, trying to make out the fluttering form of someone. “Who are you?” I asked. “A creature of the night.” The voice was pure velvet and silver ...

Heliotropism

Author: Mandy Szewczuk We saw it coming, our apocalypse, through binoculars. It didn’t burn out our eyes, the way movies told us it would because it wasn’t a mushroom cloud or column of incandescent fire. What we saw, standing on top of our apartment building because when ...

The Breakdown

Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer The rain has given up falling in drops and now lambastes the windscreen in heavy punched lumps. The manic whip of the wipers suddenly stops and the engine dies and she eases the car, tempering the brake with her foot until the squeal of ...

High Life

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer To our right, there are five rows of aircars just hanging there. In addition, there are six layers below and five above. All sleek, shining, and not moving. “Look at it. Six by twelve, going nowhere.” Tish’s right. We picked the wrong ...

Ruby

Author: Richard M. O'Donnell, Sr. To: Four-Eight-Nine From: You Know Subject: Last Request Dear FEN, Pour my ashes under the face-down headstone. You know the one. The one we pushed over that night and danced on, the one in the Last Woods on the forgotten farm we ...

Inhabiting Jolene

Author: Franco Amati It took nine dates for Jolene to let me inhabit her mind. With a woman as intriguing as her, it’s tempting to sneak in without permission. But trust me, it’s always more enjoyable with permission. I snuck into the head of the last girl I dated, and ...

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