Recycled

Author : James Hartley My wife, Gladys, was really into recycling, it was the only way to save the environment, civilization, the entire galaxy. She really hated how I'd take the crossword from the morning paper into the john and then drop it in the trash when I finished it. ...

Flat and Void

Author : Helstrom The old man who had introduced himself as Jacob returned after the nurse left. Old was perhaps too strong a word – he definitely had a good number of years on him, but he wore them well. The deep lines in his face spoke of character and a sort of natural ...

From This Day Forward

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer They'd bought it together as a wedding present. Not your traditional newlywed purchase, but they loved each other with such intensity, they wanted a guarantee that nothing could take one away from the other. They made love on their wedding ...

The Southern Star

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer The interstellar war with the Luyten Empire was winding down. Although the Luyten home world had surrendered a few months earlier, much of their fleet remained in deep space, unwilling to voluntarily stand down. Consequently, the ...

Escapology

Author : Waldo van der Waal It was raining outside. It was always fucking raining outside. Fat, acidic drops that stripped the city of its colour, and its inhabitants of their lives. Everybody walked hunched over, hunkered down inside their dark coats. And it smelled like… It ...

Visits

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer I’m no stranger to visits from my future selves. The first time I showed up to myself, I was only nineteen. I was in the backyard, smoking a cigarette with my hand cupped so that my parents wouldn’t see. An older version of me stepped ...

Stillness

Author : Carter Lee My world is motionless. I remember making cuts in my forearm, back near the beginning. The skin would separate, but blood wouldn’t flow. As soon as I looked away from the almost invisible incision, it would disappear. I remember cutting off a finger, ...

A Waste of Time

Author : Jason Kocemba The time train was late. His great(x5) Grandfather's birth certificate felt massive in his pocket, a nano-singularity. Did that flimsy piece of paper (wood based!) really cause him to lean to the left? They had caught up and were closing in and the ...

Virus

Author : Matthew Forish I stood there fighting back tears, her hand held in mine, separated only by the rubber surgical gloves I was wearing. They were a perfect match for the rubber smock that covered the rest of my body, and the rubber cover over my hair. That was all for ...

Assignment #0110110

Author : Asher Wismer First came the wind. Rushing out of the east, searingly hot, almost hurricane force, the wind taking my breath away and the rough smack of dust and grit peppering my skin. Next came the shockwave. If the wind was a slap, the shockwave was a solid punch, ...

Trench Warfare

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer When Lieutenant Parks and a lone Private lifted off from the rooftop in the only available escape vehicle, they were painfully aware that they were leaving behind a vastly outnumbered platoon of men engaged in a firefight for their very ...

Contractual Obligations

Author : Sam Clough, Staff Writer I'm just a golem: made of flesh rather than clay, but still propelled along by the words in my head and the fire in my eyes. Under my skull is no clay tablet or ancient scroll, though: break me apart and you wouldn't catch a glimpse of the ...

What My Granddad Told Me About The Martians

Author : David Rees-Thomas Back in 1938 before we had to move again I remember we would often go to my Granddads house for tea. He lived in a small cottage on the outskirts of our village with his dogs, a blind Jack Russell and a very old Yorkshire terrier with 3 legs. I was ...

Triton

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer A few hours after the Neptune Explorer achieved orbit around the solar system’s most distant planet, it detected very faint radio signals from Neptune’s largest moon, Triton. The signal was a repeating series of pulses: ...

Baldy

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer It was 1856. I remember it like it was yesterday even though so many of my other memories have gone. It looked like he had fallen out of the clouds judging by the sheared treetops that led to his crippled metal sky wagon. I say ‘he’ but ...

Dawn

Author : Steven Holland Jaden Stanitski throttled the space rover to full power. The soft treads of the vehicle crunched over the rough, sun baked surface of Planet Merco II. He avoided the craters and deep crevices of the planet’s surface as best he could. The sack ...

Renew

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer The pig carcass filled most of the stainless tub where the delivery men had laid it. Freshly slaughtered, but not butchered, it had taken four of them to lift it there. None of them spoke to Rinnovi, only pausing for him to sign for the ...

The Robot Whisperer

Author : Brian C. Baer Robots love me. As much as robots can love. And in a plutonic sense, of course. Something about my chubby little baby face sets off their simulated paternal instincts and they all bend over backwards to answer my questions. That sort of thing comes ...

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