Birth Day

Author : Joyce Weber

I want to love them. Truly I do. But they keep shoving and pushing, wrangling around inside me till I want to rip my belly open and dump them out.

There is no peace with them crowding my body till they almost feel like they will ooze out the very pores ...

Q204

Author : Sarah Klein

I sat in the dark doom of my living room, gazing absentmindedly at the television screen. They'd be drawing numbers in about two minutes. I knew my number wasn't going to be called, but I had to watch all the others ones fly by to make sure. If I missed an ...

Human Proof

Author : J.R.Blackwell, Staff Writer When I was eleven, I tried to kill myself after seeing an old movie. In the film, a man cut his wrists with bits of mirror and then held them under steaming hot water. At his funeral, people piled flowers on his grave. Everything in the film was ...

Sensual Response

Author : Suzanne Phillips

The scent is the worst part.

Sweat, stale cigarette smoke, ethanol, ear wax, cheap hair gel. When your face, and therefore your olfaction sensor, is pressed against a client's neck, it's impossible to avoid it - you weren't given an option to switch ...

Windows

Author : Helen E. Kourous

Vijay had arrived early at New Windows on the World, expecting the worst. He knew she would be late, so he took the opportunity to adjust the mood of his BlueShark textile-display sleeve stripes to his personally-designed schema Variations on Green ...

Wishes Ain't for Hoboes

Author : Mur Lafferty, featured writer Cthulhu Bob and Hominy Jack were warming their hands over a barrel one chilly night on Londo 13, right outside of Hazy City, where hoboes were dumped after branding. Hominy Jack looked up. "Gonna snow." Cthulhu Bob squinted into the blackness. ...

Membrane

Author : Sam Clough aka "Hrekka"

The two guards stared into the swirling fog. In the distance, both could see a black smudge. A person, on foot, crossing in from the outer edge of the membrane.

"Him crazy insane." Kit remarked, leaning with both elbows on the safety rail to ...

Hyperspace

Author : Mike Frizzell

They say your life flashes before your eyes in hyperspace. In only a millisecond, you can relive every excruciating moment of your life. Every rejection, failure, and utter humiliation is right there for your review, complete with the sounds and smells you ...

Now We know

Author : TJMoore

Virgil crept through the vent blinking as the hot, humid wind caused tears to stream from his squinted eyes. The condensation caused him to slip and slide on the smooth, sweaty metal as he lifted himself up into a side shaft. The constriction made the air howl and ...

Conductivity

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer "I'm not sure what you want with me." The words came nervously in gasps as the little man pulled himself up off the ground and rubbed the circulation back into his wrists. "I don't deal in data, I'm more of a 'creative leveller'. In real ...

Transporter

Author : Duncan Shields

I was standing in the five star hotel’s transporter half a second ago. Destination: Corroway 6. Pleasure moon.

I am now standing in a cold, dark concrete basement. One dying fluorescent light stutters the room with camera flashes.

From what ...

Will of Our Mother

Author : K. J. Russell The warhead has been planted approximately twenty meters beneath solid granite. Physicist Arthrike Brogan stood before some three dozen people, those scientists and politicians of higher power or renown. "At that depth, what we see should be pretty much ...

Second Date

Author : Mur Lafferty, featured writer "I don't like heels," Tina said. Barry looked at her, his head cocked to one side. "I thought all girls liked heels." Tina grimaced. "You'll think I'm weird." Barry grinned. Tina liked the same movies as he did, the same music, and didn't ...

The Brain

Author : Patrica Stewart

Tony Scandone, the Director of The Ministry of Global Economy, motioned to the servbot to refill his coffee cup. After satisfying himself that the coffee was properly sweetened, he raked the last few morsels of his desert onto his fork, then squeegeed it ...

Darwin Undercover

Author : TJMoore

It had been eons since Kra had left home for this mission. He’d known when he left that it was a one way trip, but now he was growing weary of this “Long Term” assignment. “Long Terminal” was more like it he joked to himself for maybe the millionth ...

Senseless

Author : Steven Holland

Contemplating my life’s choice, I plunge my hand beneath the slowly flowing stream water. There was only one choice in my life that makes any real difference. The cool water rushes past my hand, caressing it with the softest of touches. The bubbling of ...

All in a Day's Work

Author : Michael Herbaugh a.k.a. "Freeman"

It’s eerie, ya know? Standing over myself, while I am performing surgery on my own body. “Standing” is really a misnomer, it’s more like I am suspended from the ceiling of the company’s surgical arena. I, that is my ...

Echo Menagerie

Author : Salli Shepherd

Feeding-time is an unnatural silence. The last otter walks in dry circles, won’t chirrup for fish. A bobcat, only yesterday elevated to the lone archetype of all American felines, has pined to little more than loose hide draped on a bone frame and sulks ...

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