Alpine Zanzibar, The Genteel Fantastic

On the night Alpine Zanzibar died, that diva light, that genteel fantastic, the people that loved him bought him the moon. Together his friends pitched a fortune and purchased the lunar landscape for the entire night, inflicting their choices for the moon’s color on the entire earth. At 6PM ...

Priorities

Claude scuffed his feet against the burnished steel floor of his ship, a deep frown settled on his features. No matter how old he got, there were some women who always seemed to bring out the child in him, the contrite young boy who had just been given a firm scolding. Jelari could do it more ...

Rocketer

You remember when Billy first went into space, don’t you? First time one of those crazy rockets of his went off with him in it. First time he sent up the big rocket, not those little ones with the sensors made of old cell-phones and other garbage. Chuck always said he’d send up Chairman ...

Human Nature

The aroma of cooked vegetables filled Leba’s nostrils as she finished mixing the oils for the final touches of her dinner. All the guests had been waiting to taste her delicious mixture of carrots and lettuce with roots and peppers as spices. In fact, the whole of the community adored Leba ...

Dear John

Dear John, I loved you John, I want you to understand that. The Core wasn’t wrong to match us as marriage candidates; it just didn’t understand who you were really, the physical you. When we spoke and wrote and sent all those mad pictures over the Core - that was some other John. You ...

Prayer

Science has become the new standard of belief. It became the boundaries of thought and idea. I helped it grow to that, I helped to smite imagination and faith. Isn’t it strange that I call upon you now? When we completed the humane genome it was called a genius. I bore medals that weighed ...

The Body Is Made Of Clay

Harun did not think she was being unreasonable. The passenger obviously felt she was, but what did she know? Nothing, Harun concluded. Nothing that was worth anything anywhere but planet-side. “Look,” Harun said. “You cannot take this much luggage. There is not much space on the ship, ...

Damage Control

“This is a disaster,” said Herman Goodrich. His magnetic chair glided away from the table and bobbed gently as he threw his excessive weight into it, then it obediently slid back into place. Goodrich wiped a glaze of sweat from his forehead and reached for a donut before opening his ...

Noob

The pitter patter of sneakers came in rapid succession down the halls of the Great Southcrest Shopping Center. Dustin had a hankering for cheesesteak and was anxious to get back to his group before they left the shopping center. He spun around a corner and saw the signs for Chuck’s Delicious ...

Supernova

It happened in a late night Karaoke bar on Mars. Neil had hit the high note on the Pop Remix of “Some Enchanted Evening” when he felt a white exultation, his feet lifting off the stage by a celestial breath, his eyes cracked open but unseeing. Then he fainted. His friends took him to a ...

Sweet Dreams

Originally, Karen went along with the idea because she was certain her roommate wouldn’t come through with the goods. True, Jill had befriended (“befriended.” Chrissy giggled, her fingers hanging in mock quotation marks) a number of important people in the university’s psychology ...

Forward Motion

The roads of Rajeev were packed due to the mass exodus to the docks, and presumably, off-world. My skimmer was resting quietly on the dusty pavement, the hours--no, days, it had been days, hadn't it?--spent idling had left the poor conveyance without enough fuel to keep it hovering, much less ...

More Than a Feeling

Tomorrow is today’s warranty. That’s the motto they took when they made me. The lifespan of my purpose is equal to my battery expectancy. I am composed of titanium alloy and still shining after four years of operation. I am functioning at my highest rate. In this cycle of time I have ...

Warfare

Courtney was the leader: a petite woman in a well-tailored business suit and Italian leather shoes. Her straight blond hair was cropped at her chin and her blue eyes burned with determination behind silver-framed glasses. She walked with purpose, her heels clicking against the tile of the ...

Greater than Gold

The man with black teeth ripped at her plastic environ-suit. Beth didn’t scream, it was a waste of energy and no one would hear her anyway. He had no suit and his skin was bleached in some places, peeling and red in others. Sores covered his body and his hair was patchy on his head. Beth ...

Behind The Wire

Behind the wire, inside force fields and walls of concrete and steel, lays The Bomb Shelter. The Bomb Shelter is referred to as the warmest place on this side of the galaxy. In the Bomb Shelter, Captain Jaylean Rael tossed back his third Jack and Coke and continued to hold court within the ...

Instruction in the New World

The teacher tapped her wrist twice, and the drugs started streaming from the plastic tubes embedded in the students’ desk into their soft little arms. Within moments, she had their undivided attention. The yellow design on her dress to moved in a soothing pattern, giving her students a ...

Wall Of Cloth

Hijet dreamed of breasts, as he did every night. And once again he awoke with his sheet stained. Once more he would endure the sharp tongue of his mother holding the stained sheet as evidence of Hijet’s unclean body, and crying to the gods why she was cursed with a son. Hijet endured this ...

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