Random Story :
The Orb
Author: Aishwarya Srivastava They called it The Orb because “What …
Dolce Far Niente- That Sweet Doing Nothing
Author: Logan S. Ryan
They landed and attacked faster than we could name them. They flattened armies like moist clay. They didn’t swarm the skies with high-tech ships or storm our streets with laser rifles. Our extermination wasn’t cinematic at all. They just rolled over us.
To no one’s surprise, social media was instantly flooded with the carnage. I got lost in doomsday posts while sitting on my porch. My cat Briciola was sprawled across my lap. One video had been taken in Rome– that meant invaders were just minutes away from my own town, wedged between Italy’s volcanic hills.
Their cloud-like bodies engulfed everything. Ornate architecture emerged from their haze as rubble. An alien billowed toward the filmer right before the clip ended. I shuddered. That could be me. That will be me. I looked up. Hysterical crowds slalomed through town.
I had vanished from work without a word. I hadn’t called my family in years. I had nobody to protect or flee with. I would never talk or laugh or reconcile with anybody again because I was dead. The aliens hadn’t come yet, and I was already dead.
What can a corpse even do? Icy adrenaline coursed through my body. I would run. It didn’t matter if I sprinted into a sanctuary or a stampede of annihilation. I lurched forward in my chair and–
Briciola gawked with offense in her jade-marble eyes, mewling softly in protest. She remained tucked in my lap, even though her hips half-dangled off the chair. “Go!” I spat. Her tail flourished up and down, as if to scold me.
I found myself kneading her silky, mottled fur. My palms became tender and adorned in stray strands of hair. Her body rippled with purring; the sensation seeped through the tattered quilt into my thighs. She offered a slow blink, which I returned. My joints creaked as I slouched back into a comfortable position. She draped her head between my knees with her eyelids lulled closed.
How could I shun such a delicate creature? I became transfixed by the flexing of her rubbery pads as her claws crocheted the quilt. We took deep breaths. The air passed through her hair-thin nostrils with the timbre of a tender flute and through mine like a drowsy cymbal. She flopped onto her back, exposing more waves of fur to my eager hand. Her warm paw furled around my knuckles, strapping my hand to her velvety chest, but she still wasn’t satisfied. I had to toss my phone aside so that my other hand could join the fray.
Haze crested over the hills. Screams ignited from every direction. They had us surrounded.
My gaze sank from the tumultuous streets back to Briciola’s still face. Despite the shrieking, she didn’t stir beyond the occasional twitch of an ear. If I were already dead, I might as well have died with a cat on my lap. Besides, if she wasn’t going to surrender so easily, why should I?