by submission | Nov 26, 2015 | Story |
Author : Philip G. Hostetler
Somewhere along the line I drew a circle instead. I thought about it. When thinking in linear terms, does the line break on through to the other side to terminate at the beginning? If so, does it differ at all from a circle, the enigmatic snake biting it’s tail? All a matter of perspective, purely subjective really… But I believe they are one and the same. How so? How can something so different in appearance and direction have the exact same properties? Faith, baby, Faith.
Yeah, I said it, the ‘F’ word. Dirty as fuck, I know, but consider the limited faculty of human senses that are conditioned to the earthly experience. Then consider that if we could perceive the Gamma and X-Ray spectrum we’d be able to witness celestial events, grand explosions, the birth of stars and the degradation of energy. Now imagine your perception is invulnerable, completely resistant to entropy, which is what I’m getting at. Imagine all matter has been broken down to heat, pure heat. You’re there witnessing it, like a cosmic voyeur, not of the universe but suspended at the third person. You’ve seen it all, the formation, the progression and resulting diversity. The spontaneity of life erupting onto hydrated spheres of mass in that perfect goldilocks zone. Not too hot, not too cold- but just right. Ah the neutral zone, the balance…
So what the fuck does this have to do with Maggie Hubbard?
Everything. For she is the circle and I am the line. Here we are suspended, witnessing heat death and a big bang. Of course this was all before we decided to go spelunking into black holes. Not somewhere anyone wants to be really, witnessing your body stretching and tearing apart into base carbon, hydrogen and then concentrated amongst the orgy of elements at the center of a singularity is truly a harrowing experience, let me tell you…
But she’s so beautiful and I’d follow her anywhere, although by jumping into a black hole we never come back quite the same.
I digress, Maggie, oh Maggie, why did we ever leave the goldilocks zone? Why did we rise so far from grace? There we were, happily crawling on our bellies in the filth and muck of the earth, and now we’ve come to such great heights beyond ourselves that our selves are barely recognizable, save for the devotion to the basest elements and our fucked up ability of disembodied consciousness. Go anywhere, be anything, have the experience of any and all matter, for we’re all one and the same. So why are there two of us? That’s still got me all fucked up. I know we’re all one and the same so why does this disembodied consciousness require a pair? Every time we laid down to have Dr. MacArroy break our bodies down until all that remained was a massless wisp of consciousness and project us to various locations around the universe, he said it was absolutely necessary to have two linked souls. Oh, and he paid, he paid well… Every time we came back our bank accounts were burgeoning with digits, some kind of government grant to explore the potential of the human brain or… …whatever. Funny how that shit doesn’t matter when you’ve experienced the simultaneous beginning/end of the fucking universe. Fuck off money, I was a happy laborer, I manipulated earthly materials into humanoid living structures. All right, I was just a fucking carpenter- what do you want from me? Put this kind of knowledge into a layman’s head and see what the fuck happens. A convoluted, disjointed recount of eternity.
Maggie… Where the fuck have you gone? Never has Dr.MacArroy mentioned anything about the abyss. Is that really the only word? The void? The abstract nothing? The unimaginable? Is that where you’ve gone? As if to answer, your hand emerged as if from nothing. I grasped your hand and I pulled, I pulled harder than a singularity. I pulled with love. But now there is a darkness in your eyes. A darkness. As Dr. MacArroy said,
“Once the Circle is drawn, the Circle is gone.”
by submission | Nov 25, 2015 | Story |
Author : Angie Gibson
One more time.
It hurts so much. One more time may just kill me.
My hands shake as I lift my Fenestra Lens to my face. It’s a model A, race car red, as shiny as a freshly picked apple. It cost me everything I had. But thanks to it, I’ve climbed Mount Everest, I’ve explored the flooded labyrinths of Chac Mool, I’ve made love to countless beautiful women, I’ve killed a thousand men, I’ve died a thousand times. It cost me everything, but because of it I’ve LIVED.
But one more time will kill me.
I don’t put it on right away. I just hold it so it catches the fading light. Just a piece of plastic that fits over my head and eyes. So powerful, my bowels churn nervously just looking at it. My palms sweat. My heart races. Holding this, contemplating putting it on, I feel the same terrified thrill that countless others have felt standing in front of the gallows, horrifyingly certain of what lies within that dangling, sightless eye.
I don’t want to die. I could put it down on the ground right now and stomp it to pieces. I could chuck it out the window where a dozen scrabbling children will swoop down on it like hungry dogs. Maybe one of them will get away with The Lens intake—the equivalent of winning the lottery. I could do anything but put it on my head. But I don’t.
I’m a junky. A junky addicted to LIFE. A junky who knows damn well that one more shot is all it’s going to take to kill him. As if on cue my nose starts to bleed. The terrible headache pounds like a gong in my ears. Even if I don’t put it on, I probably only have a good year or two left.
I peer out my window. The faded yellow sun is setting from the septic sky. A sherbet burst of color-pollution that will kills millions upon millions of people. One might consider it beautiful. Cold faded concrete and glimmer-less glass stretch for miles, everything with even a touch of green has been stripped and eaten. Seventeen billion people starving at once. Everything that crawls, hops, swims or flies has been consumed long ago. Some have gone crazy with hunger and started eating dirt until their stomachs burst. Others have wised up and started eating each other. Beware the plump and peaceful.
My shrunken stomach whimpers. Inside The Lens I’ve eaten feasts at kings’ tables. Of all the simulations, The Lens spares you starvation—just a little too close to reality to be marketable. Maybe my last vision will be a dinner. Nothing crazy, something elegant. A view with lights at night. A beautiful woman across the small table. We will clink Champagne glasses and smile into each others eyes while the swollen vein in my brain bursts and floods me with blood. There will be no pain. In fact, it’ll be ecstasy. But what if I wake up impaled on a spear? I may just die writhing in agony. Even still, isn’t that better than the slow death of starvation? The meek and painful submission to a tumor in my spleen or kidneys or lungs? Or perhaps I will join my Family and Friends on the UsNet. Not my real family and friends, those don’t exist, but does it really matter whether they’re real or not? People I created subconsciously and The Lens made real for me? I don’t think so. They love me. That’s all that matters. Strangely, my hands stop shaking.
by submission | Nov 24, 2015 | Story |
Author : Edward D. Thompson
The warm summer breeze wafted gently over the well-manicured grounds as Bill’s limo slowed to a stop at his country mansion. He waited, downing the last of his fine whiskey, his tux stiff and uncomfortable. No chauffeur appeared, so he opened the door to his hatchback himself and stepped onto the driveway outside his simple suburban home. It was cloudy and he drew his thin jacket tight against the chill fall winds. “Bum,” the driver muttered, pulling away before Bill was fully off the bus. He stumbled, falling to his knees in the icy winter slush. Forcing himself up, he made his way with effort through the winter rain down the trash strewn sidewalk to his tenement apartment.
There was a woman waiting. Young, shapely, sexy, vibrant; clad in a thin negligée, excited to see him home. The scent of a hot meal wafted from the den. He moved to kiss her and she turned her cheek away, her scowl fierce. Trash and roaches scattered as she slammed down a tin of cold soup on the rickety kitchen table. Her corpulent, flabby flesh barely hidden by her threadbare woolen robe. She snarled at him for interrupting her ‘program,’ which sputtered on the static-washed black and white. He ate his meal in sullen silence as she harangued him, remembering how happy they had been, how in love. How miserable she had made him from the first, always nagging and lying. She’d never loved him at all. No one had.
***
In the control booth of TransVirtualRealty (motto: All the Happiness You Can Want!), the new guard munched slowly on a pbj, shaking his head as on the monitor Bill slogged through a pile of filth: lonely, destitute, rejected again by all his friends, by every would-be lover.
“I don’t get it,” he turned to his partner, “aren’t the customers programmed into ideal environments? This guy should be in paradise!”
The older guard shrugged. “Some have that. And some can’t seem to hang on to it. We set it up, but when it comes down to it, it’s all in their head. They have final control.” He ruminated on his own ham-on-rye. “We reset it if it gets too bad. I mean, they paid for nice. Extra nice. We try.”
The new guy watched Bill, now limping from some newly acquired pain, as he settled into a dumpster for the night, scant shelter from the howling blizzard sweeping the city, muttering all the while about the betrayals and injustice he endured.
“I dunno why,” the older guy mused, “but some people just don’t know how to be happy.”
by submission | Nov 23, 2015 | Story |
Author : Gray Blix
He awoke and lifted himself to glance at a mirror. Admiring his muscular arms and well-defined pecs and abs, he said, “You don’t look half bad, Danny. There’s a girl out there who is gonna like those hard muscles against her soft flesh, isn’t she, huh, ISN’T SHE?”
Then he saw her out of his peripheral vision. “You heard that, didn’t you? Well hear this: I know I’m nothin’ without you, Lara.” Welling up with tears, “You complete me, baby.”
He wiped his eyes and squinted against the first rays of morning sun. Slumping back onto the bed, he waited for her to say something.
Finally, “Lara…”
“I am here for you, Danny,” she said in her soothing way.
Again his eyes moistened. “I know you are. Come here, baby.”
Already close to the bed, she came closer still, leaning into it as he reached out to touch her, to stroke her. She seemed to purr in response.
“Ahhh, that’s warmin’ you up, huh, Lara? I know it’s warmin’ me up.”
“I am ready for you.”
He lowered himself onto her, and within seconds she conformed her shape to his anatomy and engaged the interface to his cerebellum and motor cortex, becoming a seamless physical and neurological extension.
He stood up and again looked toward the mirror. He liked what he saw, a finely tuned mid-30s hunk of a guy. He had never gotten a tatoo while on active duty, probably the only soldier in his regiment with virgin skin. He turned and looked over his right shoulder to see reflected the new tatoo on his butt cheek.
“I haven’t let anyone else see this, Lara.”
The letters were reversed, but he knew the words: “Lower Anatomical Replacement Assembly.”
He had been told that the transition from wheelchair to Lara would take months of effort, but he surprised himself and his medical caregivers by making the adjustment in less than a week. “Lara’s doing all the work,” he said. “I’m just her grateful passenger.”
Indeed, Lara had done her job so well that after a few days back at work, he didn’t give her a second thought — which allowed him to turn his attention to other matters. Like women. Not that he hadn’t thought of the opposite sex when wheelchairing his way around the office, but now he had the courage to approach the young receptionist whose smile made his heart skip a beat every morning when he glided by. Today was the day he would ask her out.
“It’s about time,” she said, accepting his invitation. “I’ve had my eyes on you since your first day of work.
“You mean my first day back?”
“No, your first day of work, when you wheeled your way into my thoughts. You were so shy, I was about to ask you out, but then you disappeared.”
Their evening out ended at her apartment, where she awoke the next morning to find him staring at her.
“When I see you like this, at first light, without makeup…” His eyes moistened as they were wont to do. “You’re a natural beauty.”
“Well, I can’t take the credit for my appearance,” she said. “I owe it all to Fara.”
“Fara?”
Brushing her hair aside to kiss her cheek, he noticed a small tatoo behind her ear. It read, “Facial Anatomical Replacement Assembly.”
by submission | Nov 22, 2015 | Story |
Author : N. R. Crowningshield
Vera sat on the cold steel floor. Back hunched and aching. Her legs were wrapped in her arms and she buried her face in her knees. Hiding her eyes and quietly sobbing. She was unsure of how much time had passed. A loud pummel of flesh against steel startled her.
“Alex did you set the distress beacon?” Vera stammered under deep breaths. She was unable to calm herself.
“Yes Vera. I activated the distress beacon just after the phenomenon.” The ship’s computer replied in a monotonous male voice.
“Oh. Alright. Can we reposition at all?” Vera asked in a muffled voice. She kept her face planted on her knees.
“No Vera. Unfortunately John has destroyed the main engine. The damage is beyond my repair. I consumed the reserve Reaction Control fuel to surge the ship in reverse. My intention was to disengage John’s grasp on you. I am unable to perform any bio scans without you seated in the pilot chair. How is your health Vera?”
Keeping her head down, she examined her right wrist. Her scratches seeped blood and soaked the shredded carbon mesh sleeve. A dark purple bruise surrounded her wrist as an ugly bracelet. Gingerly she rotated her hand, unsure if it was broken. The other hand felt around her swollen neck, Vera assumed it was the same color as her wrist. Her throat ached with every labored breath.
“I think I’m alright. I am very shaken.Thank you for saving my life Alex.”
“It was my pleasure Vera. Protocol states that no one is to harm another crew member under any condition.”
“Not much of a crew. Only us two. Did you find out anything on that violet flash?”
“No Vera. My scanners did not read anything out of the ordinary. My visual inspection of John has lead me to believe that the phenomenon has changed his psychology drastically. His cognitive abilities may not even be of John’s anymore.”
Even in the windowless engine room, Vera recalled how the ship’s hull radiated a violet flash of light. She still smelled the acrid scent it left behind. Like overheating circuits. Vera couldn’t guess what John saw in the cockpit. She was glad she didn’t.
“Please close the blinders Alex.”
“Yes Vera.” A black screen slid across the the cockpit windows, hiding the cosmos. “Blinds closed.”
Another strike of a fist against steel.
Vera choked down a terrified scream. Hugging her legs even tighter, she heaved into heavy sobs again. She tasted the salt of her tears as they ran down her cheeks and across her lips. Her nose started to run.
“Do not worry Vera. The cockpit is secure. The cockpit door is reinforced so that no human, no matter their strength, can break it down.”
Alex’s reassurance did little for Vera’s nerves. “Damn the abyss! There is no food in here. No water. No toilet. Can’t we get a hold of anyone?” Mira snapped. Her sniffling gasps of breath broke her sentences. .
“No Vera. I cannot reach anyone on the comms. I read no malfunction in our equipment. I have concluded that there must be some interference coming from Saturn’s rings.” The ship’s artificial intelligence calculated a logical apology. “I’m sorry Vera.”
No way of returning home. No way to communicate with anyone. No way to feed herself. All she could do was wait.
A sharp shriek of nails scraped against the door.
Vera looked up and there was John. He was watching her through the window. Watching her with new violet eyes. He stood motionless. Smiling. And staring. Never blinking.
