Where Old Wood Decays
Reading Time: 5 minutesA timeworn witch, the last of her coven, fights her young replacement to cling to the post she’s held for centuries as the steward of the Mother Tree.
Flash Fiction
Shrinking
Reading Time: 5 minutesA woman goes home to visit her parents, even though every visit causes their house to shrink.
Toddler’s Tidy Tale: Every Mother’s Dream
Reading Time: 3 minutesA weary mother’s wish comes true when her toddler’s toys mysteriously start tidying themselves. As she embraces the magic, she soon learns that all enchantments—like the holiday season—must come to an end.
Playing with Lions
Reading Time: 2 minutesAboard a spaceship of giants is a school in which a teacher uses the creatures of Earth to show his pupils that the value of life is not determined by its size.
Not-Your-Earth Day
Reading Time: 4 minutesHumans consume micro-plastics and nano-plastics in huge quantities starting in the womb. These plastics never leave the body. Yet the public rejoices in the advent of micro-organisms that consume plastic wherever it might be. Should we really thank nature for taking out the trash this way?
A Taste of Evil
Reading Time: 4 minutesAn old vending machine serves up more than just a stale Devil Dog.
The Curio Shop
Reading Time: 4 minutesA blind man makes a deal with the devil that doesn’t work out as he had hoped.
Blood and Saltwater
Reading Time: 2 minutesA mermaid’s lament over her murdered lover, and her call to wage war against those who killed him.
Providence Will Provide
Reading Time: 4 minutesNaima has everything she needs, and everything she wants, and more besides. Providence does just what it says: whatever you need, it provides. Coming here was the right thing to do, the best thing. Coming here was the only thing that made sense. Coming here was Naima’s idea, after all.
Transference
Reading Time: 4 minutesDr Peters’ new patient suffers from a particularly unpleasant recurring nightmare but, after a session with the doctor, it seems that the ‘fetus-man’ has gone away for good.
The Coffee Shop
Reading Time: 4 minutesA celebrated sci fi author gets annoyed by fans constantly tracking him down at his favorite writing haunts and pitching him with ideas.
The Significance of the Ostrich
Reading Time: 4 minutesJoin Anya Lasagna on a tour of the Historic Ballyhoo Place World Heritage Site! Marvel together at the ingenuity, whimsy and stoicism with which old-style humans once faced the endless vicissitudes of their own bleak reality.
*Parking validation available on request.
In the Shadow of the Lotus Tree
Reading Time: 4 minutesWhat would you give up in order to be young again?
Schrödinger’s Dilemma
Reading Time: 4 minutesA man receives a mysterious puzzle box with no sender, igniting an existential journey into the nature of self and reality. As obsession consumes him, the box reveals an impossible and horrifying truth—one that will shatter his reality and unlock his own doom.
When It Found Us
Reading Time: 2 minutesWhile returning from a nearby lake on a camping trip, a couple discovers their camp trashed—with a strange sparkling substance coating everything—and are forced to run when something unnatural gives chase.
A Kindness, A Cruelty
Reading Time: 4 minutes“The arrow is easy,” Elspeth said. “If it is a kindness, it is only in comparison to a cruelty.”
Slip
Reading Time: 4 minutesThe plan failed, or I wouldn’t be here assisting a paramedic as he straps my corpse onto a gurney. Confusing? Yeah. Try being me.
All In The Game
Reading Time: 4 minutesIn a battle-ridden world, lives are spent like currency, and one soldier tries to understand what happened to his comrade.
The Rarest of Contraband
Reading Time: 4 minutesThe best thing about running the ship’s laundry was the many nooks and crannies to hide contraband. I had powder, of course, and weapons, the bread and butter of any smuggling outfit. But a month ago things changed when the hyperdrive malfunctioned.
From an Ixil, To a Gringo
Reading Time: 4 minutes“Juana has stopped ageing,” the village elder tells Theo as they step towards the distant shack. “She ceased about five years ago. Said she couldn’t grow any older without dying. And if Juana dies, there’s no telling what Edna might do.”
Let the Salt Decide
Reading Time: 4 minutesZeke looked out a kitchen window, into his backyard. Waves crested and lapped the shore, leaving salt-soaked artifacts in their wake. The sea always has a say.
Arachnophobia
Reading Time: 7 minutes“First contact” is an underexplored sub-genre with many opportunities for miscommunication. Sometimes deadly, sometimes not so much.
The Race
Reading Time: 4 minutesA young man starts a new job at a seemingly disused rocket ship yard.
The Healing Breath of Alpacas
Reading Time: 4 minutesWhen aliens descend on Earth, they request an audience with Karen, the United States’ most statistically average individual to sit judgement.
Retirement
Reading Time: 3 minutesCost-effective retirement for those who work in the human harvesting industry can have unexpected consequences.
If We Can Just Get to the Cabin Before…
Reading Time: 4 minutesMarsha and Frank are driving along a country road on a rainy night, with Frank regaling Marsha about his knowledge of Japanese Samurai films,
when they encounter a ghostly specter in the middle of the road.
Hope of Green
Reading Time: 3 minutesIn the face of a devastated climate, humanity’s last hope is to relocate to another planet, but not everyone sees it that way.
A Perfect Day
Reading Time: 4 minutesA day at the beach turns into something unexpected for a young couple.
The Snow Hath No Queen
Reading Time: 5 minutesIn a future where the continents are gone, the oceans are dead, and humanity survives atop the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a man goes on a dreamquest to rediscover cold and snow.
Body Donor
Reading Time: 4 minutesDavid volunteers for NASA’s Body Donor program, where human corpses are exchanged for advanced knowledge of an alien species.
Taking Care of Our Own
Reading Time: 3 minutesThere’s an aswang on the loose and it’s up to us to deal with it. Don’t forget to bring trash bags…
Forest in Apartment Number Ten
Reading Time: 4 minutesWhen Gretel grew up, she left the Sugar-Candy House and the forest behind her, but some stories won’t allow you to walk away.
Your Entire Universe in One Bite
Reading Time: 4 minutesFirst dates are always scary, but sometimes fear can be delicious.
I Regret Any Future Impact of My Words and Actions
Reading Time: 3 minutesThis piece imagines a future world where apologies are necessary for every step of personal interactions with others.
I Regret Any Future Impact of My Words and Actions Read More »
Invocation
Reading Time: 4 minutesA desperate young Wiccan encounters an archetypal presence in a shopping mall Santa.
Coffee Robot
Reading Time: 4 minutesOne million, two hundred-thousand seconds later, the reporter from the Tribune sips his coffee and raises his hand. “I just don’t see how people can be expected to trust you after an incident like this.”
On the Edge of Destruction
Reading Time: 4 minutesA young slaver unknowingly captures her childhood friend, and must consider the extent to which they are each beyond salvation.
Real Women
Reading Time: 4 minutesA group of mannequins from a fashion department store dream of becoming real women.
She Said Yes and a City Died
Reading Time: 3 minutesDon’t blame her. She knew that if she avoided the knife, she could grant her city centuries to grow and thrive. She also believed if she made that choice, she would die by year’s end.
The Private Man
Reading Time: 4 minutesThey knew each other very well, as much as the Law would allow. Their children were beautiful, curious, and kind. To know where they were now, or what their mother looked like, could lose him everything.
Hands Down
Reading Time: 2 minutesHow will a child react to his father’s unsettling business decisions?
Native in Arbors
Reading Time: 4 minutesThe emigrants to Planar6 have survived the voyage from Earth via conversion to semi-sentient fungal forms, a process that is reversed upon arrival. The trouble is, one of the crew prefers to stay the way they are…
Rod Serling School of Writing
Reading Time: 4 minutesA budding student sci-fi writer applies to the Rod Serling School because of the celebrity’s name attached to the school. When a salesman comes by the house to pitch the school, her father joins the conversation, with unexpected results.
