Um
Reading Time: 4 minutes She wondered if she should even say it. She didn’t even want to think it. But Wyx definitely had to know, had a right to know probably. “There’s someone else on board.”
Flash Fiction
Counterfeit
Reading Time: 4 minutes A quick collision of rich space junk collectors, and an expert counterfeiter.
Hungry for Love
Reading Time: 3 minutes He used to have choices; now, he has a hunger. He needs to find his fiancée.
Swimming in the Late Hereafter
Reading Time: 4 minutes Ken’ichi’s white hazmat suit shines like a beacon as he breaks over the ridge, even through all the rain. His gait is slow and uneven. I never expected to see him again.
What You Will Find at a Memory Auction
Reading Time: 4 minutes A young man can no longer afford to keep all his memories. How will he decide which ones to keep? And he’s running out of time.
Mudpot
Reading Time: 4 minutes No magic in it. She didn’t need any. She just turned around looking some kind of way, and bung he went. Sometimes, a person sees their future in stark clarity and chooses to roll off the coil while the going’s good, and that’s the best thing that could be said about Amajane’s father.
Dream Planet
Reading Time: 5 minutes Idyllic was the only word Brody could think to describe it. How had he missed this bit of paradise so close to camp?
“—ody?!” The static hiss of Control cut sharply through his helmet, killing the serenity settling upon him. Brody sighed. His last check-in couldn’t have been, what? Fifteen minutes ago?
Take Away The Tears
Reading Time: 4 minutes Conscripted Lieutenant Lovemore Vulgaris has been instructed to design the people of the future, and he’s not messing around.
Papa’s (Not) Gone
Reading Time: 4 minutes “What’s mechanical, Papa?” I asked.
“What you said. The neurons,” he replied.
Neurons? Then I remembered.
The Largest Pub in London
Reading Time: 4 minutes Marco backs away until he hits a door. He reaches behind him, turns the handle, and falls into the room. The door swings shut. He backs away, waiting for Big Bob to come through it, running through the best next words to choose.
Her Night Off
Reading Time: 4 minutes After a chance encounter and a night of passion in Manhattan, a woman must choose between her responsibility and her heart.
The Umbrellas We Brought to the Future
Reading Time: 4 minutes “Sorry it’s not sunny.” Amar shrugs. “Rainy days are the best for time travel.”
And the Fires Burned
Reading Time: 4 minutes The town of Boyerville is covered in smoke from a nearby fire. Officially, the fire was started by accident, but the townspeople suspect otherwise.
Young Buck
Reading Time: 5 minutes The real crook is the Company and always has been. It’s them that got reaction drives outlawed when water’s free, dammit. They only done it so we’d have to buy fusion fuel at a thousand percent markup. Most of us so-called pirates were just freelance miners that couldn’t afford the new engines.
Matchsticks
Reading Time: 3 minutes She has plenty of matchsticks at home and she is clever with crafts. She really thinks they should be more expensive—matchsticks—considering how versatile and sturdy they are. She’s thinking of the fine wooden ones with fire-red tips. This is not the first time, of course. She must be half matchsticks by now.
Goulash for a Ghoul
Reading Time: 5 minutes A fractured fable and a meal served up in a haunted castle.
Nothing About Owls
Reading Time: 2 minutes This has to be the year the bodies crest the top of the structure, because her parents are selling the cabin. They keep saying, It’s changed, it’s changed, it’s not the same. Even when she says she doesn’t care how it used to be, that she likes it now.
A Gift in Ink
Reading Time: 4 minutes When a mysterious letter written in strange disappearing ink arrives from the daughter he banished long ago for dabbling in sorcery, a father must decipher her cryptic confession before the words and his memories fade into oblivion.
She Kept the House
Reading Time: 3 minutes In this spooky flash story, a woman haunts her own house after a messy breakup.
A Possession of Magpies
Reading Time: 5 minutes When old Ms. Linton rescues a wounded magpie, memories of her past come winging back.
Compost
Reading Time: 4 minutes A mother, desperate to feed her young son, takes a risk that doesn’t pay off.
Silent at the Mouth
Reading Time: 4 minutes After an elective medical procedure, a “Blank” remains a living being, completely anonymized and freed from any visible identity. If one showed up in your life refusing to leave, would you remember who they once were and what they’d meant to you?
I’ll Be Home For Christmas
Reading Time: 2 minutes The holidays take on an ominous tone when a woman receives a phone call from the son she murdered.
A Sliver of Pi
Reading Time: 2 minutes Maybe the meaning of life won’t be found among the digits of pi, but life can still depend on them.
Her Solemn Duty
Reading Time: 2 minutes Her child was now grown, but a fairy godmother’s job was never over.
Out of the Darkness
Reading Time: 4 minutes A young girl, desperate to find her beloved pet, ventures out into the darkness.
Neighbors
Reading Time: 4 minutes Being neighborly isn’t always easy. Morgred has to hold her tongue while her daughter makes other plans.
Between the Mountain and the Sea
Reading Time: 4 minutes Olia is woken by the deep unearthly booms and sharp percussive snaps of the ice breaking up. She lies still in her bed, listening. So soon. She thought she would have more time. Another month, at least. But things aren’t like they were when she first became Tribute Keeper. They’ll be different still for Vali
Chef’s Special
Reading Time: 4 minutes Davis was the species’ third victim on the Pathfinder XII. I liked Davis, he called me a Culinary Magician.
Past Due
Reading Time: 4 minutes In a world where holograms allow us to hang on even past death, a young man needs to make a hard choice.
Dead Nana, Walking
Reading Time: 3 minutes Old people don’t die, but slowly turn to stone. Joey needs to get her Nana to her grandfather’s statue.
Rainbow Sprout
Reading Time: 4 minutes Stupid car accident. Stupid sister. Stupid globetrotting, summer-consuming, plant-feeding adventure.
That’s what Mother said. “Oh, it’ll be an adventure! Just think how happy your sister will be with her sprout! She needs this now.” I get it, I’m grateful to have a working spine, but that doesn’t mean I should have to waste months trudging around… where the hell am I now? Greece?
Flowers for Humanity
Reading Time: 4 minutes A haunting tale of the Fundamental Equation of life in this Universe, and its accidental misapplication by the hidden god of the ancients.
On Our Own
Reading Time: 4 minutes On a dead planet, two prospector friends find two huge statues with a secret.
Gentle Autumn Rain
Reading Time: 4 minutes The ages have been kind and humanity has spread to the stars, but the sun’s time is growing short, and all of her children are coming home.
The Road to Vitebsk
Reading Time: 4 minutes A dedicated officer refuses to leave until others are safe. Death sometimes does not defer duty.
Magic Makes Fools of Us All
Reading Time: 4 minutes An unusual family plots a summer camping trip that will satiate their blood-lust. It doesn’t go entirely as planned.
The Burning Point of a Soul
Reading Time: 4 minutes How do I discover what my soul burns for? Do I even want to find it?
Dragon Dancer
Reading Time: 4 minutes Every year as migrating dragons pass by from across the endless sea, tradition mandates one woman jump into the thunder and dance with the wild beasts as they pass overhead. This year’s Dancer is Lanitia’s sister. The Dancer must die or arrive at The Decent; this time, something new happens.
The Last Time I Saw the Yellow Skies of Venus
Reading Time: 5 minutes Terraforming Venus is a dream come true, but what about the people who already live above the clouds, eking out a living through technology and grit? The pioneers-on-balloons are forced to relocate, leaving everything their families have built for generations.
A Sampling of Seven Dragons
Reading Time: 4 minutes Before any of the more artisanal offerings you’ll be tasting today, let us begin with a fairly traditional preparation. Yes, the one just before you, and then we’ll go round the plates widdershins from there. Anticlockwise, that is. As you take a bite, note the full-bodied ferocity, the natural balance between dread and might, that
The Update
Reading Time: 3 minutes When an almost heavenly woman, Sister Mary, dies she expects she’ll go straight to heaven. But the stranger who shows up for her soul has a trick up his cell phone.